Marvel's The Punisher Spotlights Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

WARNING: The following article contains major spoilers for Marvel’s The Punisher, now streaming on Netflix.

Despite Frank Castle's extreme measures, it's difficult not to root for him, not only as an antihero but as a human being. When Marvel's Daredevil Season 2 introduced the character to Netflix, fans were eager to see how this new take on the vigilante would be spun, especially in the wake of three films.

This time, star Jon Bernthal, while still aggressive, brings a subdued intensity to the role. Daredevil explored Frank's origins as an enemy of the state with a bloody vendetta against those responsible for the death of his family. However, The Punisher goes deeper than a traditional revenge thriller.

Showrunner Steve Lightfoot actually places less focus on Frank's violent tendencies (at least for the majority of the season), instead focusing on post-traumatic stress disorder as a thematic path that sets several characters on a collision course with each other.

A Family Destroyed

Frank forms an (initially) uneasy alliance with David Lieberman (Ebon Moss-Bachrach), a former NSA analyst now better known as Micro. He sought Frank out, to help take down a common enemy, the conspirators behind an illegal covert CIA operation who will go to any lengths to cover up their activities in Kandahar, Afghanistan. After Micro received and distributed a video depicting the execution of an Afghanistan National Police offer by U.S. servicemen, he was smeared as a traitor, gunned down in public. When those same people thought Frank Castle had sent Micro, they murdered his family and others in Central Park in an attempt to obscure their true target.

However, Micro survived the assassination attempt and went underground in an effort to protect his family. His wife Sarah (Jaime Ray Newman) and two kids don't cope well after his "death," though. She's devastated, and their daughter heaps pressure on herself to excel at school, while their son lashes out, becoming a bully at school, striking his sister and defying his mother. Micro can do little bit watch on a monitor in his secret bunker that displays feeds from the cameras hidden throughout their home.

The Liebermans' torment is best summed up, however, when Frank (now a friend of the family in his guise as Pete Castiglione) is asked by Sarah to intercede with son Zach after she finds a knife in his bag. When confronted by Frank, the boy down and admits his abusive ways stem from the mental scars left by his father's absence, further driving Frank to clear Micro's name and reunite the family.

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Shaping the Villains

Billy Russo's (Ben Barnes) retcon from a hit man to an ex-military comrade, and more so, Frank's best friend, resonates, especially as his betrayal makes him complicit in the murder of the Castle family. Now the image-conscious owner of a successful private military corporation, Billy begins to reveal his traumatic backstory with a visit to his mother at a nursing facility, where he keeps her doped up and nearly comatose. It's his demented repayment for his childhood spent in group homes because of her drug abuse.

The effects of PTSD also unravel explosively with Lewis Wilson (Daniel Webber), a war veteran struggling to return to civilian life. Lewis resists the potential benefits of a support group, and digs a foxhole in his backyard because he can't get used to his own bed. Increasingly paranoid and suicidal, he nearly shoots his father and becomes fixated on a perceived government conspiracy to deprive Americans of their Second Amendment rights. Ultimately Lewis becomes a domestic terrorist, planting bombs throughout Manhattan and taking Karen Page (Deborah Ann Woll) hostage in an effort to strike at the heart of tyranny.

Breaking Our Heroes

Frank Castle's supporting cast has also experienced trauma, with Karen Page (Deborah Ann Woll) clearly affected by her experiences on first Daredevil and now The Punisher, not to mention the secrets of her past. That Karen carries a gun underscores her fears, which are obvious in her interactions with Frank, whether that's in the form of a disarming hug, a teary-eyed glance or concerns voiced about what his future holds.

We also witness the aftermath of trauma with U.S. Homeland Security Agent Dinah Madani (Amber Rose Revah), who's haunted by the deaths of two partners, whom she feels she let down, as well as by a near-fatal car crash when she first encounters The Punisher. She's laser-focused on her job, relentless but also reckless, willing to risk her career and her life, and those of her colleagues, to get to the truth, avenge her partners and, just maybe, assuage her survivor's guilt.

Last but certainly not least, we see Frank's PTSD in full, whether it's from reciting his "one batch, two batch" nursery rhyme, which he does to honor his kids, reading Moby Dick and pondering if he's Captain Ahab, or in the visions of his family, which inevitably contort into nightmares. He feels responsible for the deaths (and potential deaths) of innocents, reiterated by his repeated flashbacks to happier times. In the season finale, "Memento Mori," he loses it when he goes after Russo and CIA veteran William Rawlins (Paul Schulze), making it known that living with these memories, waking up every day and remembering his family, is the most painful thing he could ever experience.

It's clear that what's hurting Frank isn't the thought of dying, but rather living with these ghosts and demons. Such is the burden of his traumas, that as the finale winds down, Frank indicates that after killing his enemies, he's now scared because he feels like he has no purpose.

Available now on Netflix, The Punisher stars Jon Bernthal as Frank Castle, Ben Barnes as Billy Russo, Ebon Moss-Bachrach as Micro, Amber Rose Revah as Dinah Madani, Deborah Ann Woll as Karen Page, Daniel Webber as Lewis Wilson, Shohreh Aghdashloo as Farah Madani and Paul Schulze as Rawlins, with Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio as Marion James.