What I’m Watching: The Punisher

The Punisher: Season 1, Episode 6 “The Judas Goat” (B+)

I’d argue that Frank’s nightmares are the most powerful part of this show, since each one of them begins with a happy family memory disrupted by everyone he loves being executed in front of him. The one that opened this episode incorporated the entire Lieberman family, and it was well bookended by Frank repeating over and over to Sarah that things were going to get a lot better for her and her family soon. Their kids fighting is an unfortunate development since Sarah is having trouble dealing with it on her own and it clearly pains David to see it from afar without being able to do anything about it. Dinah telling Billy that Frank was still alive sent him straight to Curtis, and David was surprisingly keen on Frank approaching Billy if he trusted him. While their interaction was relatively positive, the closing shot of Rawlins sitting in the car next to Billy waiting for Frank to show up demonstrates that he was wrong to trust him. Lewis has been relatively tangential to the plot thus far, but now he’s shown that he’s completely unstable and very dangerous. Getting into it with a cop when he was told to stop protesting outside the courthouse was one thing, but repeatedly stabbing the man he considered his mentor when he realized that he had lied to him proved that he’s out of control, and the fact that he wants to be recruited so badly means that everyone he encounters may be in danger.