Alasdair Stuart wonders if the wider MCU has had an unseen effect on the most recent Punisher movie…

Punisher: One Last Kill is just over a week old and if you’ve not seen it and like the character you should. It’s fine, often good and features a cast working very hard to keep three-quarters of a script in the air. They manage it, just.

One of the most common criticisms I’ve seen of it is that it’s the same story we always get with Frank Castle. Namely, that he collapses under the weight of the monstrous depression that’s the one target he can’t drop, contemplates suicide and then finds the will to carry on and go back to his blood-soaked eternal crusade. A lot of folks find this dull, and honestly, I can understand that. But there are two different perspectives I’ve found, both of which give this story, and character, some extra depth.

First off, this is what PTSD and depression looks like. Not for everyone, of course, but no one else is a Marine veteran who watched his family get slaughtered and whose best friend is the world’s most Catholic man dressed in red and black devil-horned tactical armour, thank God. I joke, but this cycle is one I’ve seen in friends, family members and myself to varying degrees. You cycle up, you have a great time (or in Frank’s case kill SO many mobsters) and then you crash. If you’re smart, you hydrate, sleep, rest, refill the tank. If you’re not smart, you brood in a featureless apartment, get talked into attempted suicide by the ghosts of your dead friends and then go back to war with Crime. The patron saint of unhealthy responses clearly opted for option two.

As an aside, if you want a brilliant depiction of the healthier version of this cycle, watch the first season of The Pitt. Which you should watch anyway because it’s great, but in this instance, there’s a beat in the final episodes that speaks directly to One Last Kill. After a nightmarish shift which included treating over a hundred victims of a mass shooting, the e.r. has finally calmed down and the shift change is starting. Doctor Samira Mohan, played brilliantly by Supriya Ganesh, is bouncy, cheerful, eager for another patient. One of the more experienced staff warns her that it’s an adrenalin high and the crash is imminent. She waves them off and, ten minutes later, is doubled up in the toilets, crying. Again, a little extreme, but it’s an accurate response.

The other reason why One Last Kill works at this time in the character’s life is something I saw folks on reddit speculate about. Frank’s based in New York, and while the timing of what exactly happens when in the MCU is getting pretty woolly it’s very likely this and Born Again Season 2 happen after Thunderbolts*, given the hints about Mr Charles’ employer and Bullseye’s likely new job.

If that’s the case, then immediately after finding out a murderous rogue branch of the NYPD fetishizes him to near god-like levels, Frank Castle is hit by The Void’s takeover of the city. As we saw in Thunderbolts* anytime someone’s absorbed by the Void, they’re locked into a Shame Room, the embodiment of their worst most shameful memories which plays over and over. John Walker’s dismal failure as a father and husband, Bob’s terrifying abusive childhood and crash out (including the world’s most frightening chicken), Yelena Belova’s long trail of dead bodies and high functioning alcoholism. Whatever Bucky saw that was so horrifying he delivers the most brittle joke in a movie made of them about it.

Now imagine what Frank Castle’s Shame Room looks like.

Frank, on his best, most functional day is a barely contained cyclone of bestial rage and grief. Frank on his worst day is a monster that knows he’s a broken monster, a man who dedicated his life to protecting people and failed at the worst possible moment through no fault of his own. Being locked in a room with that truth, externalised and belligerent, would break anyone. No wonder it broke him.

Looked at that way, One Last Kill becomes much more interesting. You could even argue that the ghosts Frank’s seeing, the Death Wish-ian levels of violence on the street and the moment he sees the Punisher as a separate man are all aftereffects of this. It makes so much sense, it helps the story so much and in a moment of spectacular irony, may be the first time in years that stronger continuity would have helped a Marvel production. Help that, when it’s needed most, wasn’t there. How perfectly Frank Castle, to be punished on a meta-fictional level as well as a personal one.

Punisher: One Last Kill, Daredevil: Born Again and Thunderbolts* are all on Disney + and in Thunderbolts*’ case disc and other services too. You should watch it, it’s great.

The Pitt is on HBO Max.