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The Punisher arrives on the big screen this year, and we’re getting a TV one off special which may explain how he gets there. Punisher: One Last Kill’s first trailer just released and here’s what Alasdair Stuart found, combing through the evidence.

0.08 – ‘Hey Frank, how you doin’, brother?’

He looks right at us. This is either a stylistic choice for the shot or we’re sitting inside the POV of one of Frank’s ghosts. The fact he tilts his head suggests it’s the latter.

0.16 – Skyline

A cursory play with Brooklyn Bridge webcams suggests all those buildings, even the weird shiny science fiction looking one on the riverbank, are actually in New York. So no Avengers Tower cameo quite yet.

0.17 – Ghosts

The ghosts flickering into existence is so simple and so effective. Also the marks on the wall behind the one on the left are quite uniform and look like an edged weapon of some kind. Meanwhile Frank’s furniture seems to be a bucket, an old packing crate and what looks like a hole punch. Or is that a telegraph?

0.30 – Frank’s losing it

Not just in the sense that he’s hallucinating. Look at Bernthal as this scene finishes. He’s vibrating with emotion and his eyes are filling with tears. Frank isn’t just broken, he knows he is.

0.35 – In From The Cold

Bernthal is extraordinarily good at this sort of wounded pitbull sensitivity. The dude excels at kindness tinged with caution. Wanting to help, knowing how dangerous he is, fearing how dangerous he’ll need to be. Frank knows himself very well and perhaps that’s why he’s so rattled here.

0.41 – Red String Wall

Lots of stuff on the wall, different coloured paper, every single photo with an X through it and a serious calibre weapon. I’m betting this is the Punisher as we leave him here, back on the job he knows best.

0.50 – One last look

A bucket, a trunk, a camping stove, a box wired to the wall and petrol poured under the door. Oh, Frank. You’re a long way down.

1.00 – Roar

Bernthal is a surprisingly great comic actor but he’s also a man who is very, very good at some things. Bestial war beast roaring is one of them. Also, Frank is fighting a building full of men with firearms, with a knife, while his trousers are on fire. Matt Murdock would be publicly disgusted and secretly so proud.

1.08 – Anarchy

This is apparently set during Daredevil Born Again season 2 so something is UP, maybe city wide. That’s a riot, and a burned-out police car for starters.

1.10 – Observatory?

I have no idea what this location is. Pretty though.

1.16 – AK47 as club

Note the guy coming in at the back with a mallet and the third one already down. This is the same hoodie he’s wearing on the street too.

1.19 – Gravity

That’s Frank, in what might be the Punisher vest, watching a man fall to his death, presumably having shoved him.

1.20 – Frank Castle meets The Punisher

This is SUPER interesting. During the riot, Frank walks past… himself. One of them walking into danger, the walking away. But is either of them right? I’m very interested in how this plays out.

1.24 – Down

Frank, thrown from a rooftop, firing as he falls. He’s a horribly broken human being and a character people get wrong so often but this looks both terrifying and excellent.

1.28 – Rescue

And here we are back in the diner glimpsed earlier with the little girl Frank was rescuing back with her family and him alone again.

1.32 – Back on the street

Same knife as glimpsed earlier but a newly cleaned up and very focused Punisher.

I love the sadness running through this and the clear sense that Frank is utterly broken. That tragic element is all too often missing and I’m really excited to see how this goes. Bernthal has co-written it with Reinaldo Marcus Green who also directs. They’ve worked together before on We Own This City and the excellent King Richard and I’m excited to see what they do here.

Punisher: One Last Kill releases on May 13th on Disney+