Parents' Guide to The Punisher

The presence of the magnetic Jon Bernthal elevates this Marvel series, but it has so many familiar beats that the whole proceeding feels stale. Frank is a man with nothing to lose, galvanized into great (and often brutal) efforts to root out crime by his lost and broken heart. Comic book fans even have a word to describe female characters who are dispatched in gruesome ways to give a male character motivation: "fridged." It refers to the tendency of comic book girlfriends and wives to end up murdered and stuffed into a refrigerator for their superhero men to find, all the better to make him come after the perpetrator with a mortal vengeance. It's both regressive and disappointing that The Punisher chose to fridge Frank's family -- and though a revenge fantasy may have flown just fine for another generation of fans, to modern viewers it's not quite the thing.

Viewers who can get past that bit of murky morality will enjoy Bernthal as Punisher: growling at baddies in his hoodie in a convincingly feral way, and showing up at VFW counseling sessions to absorb some positivity from an old army buddy (Jason R. Moore). Other side characters also have a little crackle: Ebon Moss-Bachrach as a wormy junior detective, picking away at the same conspiracy as Frank with conflicted agent Dinah Madani (Amber Rose Revah). You've seen this sort of "big bads with big bad plans" setup before, but the actors make it compelling enough, if the violence and mixed messages don't turn you off. If parents allow teens to watch, they may want to ask a few pointed questions about the show's violence and what it means: Is the Punisher a hero? If this is a hero, what does a villain look like?