The Punisher Season 2, Episode 11 "The Abyss" (USE SPOILER TAGS!)

[flickchick85]

EPISODE 11: "The Abyss"


Use spoiler tags when discussing the events of any future episodes.
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[Mike Murdock]

It was good to see Karen Page again. I knew she would be in this season but I don't think it clicked that this would be after Daredevil Season Three (I mean, I intellectually knew it would be, but not that they would reference the Season Three ending status quo). The investigation aspect was good, if a bit easy. It's worth pointing out that the powder burns wouldn't clear Frank in a court of law because nothing excluded him shooting them, although I would assume the ballistics would exclude the weapon he's holding. Still, it clears Frank in his mind which is important because, otherwise, Frank very much sees himself as deserving of blame. It's all a sleight of hand. Just because Frank didn't shoot these women doesn't mean he isn't capable of doing exactly that. He shot into that room. If Billy Russo hadn't killed them, they could still have been killed by Frank. The episode sort of glosses over that as Karen is willing to forgive the worst in him because she sees the best. Personally, I'm fine with the idea not judging someone by the worst thing they've done, but it's worth pointing out that the same could be applied to Billy Russo.

Speaking of, I hate that the doctor is identifying Russo with her father adding an Oedipus Complex to the whole thing.

The escape was cool. It's basically Silence of the Lambs, but it's still a lot of fun. I actually just googled whether they evacuate prisoners during a fire alarm. Apparently, they won't with the first alarm but will with a second alarm. The show did their homework having Karen go with two of them. I'm really curious about the ending with Mahoney.

Four Stars.

 

[Panacea]

I thought it was a real shame that they decided to dodge a potentially interesting character arc by having the girls killed by Russo instead of Frank. Felt like a bit of a cop-out to me, something that should be beneath a show like this, especially when this season the material was spread so thin in the first place.

 

[Lencho01]

The stuff with the girls was weird to me because everyone was talking like Frank saw them and shot them nonetheless. But I guess since he wasn’t talking, they’d just assume rather than think of him shooting from downstairs into the office.

If not for the interspersed scenes of him being angry, I would’ve thought Pilgrim was going to kill Martha Kent. Batman would’ve been very mad if it happened.

I laughed at the dude walking in Karen’s shoes.

Not sure why they didn’t tell Mahoney that one of his men was trying to collect that $5 million.

 

[flickchick85]

I thought it was a real shame that they decided to dodge a potentially interesting character arc by having the girls killed by Russo instead of Frank. Felt like a bit of a cop-out to me, something that should be beneath a show like this, especially when this season the material was spread so thin in the first place.

I agree, I was a bit disappointed in that reveal. To say "well, the way he was going, he very well could have shot them, but don't worry, it just so happens he didn't!" feels like a pulled punch on a show that likes to pretend to go full brutality.

 

[Iceman]

I thought it was a real shame that they decided to dodge a potentially interesting character arc by having the girls killed by Russo instead of Frank. Felt like a bit of a cop-out to me, something that should be beneath a show like this, especially when this season the material was spread so thin in the first place.

I get your point here, but the problem is that that would be something you can never come back from even after 20 seasons. You have to come up with an explanation at some point or it would be difficult to root for the character again. I thought this was a similar issue in Superman Returns giving Superman a kid. As without rebooting, the kid would always have been there and you wouldn't be able to take away the consideration of Supes' parenting duties ever again.

 

[Panacea]

I get your point here, but the problem is that that would be something you can never come back from even after 20 seasons. You have to come up with an explanation at some point or it would be difficult to root for the character again.

Explanation for what?

 

[Iceman]

Explanation for what?

Explanation that Frank didn’t just mow down innocents because he was so desperate to get to Billy. It didn’t need to be Russo doing it necessarily, or to be resolved so quickly, but otherwise without eventually walking it back to an extent it becomes very difficult to have a satisfactory resolution to all this, even for a character like Punisher. We all talk about how awesome the Punisher action scenes are but if you add 3 reckless civilian deaths caused by Punisher to each of them they will all seem not so awesome any more.

 

[Sundancer]

I don' know about you guys, but at this point I'm tired of the soap opera scenes with Billy and his doctor and wished we had seen more of the Pilgrim this season. With only a couple of episodes to of it's hard to see him as much of a threat.

 

[Panacea]

Explanation that Frank didn’t just mow down innocents because he was so desperate to get to Billy. It didn’t need to be Russo doing it necessarily, or to be resolved so quickly, but otherwise without eventually walking it back to an extent it becomes very difficult to have a satisfactory resolution to all this, even for a character like Punisher. We all talk about how awesome the Punisher action scenes are but if you add 3 reckless civilian deaths caused by Punisher to each of them they will all seem not so awesome any more.

I think you have far lower expectations of the audience than the show usually does. This isn't made for children and Frank isn't a hero, these are adult themes that should be dealt with maturely. The problem isn't so much that he didn't kill those women (although that would have been much more hard-hitting) it's that he learned absolutely nothing from what happened. He (and the show) continued on like it was business as usual, like the fact that he shot into that room blindly and quite easily could have caused collateral damage doesn't matter because Russo killed them instead. A completely uninteresting and dated resolution to something that could have been the most powerful and pivotal character arc in the entire series.