Netflix’s ‘The Punisher’ Shows No Mercy In A New Clip

Jon Bernthal recently warned us that The Punisher was going to be dark even by the yardstick of Marvel’s other Netflix shows, most of which weren’t exactly cheery in the first place. That makes sense: The Punisher, at root, is a murderer. He may not kill nice people, but that doesn’t make him any less violent, as the first clip the wider public has seen from the show demonstrates.

This has a very First Blood feel to it, not least for the forest setting and the Punisher taking out much better armed foes with a knife. He doesn’t go quite as far as downing a helicopter with a rock, but it’s still some visceral stuff, shot like a horror movie in broad daylight using body-cams and jittery handheld footage, right down to a henchman getting his neck broken, shown from a helmet-cam perspective.

We don’t know the plot of the show just yet, but Daredevil‘s second season, and early trailers, have hinted that the death of Castle’s family was no accident. The show’s also dropped hints that Castle’s military past, and a whistleblower named Micro as a nice shoutout to the ’80s Punisher sidekick Microchip, will be explored. But, either way, it should be an interesting twist on a sometimes difficult character.