Disney+ Marvel Series Gives One Actor His Perfect Role

I first saw Jon Bernthal, like most people, as Shane in The Walking Dead. In fact, still to this day, whenever my husband or I see Bernthal in any role or talk about a movie he’s in, we’ll say, “you know, the one with Shane in it,” or “oh Shane’s in a new movie. Yea. The role was that memorable.

In TWD, Bernthal showed the capacity for both good and evil, for heart and hate, and when Rick finally had to put him down, audiences cried and cheered. In Marvel’s The Punisher, we meet Bernthal’s Frank Castle, a brutally harsh vigilante whose heart has been broken and who now has virtually no heart left. 

We first met Castle in another Netflix Marvel series, Daredevil, which centered around Matt Murdock, the blind attorney turned vigilante superhero. Frank appeared in season 2 of Daredevil, where Matt was charged with defending him on charges of murder. In Daredevil, Frank enacts revenge against those responsible for killing his family. In both seasons of Marvel’s The Punisher, Frank has come to be known by his vigilante name as he uncovers the larger plot and the scarier criminals behind those murders. 

In the first season of Marvel’s The Punisher, we see Frank running up against his old special forces buddies, namely Billy Russo, who is now the head of a private military corporation, the one at the center of the murder of Frank’s family. We watch Frank struggle to deal with his past while also preparing to destroy the corporation.

At the same time, he meets a tech ally of sorts in David Lieberman (Ebon Moss-Bachrach), or “Micro,” a former NSA analyst who faked his own death and left behind a wife and two kids. He teams up with Frank to get the evidence and equipment Frank needs for his vigilantism. 

Frank also happens to meet David’s wife, Sarah, and his kids when Sarah accidentally hits Frank with her car and invites him to dinner. Frank ends up taking on household tasks, bonding with the kids, and falling in love with Sarah, all unbeknownst to David. To make matters more complex, Billy begins seeing a therapist, Krista, who ends up falling for Billy and becoming an accomplice to his crimes. 

In the second season of Marvel’s The Punisher, we get old villains, old friends, and new villains and friends. Josh Stewart plays an excellent John Pilgrim, a conflicted yet vicious killer hunting for Frank and the teenage girl he’s come to protect. Watching this show unfold is like sitting down to enjoy a really long movie. Sadly, when Disney was prepping for the launch of their own streaming service, all the Netflix shows were canceled.

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Bernthal gives this role his everything, and I’m happy to note he’ll be back in Daredevil: Born Again, slated for release on Disney+ in March. Maybe Disney can produce the same level of bloody, dark, violent, twisted television that Netflix managed to pull off with these Marvel series. Here’s hoping. In the meantime, you can stream Marvel’s The Punisher on Disney+. But be warned: you’ll probably want to binge it over a weekend.