The Punisher: Gunner
November 18, 2017 8:52 AM - Season 1, Episode 5 - Subscribe
Frank and Micro go looking for answers from a reluctant witness. Madani and Sam learn of a looming investigation. Rawlins sees a ghost.
*Dinah wakes up (remembering the crash and Frank), all bruised up and wearing an extremely comic-booky boob-coverage-only bandage.
*Lieberman is pissed at Frank for showing his face, Frank is pissed at him for causing the car wreck in the first place, and stomps off to go fix Sarah's headlight with daughter Leo. She insists that Sarah invite Frank to dinner, and he accepts.
*Dinah comes to work, though Hernandez says she should have stayed home to rest/recover. He tells her there will be an investigation over the failed gun buy & bust, and asks her if she has any info on who was in the truck, but she denies seeing anything.
*Lieberman is watching the Kandahar video again when Frank returns, and asks who filmed it. Frank says it must have been Gunner Henderson, as he had been troubled by the mission.
*At CIA Headquarters, eye-scarred 'Agent Orange' aka William Rawlins gives a 'welcome to the CIA' speech to a classroom of new recruits.
*Dinah interviews Karen about Frank at Homeland Security. Later, Dinah gives Sam a list of names of people (including Gunner) she thinks may have been in the room when Ahmad was murdered, asking him to help her track them down. He refuses and leaves her office, and she follows and tells him the truth about Frank saving her. Later, we see Rawlins listening to the office conversation via bugs. When Dinah and Sam have their OIG interviews they do not mention Frank, though afterwards Sam tells her if they don't find anything themselves in a week he's going to come clean.
*Karen meets Frank at night by the bridge, to tell him about the interview, and he tells her about saving Dinah. She tries to convince him to let her or Dinah expose his enemies and bring them to justice rather than him executing them all and making martyrs out of them, but he refuses, as he believes it would just get her killed same as it did his family.
*Back at the CIA, Rawlins is given a Distinguished Intelligence Medal. His boss, who is angling for promotion, says she wants him to be her deputy director, if he can promise there are no skeletons in his closet.
*Lieberman has tracked down Gunner to a remote & completely off the grid cabin, and insists on joining Frank on the road trip. At the property fence, Frank tells him to stay in the van (but he sits outside reading a book instead). Frank finds the cabin, avoiding a trip wire in the process, but then gets shot in the shoulder with an arrow. Eventually he is able to convince Gunner that he's not a threat. When Frank asks why he made the recording, he tells him that he saw officers using a slain soldier's body to transport drugs.
*A helicopter arrives and drops a tactical team, being remotely monitored by Rawlins, who is stunned at seeing Frank alive. Both Frank and Gunner are wounded, though they take out several soldiers forest-Rambo-style, and then Lieberman launches a drone and directs them in killing the rest.
*Back at the Lieberman house, Sarah and the kids sit at the dinner table waiting for no-show Frank.
*Dinah goes on another date with Billy, then they bang.
*Gunner collapses from his wounds, and makes Frank promise to bury his body. Frank tries to go for help, but collapses as well, though Lieberman finds him and carries him back to the truck for first aid and the getaway.
*Dinah wakes up (remembering the crash and Frank), all bruised up and wearing an extremely comic-booky boob-coverage-only bandage.
*Lieberman is pissed at Frank for showing his face, Frank is pissed at him for causing the car wreck in the first place, and stomps off to go fix Sarah's headlight with daughter Leo. She insists that Sarah invite Frank to dinner, and he accepts.
*Dinah comes to work, though Hernandez says she should have stayed home to rest/recover. He tells her there will be an investigation over the failed gun buy & bust, and asks her if she has any info on who was in the truck, but she denies seeing anything.
*Lieberman is watching the Kandahar video again when Frank returns, and asks who filmed it. Frank says it must have been Gunner Henderson, as he had been troubled by the mission.
*At CIA Headquarters, eye-scarred 'Agent Orange' aka William Rawlins gives a 'welcome to the CIA' speech to a classroom of new recruits.
*Dinah interviews Karen about Frank at Homeland Security. Later, Dinah gives Sam a list of names of people (including Gunner) she thinks may have been in the room when Ahmad was murdered, asking him to help her track them down. He refuses and leaves her office, and she follows and tells him the truth about Frank saving her. Later, we see Rawlins listening to the office conversation via bugs. When Dinah and Sam have their OIG interviews they do not mention Frank, though afterwards Sam tells her if they don't find anything themselves in a week he's going to come clean.
