‘The Punisher’ Recap: ‘Trouble the Water’

Written by John Edward Betancourt 

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​The more time I’ve had to think about the opening episodes of season two of The Punisher, the more I’ve come to realize that they were in fact the grand setup to an early season crescendo. Because the introduction of the mysterious Pilgrim, and his hunt for Rachel, cannot be maintained in its current state, since the last episode had him waiting outside of the same police station that harbored Frank and Rachel. Which meant the next episode, ‘Trouble the Water’, was the only logical tale wherein this matter could be brought to a head and wouldn’t you know it? It was, but what made this particular tale so great, is that it offered up so much more than a mere gunfight.
 
For in this tale we learned a lot about the Pilgrim, whose name is John, and in this tale, we came to discover that he is a family man, one with two kids and a loving wife and that he is far more religious than we initially thought. For church and the gospel simply light this man’s soul up since we saw a joy and a delight in his eyes that we’ve never seen before on this series and we also learned that John is a man who is all about the duality of religion. Because judging from some of the unsavory tattoos on his body, it’s clear the man has a dark past, one that has prompted him to ask for forgiveness from the Lord. But clearly, he continues to do dark things to keep his ailing wife alive and I’ve no doubt he continues to ask for absolution in order to maintain this twisted lifestyle.
 
However, learning about his life and his twisted mind wasn’t the only unexpected surprise in this particular tale. For the whole matter with Billy Russo escalated as well. Because in the middle of therapy, an attempt to get to the bottom of Billy’s nightmares and help him deal what he’s finding in his sleep seemingly sent Billy over the edge and he attacked the police officers in charge of guarding his room and in the process of kicking ass and taking names, Billy secured his freedom by having his doctor help him escape. So yeah, just like that Billy Russo is back out into the world and we are left with quite the question, did he escape because of fear and panic, or was this all part of the plan? And the answer to that question in Agent Madani’s mind is that he orchestrated this escape which means…she’s going to need a little help in bringing him in…
 
But I did make mention of resolution when it comes to the standoff between Pilgrim and the Punisher and that was perhaps the highlight of the episode. Because Pilgrim put the police station under siege, which meant that everyone’s only hope was Frank Castle and while the wholesale gun fights that ensued in this part of the story were entertaining in their own right, what I loved the most about this sequence is that it demonstrated Frank’s evolution toward becoming The Punisher. For the fully formed character in the comic has his strict moral code, albeit a twisted one, and that all started to come together here since Frank made mention of his right to protect people who are in desperate need of help and also because he did everything and anything within his power to save lives, while teaching the bad guys a lesson and well, it was just cool to see this jell on the small screen.
 
For now, however, the Pilgrim is on the run and the Punisher is victorious and headed back into service with the Department of Homeland Security to hunt down a damaged Billy Russo and well, when all is said and done, this ended up being quite the fascinating episode, and I really am enjoying how season two of this series is balancing character development and plot. Because each episode is packed to the brim with all of the above, giving us plenty to chew upon. But what matters more, is that Frank is headed back to the Big Apple to face off against a man that brought him great pain and it should be interesting to see if Frank can mentally handle confronting his past, one more time….

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