Actors have to adapt to their roles, of course. It’s their job. But sometimes, you get to see an actor in a role that just clicks perfectly. I’ve seen Jon Bernthal in several things: The Walking Dead, Fury, The Accountant, Baby Driver. But in my personal opinion, he shines amazingly as the Punisher. For those who don’t know or don’t remember, his role as the Punisher was a guest shot on the Daredevil series, and that’s all it was supposed to be. Bernthal was so impressive in the role that he got two seasons of his own, unplanned, series in the Netflix/Defenders world, with a third planned before the Netflix/Marvel break up.

Bernthal has said several times how important the role is to him, and how protective he is of Frank Castle. Which is among the reasons that Punisher: One Last Kill is so impressive. It’s not a macho action piece, although there is certainly plenty of action. It’s not a smirking, wisecracking guy gunning down thugs with sociopathic nonchalance. This is very much a portrait of a man in terrible pain who doesn’t know how to handle it. And lest anyone think Bernthal just was doing what the production told him for this special, this was his first credit as a writer. Bernthal got a lot of input over what we saw.

In all his incarnations, the Punisher’s origin has had these bare bones: Frank Castle was an elite, highly skilled soldier who came back home from being overseas. On an outing with his family, Frank’s wife, son, and daughter were killed by criminals. Castle took all his special training and turned it against the criminal underworld. Whether he’s a hero, anti-hero, or villain depends on the writer and your own personal viewpoint. In this special, Castle has killed off the last people that were involved in the death of his family. Without that driving goal, he’s completely falling apart, his grief and rage and loss turned inward.

The opening scenes alternate between watching Frank as a man in crisis, utterly falling apart, and the streets going to hell around him as the power vacuum kicks in from all the big organizations he’s taken out. There’s a lot of ugly, hard to watch things here, but Bernthal’s acting is fantastic. Frank is hallucinating, self-medicating, and hurting himself in new and horrific ways. Finally, he locks his guns away, walks through the neighborhood encountering a few supporting characters that will be back later, and goes to visit his family’s graves. He hits absolute bottom, but is pulled back from the brink by a different vision.

Not sure what else to do, he goes home. As an aside, in situations like this, I always wonder how the character who doesn’t work, doesn’t go out, and isn’t independently wealthy is paying for things like an apartment, food, and the like. Even if you assume Castle is taking money from the gangsters he kills, how many apartment buildings take cash? I’m pretty sure Castle isn’t opening a bank account, although walking in to make a deposit in blood smeared Punisher body armor is an entertaining image. Frank doesn’t quite get home before he’s confronted by an older, bitter woman, played by Judith Light in a very different role and look. She does her villain monologue, explaining what’s about to happen, and then leaves. Frank is clearly not at the top of his game as he watches her go and doesn’t try to stop her.

What follows is well-choreographed, nearly nonstop violence. There’s a bounty out on Frank’s head, and every freakshow and wanna-be tough guy wants the money. There were a lot of nice touches in the fighting, like Frank getting hurt along the way, being forced to change weapons frequently, and some clear knowledge of actual firearm handling. He also shows that he’s not all the way gone as he takes time to save a few people along the way, which he clearly doesn’t need to do. The very end shows the Punisher, in his iconic look, back in action. I don’t know if we’ll ever get to see him confront Judith Light’s character, but I’d like to see it. The last thing he does is get some payback for a military vet who was badly wronged earlier in the special.

What I Liked: Bernthal shows the tortured mess that is the Punisher. This isn’t the cool guy with guns blazing so many misunderstand the character to be. This is a man suffering with no one to turn to, aside from hallucinations of his family and one close ally (Karen Page, with Deborah Ann Woll reprising the role). The fight scenes were really well executed. Some nice touches included Frank picking up weapons as he went, and even showing him checking each one to make sure it was working and loaded. It was nice seeing him fully geared up and back in his usual look at the end.

What I Didn’t: Maybe I’m overthinking, but if I were any of the many, many people who wanted Castle either dead or in custody, I’d have a surveillance camera at his family graves. His motivations for doing what he does are fairly well known (they were very publicly covered in his trial back on the Daredevil series, if nothing else), and at least someone should be smart enough to think of this. It felt to me like there was a bit of a disconnect from the last time we saw Frank, escaping from one of Fisk’s black site prisons on Daredevil: Born Again, and what we see here.

This was a brutal, grim, well-done piece. It’s not easy to watch at times, but it’s a great performance. This is not for the faint of heart or kids. That said, I’ll give this a rare 5 out of 5.

The Punisher will be back in this summer’s Spider-Man: Brand New Day.