Your bag is empty.
Are there times when it’s necessary to take the law into your own hands? That’s the central moral question of The Punisher, which recently released its second season on Netflix. Frank Castle (Jon Bernthal), a.k.a. the Punisher, is an ex-Special Force Soldier whose wife and two children were murdered by a shadowy cabal, involving powerful military brass. Since law enforcement has been corrupted, Frank has no choice in season one but to pick up (lots of) guns and enact revenge on the (hordes of) people responsible. In season two, he goes after other powerful villains in a similar manner.
The Punisher revels in Frank’s revenge, but it also questions it. Many characters point out that summary executions of criminals have some disturbing implications for the rule of law. Ultimately, though, Frank is the hero, and heroes are always in the right. Vigilantism is justified not on theoretical, but on practical grounds. Frank’s actions are virtuous because Frank doesn’t make mistakes. And if your vigilante doesn’t make mistakes, why do you need a justice system at all?
Most superheroes—like Daredevil or Spider-Man or Batman—beat up criminals, but don’t actually kill them. The Punisher is different; he shoots any bad guys that get in his way. That makes him effectively a mass murderer. Other characters—especially law enforcement officials—debate whether Frank’s actions are justified. Various sheriffs and detectives throughout the series want to stop Frank. Some argue with him that it’s better to arrest villains and try them, rather than just shooting them in the head.
The real test of Frank’s morality, though, are his enemies. The villains in both seasons serve as intentional contrasts and comparisons with Frank himself. In season one, one of the main antagonists is a man named Lewis Walcott (Daniel Webber). Lewis is a veteran, like Frank, and, like Frank, he uses violence to advance Second Amendment rights in what he sees as a just cause; he sets bombs to protest the trial of a teacher who was arrested for carrying a firearm. Similarly, in season two, a central villain is John Pilgrim (Josh Stewart), an evangelical religious convert. Again, like Frank, Pilgrim kills in the name of a greater righteousness, citing the will of God as he raises his gun.
Lewis and Pilgrim are both mirror images of Frank; they both have a strong sense of morality and justice. Lewis, in particular, is directly inspired by Frank’s war on crime, and even tries to take his case to Karen Page (Deborah Ann Woll), a reporter who advocated for the Punisher. Page, though, insists that what Lewis is doing is different than what Frank does. Lewis is a terrorist, she says, while Frank is not. In particular, Lewis kills innocent people with his bombs. Frank, with his guns, only murders thugs and criminals who deserve it.
In season two, John Pilgrim, and the people he works for, are responsible for murdering a bunch of teens. Frank doesn’t kill children. Nor does he kill police. On more than one occasion, in fact, he risks his own life and safety in order to drag law enforcement officers from burning vehicles. Like Frank, Lewis and Pilgrim have codes of sorts. But they’re flawed codes. They murder the wrong people. Frank only kills the right ones.
Frank makes the right moral distinction. But he also is simply more competent than Lewis or Pilgrim. He, unlike them, is perfectly able to distinguish good and bad, right and wrong—even in the middle of massive firefights—and only target for killing those who need killing. Frank doesn’t just need to have a worthy and virtuous code; he has to be so hyper-competent to assure that he never applies that code incorrectly.
One of the big turning points in the second season actually involves a situation where Frank appears to accidentally shoot the wrong people. This provokes a moral crisis. Frank is no longer the good guy in his own eyes; he loses faith and heart. The issue quickly resolves, though. It turns out Frank wasn’t at fault after all, and he goes back to blasting away at evildoers, secure in the knowledge that they are bad guys, and that every death is righteous.
Law-enforcement officers escalate situations needlessly, spurred by incompetence and racism. But that never happens to the infallible Punisher.
There’s a parallel here with arguments about torture. Torture is often justified on the grounds that it is effective and necessary, even if it is ugly. If there’s a ticking time bomb threatening civilians, it makes sense to torture a terrorist to get the information to stop it—as long as you’re sure that torture will actually make the terrorist talk.
In fact, as many experts have explained, torture doesn’t work. People don’t necessarily tell the truth when they’re tortured, and, crucially, torturers aren’t necessarily able to identify lies when they hear them. Human beings are fallible. That’s why you need checks and balances and the rule of law to protect those who may be innocent from the arbitrary exercise of power.
For Frank, there are no checks and balances. He is judge, jury and executioner. That ends up working out OK because Frank lives in a world where it’s easy to tell the bad guys from the good guys. In real life, cops accidentally shoot 12-year-olds with toy guns, or strangle people who sell loose cigarettes. Law-enforcement officers escalate situations needlessly, spurred by incompetence and racism. But that never happens to Frank, the infallible Punisher.
You could argue that Frank’s infallibility means that the moral of the series is “don’t try this at home.” Various people in the series do argue that Frank is special; he is so good at what he does that normal rules simply don’t apply. Only Frank can righteously use vigilante violence. And since Frank doesn’t exist, that means that out here in the real world, we shouldn’t mow down suspects with submachine guns.
Frank isn’t that special, though. Lots of vigilantes wander across our screens, from Dirty Harry to Daredevil, tearing through the red tape that protects the nefarious evildoers. We like to imagine that dispensing justice involves nothing more than a clear eye and a steady trigger finger. The Punisher thinks punishing the guilty is easy. Frank, and all the murderous heroes like him, are so perfect they make the rule of law look tedious, unnecessary and contemptible. The belief that we’re better off when justice is unencumbered by mercy or doubt is part of why America has so many prisons, and so many guns.