Alright, so, when we last left Frank
Castle, he’d tracked down the mysterious Micro to his secret lair. He then
knocked the former analyst out, intent on getting some answers. This should be…
interesting. Violent, but interesting.
 |
| I bet Micro is remembering when being strapped naked to a chair while deactivating a failsafe via a retina scanner would have seen odd. |
Frank wakes David Lieberman aka
Micro up with a bucket of water. Apparently, since being knocked out, Frank has
stripped David down to his birthday suit and zip tied him to a chair. Now, despite this… undignified situation,
David tries his best to convince Frank to trust him and work together. Frank,
shockingly, doesn’t say a word and just stares at David. Frank’s excellent
attempt at intimidation is interrupted by David’s computers blaring an alarm,
and a 3-minute countdown starts playing on the monitor. David tells Frank that,
unless he puts in a shutdown code, it’ll set off a bunch of bombs, destroying
his lair and more than likely killing them both. Frank waits it out, but
eventually decides to let Micro shut it down. It turns out the shut down
requires a code, and a retina scan to disable it. David is paranoid as heck.
After Frank threatens Micro one
more time, he gives Frank a breakdown on what happened to him. We flashback to
when things in David’s life were actually pretty good. He had a decent, but
boring, job, a loving family and all that jazz. But, he was given a CD with
potentially damning info on it. After speaking with his wife, David decided to
access the info on the CD. It had the footage of Zubair murder. David forwards
the footage to his superiors. A short time later, the Lieberman family is on a
trip somewhere. David notices some military types slowly approaching from behind.
He tells everyone to stay in the car before bailing. He’s chased down by
several NSA agents, led by Agent Wolf. Wolf and co corner Lieberman. He tries
to talk them down, but this is kind of obviously a hit. If the guys in black with
assault weapons in NYC weren’t enough of a clue, Wolf shouts GUN even though
Lieberman clearly doesn’t have a weapon of any kind. He’s shot, and pitches
back into the bay behind him. All while his wife watches. That’s traumatic as
hell. He explains that his cell phone in his pocket is what saved him, and that
afterwards Wolf and co tweaked the narrative to make Lieberman seem like a
traitor.
We’re going to condense the side
stories into one paragraph. Why? Because they’d just be like a sentence long
otherwise. Don’t judge me. Madani and Stein are looking into Director Carson Wolf’s
death. They’ve got no leads, other then the disturbing discovery that Wolf had
roughly six million dollars in offshore accounts. Yeah, I don’t think even an
NSA director should have that much money in offshore, numbered accounts. With
the other side characters, Curtis and Russo meet up. We learn that Russo is the
one that bankrolls Curtis’ veteran support group. They then head out to Frank’s
grave and have a drink in his ‘memory.’ Curt nearly tells Russo that Frank is
still alive, but holds it back, for some reason. Afterwards, Curtis has another
group meeting, where one of the vets, a kid named Lewis, shares. He tells the
story of seeing some friends killed via friendly fire from an Apache, and then
saw it spun by the PR people as them getting killed in an ambush. Lewis later
nearly kills his father after a PTSD moment.
 |
| David, why did you let them lead you to a secluded area? |
Back with Frank and David, Frank is
‘upset’ that his captive lied to him. Frank checked the place out and found
exactly zero explosives. Micro explains that this is actually a countdown to
his computer sending a CC recording of his lab to the various news networks. He
assumed that, should the NSA or other group find him, they’d execute him. So,
sending the video would be his final ‘screw you’ to his murderers. So, him
disabling the failsafe is really useful for Frank. Micro disables the failsafe
again. Afterwards, Frank flashes back to joining Schoonover’s unit a few years
back. The group is black ops, codenamed Operation Cerberus, and run by a man
they call Agent Orange. Nothing shady about that. Frank and his buddy Russo are
made the team leads for their group. Their missions are covert, black ops type
things. They perform some shady stuff, hits mostly, but things only start going
really bad when Cerberus ‘interrogate’ Officer Zubair. He was clearly uncomfortable
with interrogating a police officer like this, but, like many a soldier,
follows orders. We learn that Frank was the one that killed Zubair. Wow, that’s
dark.
Back in the present, Frank has
another nightmare about his wife. Turns out, his dream is the whole “loved one
is murdered by masked figure, and the masked figure is me,” dream. That’s
screwed up. He’s awoken by the alarm blaring again. Micro tries to convince
Frank to work with him, again, but Frank still has zero interest. But then,
Micro reveals his plan. See, each time he typed the code into his computer, he
used a mechanical pencil to hit ENTER. Each time, the lead is pushed out
further. Turns out, this isn’t a pencil, but a James Bond style hypodermic
needle. He injects Frank, knocking him out.
Frank flashed back to a mission
with Cerberus. During the mission briefing, Frank points out that this feels
like a trap. They’re going into a hostile location, that’s terrain makes air
support and/or extraction difficult, under the cover of darkness. Yeah, that
feels like a trap to me, and I have no military experience. Russo agrees with
Frank, but they go with the mission anyway. Low and behold, it was a trap. Guys
are getting killed, bullets are flying everywhere, and Schoonover lost an arm.
Frank… kind of snaps, and goes Rambo on these guys. He kills ALL of them, and
only seems to only get a minor GSW to his shoulder.
 |
| Don't need a psychology degree to get the symbolism of this dream. |
Back at base, Agent Orange rather
callously asks if they were able to kill their target. Yeah, most of your men
are wounded, your immediate #2 has lost an arm, and both your team leads are coated
in blood, now is the time to ask if they had time to finish their job while
everything was going so far south they hit the Antarctic. Frank decks him and
starts flipping out. Russo tells him to calm down, and if he thinks he can’t
keep up with this job any more, ask for a transfer. Like he did. Frank, unfortunately
kept going. In the present, Micro once again asks for Frank to work with him. Micro
wants to be the guidance system for the Punisher’s metaphorical missile. Frank
finally relents, on one condition. That he, Frank, gets to kill them all, everyone
tied to Cerberus. Micro nods and says he can live with that.
This was a solid origin story
episode. Sure, we’ve gotten the broad strokes about Frank’s pasted in Daredevil season two, but the more
details, the better. Frank’s time at Cerberus was clearly a time where his
faith was shaken. His duties to his country kept him going, but by the time
they assaulted that compound, he was clearly on uneven footing. Which might
explain the whole, snapping and killing an entire enemy crew all but single
handedly. When Micro, in one of his attempts to win Frank’s trust, lets him know
that Cerberus was never officially sanctioned, you could almost see a little of
his soul chip away. He wasn’t a soldier serving his country, he was a mercenary,
and that distinction was what kept him going. There’s a nice little parallel
between the Punisher and Micro. Both were doing what they felt was their civic
duty, they both did things they weren’t proud of, and they were both ultimately
betrayed by the system that they believed in. A very sad course of events. Also,
finding out what Wolf did prior to his run in with Frank, made the whole assault
and murder that Frank did to him seems much more satisfying. Random thing I
noticed, so during a slight break while with Cerberus, Frank was playing his guitar
while his buddy Russo read a book. The book? The Picture of Dorian Grey
by Oscar Wilde. Not sure if it’s relevant at all, it’s just a very specific
book for a guy to be reading in a warzone. And, considering the story involves
a young man that remains handsome and beautiful, while a metaphor for his soul
withers, I don’t see how it could be irrelevant. All I’m saying. So, now the
missile has its guidance system, time to watch the fireworks.
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Twitter: @BasicsSuperhero
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