Marvel's Netflix Defenders · The Punisher

The Punisher

Season 1

TV · 2017

Having finished his war on the gangs that killed his family, Frank Castle abandons the Punisher persona and hides as a construction worker named Pete Castiglione, until he crosses paths with David "Micro" Lieberman, a hunted former NSA analyst holding evidence of a covert government operation. The trail leads back to Operation Cerberus, a black-ops program in Kandahar run by the CIA's William Rawlins, who used Frank's Marine unit to carry out off-the-books killings. Homeland Security agent Dinah Madani, investigating the death of her former partner, pursues the same conspiracy and becomes a wary ally, while Frank's old friend Billy Russo, now head of the private military company Anvil, turns out to have been part of the cover-up that led to the killing of Frank's family. Captured and tortured by Rawlins and Russo, Frank gets free and kills Rawlins, and Micro is finally reunited with his family. In the finale Frank beats Russo at the carousel where his family died, smashing his face into a mirror and leaving him scarred, and Madani, who survived being shot by Russo, sees the government clear Frank's name. Freed from official pursuit, Frank joins Curtis Hoyle's veterans' support group, unsure of what a life without war looks like.