May 15, 2026
Punisher: One Last Kill
Frank Castle returns in a Marvel Television Special Presentation
Fans of Punisher comics are used to a volatile concoction of precarious plot lines and psychological battlegrounds through which the title vigilante rampages. His transference to the big and small screen took some time and patience, with three live-action films that never quite captured the character in full and then two seasons of a Netflix series and an appearance in Daredevil that delivered an unforgettable, riveting portrayal of Frank Castle by actor Jon Bernthal.
“I don’t know who could do a better version of The Punisher than Jon Bernthal,” Daredevil actor Charlie Cox told Forbes in 2021when rumors began circulating about Marvel’s interest in revisiting its Netflix characters either in television on Disney+ or in Marvel Cinematic Universe films. “So if they’re going to do it again, I hope they do it with him because I don’t think it gets better than that.” In March 2025, Bernthal did return as Punisher in the first season of Daredevil: Born Again as plans for a Disney+ television special about Frank Castle also neared production.
Now, that presentation, dubbed The Punisher: One Last Kill and co-written by Bernthal and director Reinaldo Marcus Green, can be viewed on Disney+. In One Last Kill, we join Castle, unfiltered and as direct as ever, at a crucial juncture. The special, which dropped on May 12, commands attention from the start as Castle hallucinates former military compatriots as he suffers a breakdown, a prelude to his consideration of suicide before other factors set in.
“It’s the visceral, psychologically complex, unforgiving, no-holds-barred version of Frank where he’s going to turn his back to the audience,” Bernthal explained to Entertainment Weekly last year. “And nothing is easy and all violence has a cost, and we’re going to see that cost.” In One Last Kill, Frank is aloof from the war-torn hellscape of Little Sicily, the result of his choice to eliminate members of the Gnuccis mob family that kept things stabilized. As violence erupts around him, he shows no concern, no interest in carrying on his vigilante ways, consumed as he is with his own demons. It’s uncharacteristic of the Castle we’ve seen on Netflix and in Born Again. But once mob boss Ma Gnucci puts out a hit on him, calling on all local criminals, his survival depends on his old ways.
“[The Punisher] is about transformation and what it means for a person who holds on to revenge,” Judith Light, who plays Ma Gnucci, told Bleeding Cool News this year. One Last Kill is certainly transitional, belonging in the time between Netflix and Disney+ and linking the Punisher’s initial crusades with the exponential increase of brutality on display in Born Again, particularly in the first season’s ninth episode fight sequence, in which directors Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead filmed the character’s actions at 72 frames per second as opposed to Daredevil’s 24 in order to slow them down to draw out the carnage being inflicted.
In 2021, when fans began conjecturing as to whether or not characters like the Punisher would return to television, Bernthal told Forbes, “I just don’t think the question is about whether they’re going to do it, it’s going to be about how they do it and whether we can do it in a way the character and the fans deserve… are we going to be able to get it right? Is it going to be dark enough? Is it going to be gritty enough?” Marvel has seen fit to open the door to dark and gritty, and what’s unleashed is beyond what we’ve already seen of the Punisher on screen, embracing the integrity of the character’s comic book persona as well as the signature violence that not only explains but defines him.
One Last Kill isn’t so much a conventional narrative as an external portrait of Frank Castle’s demons, birthed from an internal landscape of memories taunting him to abandon his vigilante lifestyle by locking away his weapons and laying the key on the grave of his wife before putting a gun to his head. The physical and metaphorical natures of that key, played out in both realistic and impressionistic images during Castle’s battle for self-preservation, are the crux of this tale. In fact, as the first of the hitmen descend upon Punisher, the moment feels like some extended hallucination conjured by the protagonist before it escalates into a full-scale war that ends in a pivotal defining choice.
In the Foreword to the recently republished Marvel Knights edition of the Punisher by Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon, Welcome Back, Frank, Bernthal discusses the relationship created between Castle and the reader of the graphic novel: “Ennis doesn’t apologize for Frank. He subverts the hero genre by being comfortable with the ugly and gray side of heroism, finding truth in the sordid dust of desperation and anger… That honesty was my north star when writing and producing Marvel Television’s upcoming Punisher special.”
This summer, the Punisher will be back on the screen in Spider-Man: Brand New Day. It’s been reported that Bernthal insisted the integrity of his character be preserved despite the film being a more mainstream vehicle. Is it possible the next venture for Frank Castle could be a new series of his own?
Notes
Bernthal, Jon. “Foreword” to Welcome Back, Frank. by Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon. New York: Marvel Worldwide Inc., 2026.
Chang, Tom. “The Punisher: Did Judith Light Confirm Ma Gnucci in “One Last Kill?’ Bleeding Cool News, 9 May 2026. retrieved from bleedingcool.com.
King, Scott. “Jon Bernthal On The Punisher: ‘Frank Castle Is In My Bones.’” Forbes, 11 October 2021. retrieved from Forbes.com.
King, Scott. “‘Kin’ Actor Charlie Cox Talks New Crime Drama And Daredevil.” Forbes, 21 September 2021. retrieved from Forbes.com.
Mulcahey, Matt. “Archenemies Tangle in Daredevil: Born Again.” American Cinematographer, July 2025, 50-61.
Romano, Nick. “Bernthal is Eager To Do More with the Punisher, and This Re-introduction is Getting Him Closer to the Frank Castle He Really Wants to Play.” Entertainment Weekly, 18 March 2025. retrieved from ew.com.
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