This carnation of the Punisher is like a delux gourmet hamburger made with second rate meat. The original screen versions of built around second string heavies like Ray Stevenson and Thomas Jain adequately conveyed the comic book world of the source, where a declared dead law man gets revenge on mobsters who killed his family and left him for dead. Then in the pursuit of the real culprits, the Punisher wastes 50 odd other hoods. Basically, it was simple minded violent revenge porn and didn't pretend to be more. It was just comic book pablum for adult aged children.

Then Netflix comes around and tries to do an upgrade to the comic book schlock franchise, with the approval of the Lords of Marvel. Now the Punisher is an ex-special forces killer and the evil doers who kill his family are part of a nefarious multi-agency government cabal involving the military, FBI, NSA etc. The show also delves into modern surveillance techniques. Jon Berenthal does a great job of playing the PTSD wracked hunted vet. He is the best part of the show but it's all downhill from there. In the first episode, we were introduced to a female version of Steve McQueen's Bullit right down to the 67 Mustang Fastback, She is also an Iranian American Moslem too. In her first scene she meets her baddy old white guy boss who said she was a virtual checklist of affirmative action boxes. She of course bristled at this "racist" but totally true remark, she was indeed an affirmative action diversity's sake character that doesn't exist in reality. They could have made her an ex-Moslem or a Christian Iranian, like many of the 1979 refugees. But that would nix all the scenes they want to do about white guys getting all Izlamofauxbic. She is partnered to some nebbish Jewish agent who is one step up from a stock Woody Allen character. He could have been used for comic relief but we are supposed to take him seriously too. Then Frank belongs to a PTSD group of ex soldiers. Naturally, the blacks are all sterling characters who wouldn't melt butter in their mouths; while the white ones are lame liberal cliches of what a Trumpster might be..

Even the first round of baddies are lame. They are bullies from the construction job where our tormented hero smashes concrete walls to bits with a sledge hammer. They try to rip off a mob card game at night but the fool of the group revealed his identity to the mobsters by dropping his wallet open to his driver license in front of the goons. So the other pathetic thief construction workers decide to do the fool in in order to protect themselves. Frank quickly does those jerks in with a sledge hammer then goes to do in the mobsters at their lair. Finally he gives all the loot from the game to the fool would be thief and tells him to leave the City. But he is detected by the mysterious nerd hacker warrior rival-partner Lieberman, who is at least interesting. The show has all sorts of relevant messages for the hipster audience concerning gun control, racism and other pablum. At least the earlier versions of the Punisher spared us the preaching.