*Karen meets Frank at night by the bridge, to tell him about the interview, and he tells her about saving Dinah. She tries to convince him to let her or Dinah expose his enemies and bring them to justice rather than him executing them all and making martyrs out of them, but he refuses, as he believes it would just get her killed same as it did his family.
*Back at the CIA, Rawlins is given a Distinguished Intelligence Medal. His boss, who is angling for promotion, says she wants him to be her deputy director, if he can promise there are no skeletons in his closet.
*Lieberman has tracked down Gunner to a remote & completely off the grid cabin, and insists on joining Frank on the road trip. At the property fence, Frank tells him to stay in the van (but he sits outside reading a book instead). Frank finds the cabin, avoiding a trip wire in the process, but then gets shot in the shoulder with an arrow. Eventually he is able to convince Gunner that he's not a threat. When Frank asks why he made the recording, he tells him that he saw officers using a slain soldier's body to transport drugs.
*A helicopter arrives and drops a tactical team, being remotely monitored by Rawlins, who is stunned at seeing Frank alive. Both Frank and Gunner are wounded, though they take out several soldiers forest-Rambo-style, and then Lieberman launches a drone and directs them in killing the rest.
*Back at the Lieberman house, Sarah and the kids sit at the dinner table waiting for no-show Frank.
*Dinah goes on another date with Billy, then they bang.
*Gunner collapses from his wounds, and makes Frank promise to bury his body. Frank tries to go for help, but collapses as well, though Lieberman finds him and carries him back to the truck for first aid and the getaway.
What the hell is Lieberman doing between the end of the firefight and discovering Frank's unconscious body? It's daylight during the firefight and dark when Frank's body is found. Presumably Lieberman would know where to look given that he had a drone in the air over them. Was he just chilling by the van, eating the second half of his sandwich, watching the sunset?
posted by axiom at 12:34 PM on November 18, 2017
posted by axiom at 12:34 PM on November 18, 2017
My read is that it was quite a hike to Gunner's cabin and that it gets dark really damn fast out in the wilderness.
posted by ODiV at 12:03 PM on November 19, 2017
posted by ODiV at 12:03 PM on November 19, 2017
I mean, maybe it was just to give it the look of a first-person-shooter video game
I'm almost certain this is the intent. Partly as a commentary on FPS games, maybe. But almost certainly a way of showing us who Rawlins is: he plays games with people and their lives.
posted by wildblueyonder at 11:48 AM on November 20, 2017 [2 favorites]
I'm almost certain this is the intent. Partly as a commentary on FPS games, maybe. But almost certainly a way of showing us who Rawlins is: he plays games with people and their lives.
posted by wildblueyonder at 11:48 AM on November 20, 2017 [2 favorites]
Frank finds the cabin, avoiding a trip wire in the process,
The last thing I watched before The Punisher was the second season of Stranger Things, and [spoiler] I thought it strange that Hopper showed El the tripwire he had rigged up to warn them if someone approached the cabin, although that beat never paid off. [/spoiler] For a brief, confusing moment, I thought maybe Frank was going to arrive at a cabin and find not Gunner, but a telekinetic twelve-year-old.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 4:44 PM on November 23, 2017 [1 favorite]
The last thing I watched before The Punisher was the second season of Stranger Things, and [spoiler] I thought it strange that Hopper showed El the tripwire he had rigged up to warn them if someone approached the cabin, although that beat never paid off. [/spoiler] For a brief, confusing moment, I thought maybe Frank was going to arrive at a cabin and find not Gunner, but a telekinetic twelve-year-old.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 4:44 PM on November 23, 2017 [1 favorite]
Just came here to post that "who names their kid Gunner?" = my cousin Julie, as I had pie with Gunner on Thanksgiving.
Yes, he spells it with an E.
posted by Unicorn on the cob at 7:14 PM on November 24, 2017
Yes, he spells it with an E.
posted by Unicorn on the cob at 7:14 PM on November 24, 2017
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The forest fight was interesting. I wonder if part of the intent on showing it mostly from the POV of the soldiers' body-cams was to emphasize the 'Frank is a scary monster' aspect of things? I mean, maybe it was just to give it the look of a first-person-shooter video game, but I thought it was a good choice.
posted by oh yeah! at 9:06 AM on November 18, 2017 [1 favorite]