Josh Stewart’s villain was the rare bad guy Frank Castle allowed to live in The Punisher season 2 – here’s why. The Punisher is a very unique superhero in the Marvel canon, given that he’s 100% human and has no powers to speak of outside of his skills as a soldier, in addition to a high pain threshold. Frank Castle made his comic debut as a Spider-Man villain and was inspired by the Charles Bronson movie Death Wish, but he soon earned his own comic and fanbase.
On one level, the Punisher should be an easy concept to translate to the big screen, but the property has a tangled history. One of Marvel’s first cinematic outings was Dolph Lundgren’s The Punisher movie from 1989, which ended up going straight to video in the U.S. Tom Jane’s 2004 reboot ended up performing well thanks to DVD sales, but received largely negative reviews. The final movie was 2008’s Punisher: War Zone, starring Ray Stevenson in the title role. The movie was a box-office dud but has since developed a healthy cult following.
Jon Bernthal’s iteration of Castle debuted in Daredevil season 2, where the character was standout. Bernthal returned for both seasons of Netflix’s The Punisher, which saw Castle investigating the conspiracy behind the murder of his family. While the main villain of the second season was Billy Russo – AKA Jigsaw – a major subplot involved Frank protecting a teenager named Amy from an assassin named John Pilgrim (Josh Stewart). Pilgrim is an ex-killer who found religion but was forced to go back to his old ways due to Amy having compromising pictures of a senator. Castle and Pilgrim eventually come to blows in the finale but while the latter loses their brawl, Punisher lets him live.
Fans of The Punisher will know outside of rare recurring villains like Jigsaw, Frank Castle rarely lets criminals go. In the case of The Punisher season 2, Frank comes to realize Pilgrim is being forced to fight by the billionaire father of the senator in question, with Anderson Schultz having kidnapped John Pilgrim’s sons to ensure his compliance. Pilgrim even asks Castle what he would do in the same situation if he could save his own children, which strikes a chord with the vigilante.
Castle not only spares Pilgrim’s life, but he also helps him rescue his two sons from Schultz, who later chooses to commit suicide or face the consequences of his actions coming out. The Punisher season 2 ends with John Pilgrim being allowed to return to his old life with his sons by Castle. Sadly, Pilgrim himself was relatively underused during the season, with the show seemingly forgetting about him a few times. Still, Josh Stewart created one of the most distinct villains of the series – and not just because he managed to survive the entire run.
