WiC Watches: The Punisher season 2
By Corey Smith
Episode 212: “Collision Course”
This season of The Punisher has featured some powerhouse performances from Jon Bernthal and Ben Barnes, with flashes of intriguing storylines, but mostly I’m just ready for it to be over. And “Collision Course” does nothing to change that feeling. Rather than building towards some sort of violent crescendo of a finale, the season is limping away into the horizon.
The episode puts out its best stuff first, as Mahoney and Frank are ambushed en route to the police station by Preacher John. There’s a brief but fun car chase that results in Mahoney swerving the ambulance off an overpass. Madani arrives in the nick of time (something this season makes a habit of) and chases Preacher John, who flees in her Homeland Secuirty cruiser. Frank and Mahoney aren’t out of trouble yet, as the ambulance catches fire and forces Frank to rescue his restrained jailor.
That act of heroism forces a stunned and bruised Mahoney to let Frank go, who races off to his next stop: kidnapping U.S. Senator David Schultz, aka the man who, horror of horrors, kissed a dude, thus setting off a multi-state murder spree. David, who clearly has no idea what his parents have been doing to protect his meaningless secret, actually seems like a pretty decent guy. Frank’s beatdown certainly doesn’t feel warranted, but hey, he’s the Punisher and he’s the good guy, so no need to worry.
Frank isn’t the only one in the kidnapping business, as Preacher John uses Madani’s GPS to locate the trailer where Curtis and Frank are hiding out. Curtis and John meet and actually have a decent conversation about protecting your friends, before Amy shows up to wreck the party like usual.
We then get an old-fashioned throwdown, one of the show’s better ones. The enclosed confines of the trailer make for a brutal fight, but eventually John heads off in pursuit of Amy. Unbeknownst to him, Amy has hidden herself in his trunk, because…that’s the last place he’ll think to look, maybe?
Moving on, Madani shows up at Dr. Dumont’s apartment, suspicious after Russo used one of her catchphrases in the previous episode. Dumont is also suspicious of Madani, but instead of say running away, decides to try and murder her, a federal agent. It’s completely nonsensical, as is Billy’s disbanding of his gang after working so hard to form it.
Dumont beats on Madani pretty good, because she apparently has a side hustle as a ninja, but ultimately Madani throws her out a window. That doesn’t seem like self-defense, but the logic train left the station a while ago. Billy is watching from below, and as Dumont presumably dies in front of him on the concrete, his heartbreak seems genuine. He even brought flowers for Dumont. Aw. After Madani comes to the window to survey her ridiculously far throw, Russo has his prey, and the episode ends.
I had high hopes for season 2 after the tight and clean season 1, but it doesn’t look like we’re going to approach that level. There’s only one episode to go, and I don’t see how it could retroactively fix the wildly uneven and nonsensical issues this season has suffered from. Bernthal, Barnes and the rest of the cast are doing their damnedest to pull up the material, but there’s just too much dross weighing them down.