Disney+’s The Punisher: One Last Kill is a reminder that just because Disney is now handling the Netflix Marvel characters does not mean they’re watered down. We brought this up in a previous review, but we remember when it was announced that Disney would be handling the Defenderverse Marvel characters and people were concerned that they wouldn’t be as gritty as they were when on Netflix. If anything, we’d say there is more blood and more vulgarity than Netflix ever allowed.

The Punisher: One Last Kill is proof of this. The 50-minute television movie is non-stop fighting, blood, and Frank Castle doing what he does best. There’s a bit of a video game feel to the special at some point, where it’s just Frank in the middle of the street taking on one bad guy after another. The special takes place in the Little Sicily portion of New York City, but it felt more like Gotham City than anything else. Just insane crime, murder out in the open, and Frank Castle being Frank Castle. Did we miss something, but isn’t the Punisher supposed to be in hiding?

In a way, the special felt like a reintroduction/soft reboot for the Disney+/MCU version of this character. Even though they’re the same actors and the Netflix shows are also on Disney Plus, it does feel like the MCU’s version of these characters is changing the characters slightly for a new audience. We say this because, Frank Castle contended with his grief and trauma over the death of his family in Daredevil season two and the two seasons of The Punisher. However, in One Last Kill, Frank is deep in his grief and even exploring taking his own life. It feels like this version of Frank can work as a continuation of what we’ve seen before, but also perhaps a reintroduction in case there are people who haven’t seen the Netflix shows. As if Disney Plus is saying, “you don’t need to watch that, this is the Frank Castle we’re going with”.

As a massive Jon Bernthal/Frank Castle fan, I’ll take the crumbs where I can. I’m a sucker for Danzig, so starting the special with “Mother” immediately hooked me in. The Punisher has always had great music, and the television movie continued that tradition. My jaw was on the floor in the first five minutes, and admittedly, it felt sad to see Frank going through such emotional wreckage, as it really felt like he had healed from that. Not entirely, of course; but Frank definitely seems worse for wear in this special and the Born Again show than he did at the end of The Punisher series. Like, yeah, Frank Castle is still going to be badass as that’s his mission in life, but I don’t know, I feel like we’re retraumatizing Frank.

Bringing back Jason Moore as Curtis to haunt Frank as a hallucination was great, and bringing Karen into the mix was also good. To the powers that be, why can’t we make Kastle a thing? We’ll take the crumbs where we can.

One Last Kill felt like a mix between Gotham City and the third movie in the John Wick movie series, where every assassin was contracted to kill Frank Castle. Ultimately, it probably could have been an episode in a larger show and didn’t really move the plot of this universe along, but it gave us an excuse to see Frank Castle shirtless and go absolutely ham on some assholes, so all in all, a good time.