[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”12526″ img_size=”800×400″ alignment=”center”][vc_column_text]Ben Barnes’s Billy Russo has been a masterful creation that has taken inspiration from the comics, but ultimately splitting off into its own unique storyline. In the show The Punisher, Russo began as Frank Castle’s best friend from their days in the military together and it’s shown from flashbacks that Russo essentially became a part of the Castle family. Which of course, made it all the more heartbreaking when Frank finds out that Russo knowingly let his “best friend’s” family be slaughtered and even tried to facilitate Frank’s death himself.
If you haven’t watched season two in its entirety, Spoilers Ahead!
Billy Russo died in season two without ever really knowing what he had done to deserve the scars on his face and for Frank and Curtis (and Dinah) all to want him dead. It was a Shakespearean ending, with the once arrogant, self-centered man bleeding out and crying for someone to be with him so he didn’t have to die alone. It was a moment that almost made you feel sorry for him, as this was a man who really did not understand the punishment being bestowed upon him. But, I think the message was that regardless of his memory loss, it did not condone his shitty behavior and while Frank was finishing the journey he had been on since season two of Daredevil, it almost felt like Frank was putting Billy down; a wild animal who was too sick for his own good.
Apparently, Billy had a last line that differentiated from what we actually heard, which Barnes himself had a hand in:
“I worked really hard on that last line, and I was really unhappy with what was originally there. Bless our showrunner’s heart, he let me rewrite that last couple of lines because it was really important to me to have it be what I needed it to be. And I had actually, weirdly, the reference in my head was Lost in Translation, the whisper. Just because I love ambiguity at the end of something, in terms of a forgiveness and of an intimate relationship. I think even though Billy and Frank don’t have much screen time together, theirs is a very intimate relationship. They have history.”
Maybe Billy could have redeemed himself, but we saw that his not so stable therapist really had a hand in pushing Billy. There were times that Krista Dumont could have encouraged Billy to try to talk to Frank or understand the truth, but instead pushed him further into his bad behavior and making Frank out to be the bad guy.
“What I was interested in was this sort of protagonist element to Billy in the season. Which was, ‘Does he inevitably slip back into these narcissistic ego ways of wanting only power and only good things for himself, or is there potential for redemption?’ And I think he’s basically realized that Krista’s pushed him in this Lady Macbeth kind of way to haunt Frank again. And then when he’s got to it, once the rage dies down, he knows there’s something more there. He’s not sure, but he knows the truth when Frank walks in that room that he must’ve done something.”
He continued, in regards to Billy’s final moments:
“He’s been told what it is at this point and he doesn’t believe it. And I think once he really does believe it, I think it’s interesting if [Billy] thinks, ‘I don’t deserve to live.’”
Personally, I thought it was a poetic end. Part of me wasn’t sure if they would actually kill off Billy or if Billy would have any sincere moment, but I believe that it was almost ironic that he die in confusion and paying for the wrongs that his former life had done. What did you think of Billy’s end?
Source: Cinema Blend[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
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