Netflix binges: The Punisher season 2 recap

The Punisher season 2, episode 11: “The Abyss”

With Frank caught by the police and feeling guilty for killing three innocent women, it is up to his friends (old and new) to get him out of police custody. But with people coming after him and his room at the hospital being heavily guarded, that is easier said than done.

The episode starts out with Frank covered in blood lying in an ambulance. He got the crap beat out of him by Billy’s crew, so before he goes to jail, he needs to get patched up. The scene then moves to Curtis going back to the trailer.

Amy is immediately on him, asking where Frank is. When he tells her Frank was arrested and sent to the hospital, she wants to rescue him. But Curtis has had enough. He’s done.

Hospital Rescue

Frank has probably not been in a worse place than he is in this episode. He thinks he killed three innocent women and he feels like a monster. But, luckily, he has plenty of people who aren’t willing to give up on him, including Karen Page. She finds him in a much different state than when she last saw him, but Karen is nothing if not stubborn.

But Karen isn’t the only one there to get Frank out. Amy and Madani show up as well, although Madani is more there to get him to talk than to rescue him. Amy gets in by disguising herself as a nurse. Needless to say, Frank could not be more exasperated that she keeps leaving the trailer to come get him, especially since they still have a bounty on their heads.

While Amy is arguing with Frank and Karen on how to get him out of there, Madani gets a call. It’s Billy. He goads Frank, asking him if his thoughts are haunting him, telling him that he is no better than Billy now. Frank has very little response. He already thinks he’s a monster. Nothing Billy says is going to change that.

But the show wouldn’t progress much if Frank just stayed in the hospital. Once Frank realizes that Billy set him up, he is more than ready to get out of there. And how it’s done is absolutely brilliant.

One of Frank’s guards tries to kill him for the bounty but Amy and Madani knock him out. Taking the cop’s uniform, they put it on Frank and Madani helps him out of the hospital. While that happens, Karen pulls any fire alarm she can find as a distraction and Amy changes into her regular clothes.

Madani and Frank are almost free when Detective Mahoney shows up. It’s clear he is no longer thinking straight. He grabs Frank, handcuffs him inside an ambulance, and drives away with him, telling Madani that he will see her career burned to the ground.

Karen and Madani Find the Truth

Besides Amy, Karen and Madani are the only other people who really care about Frank and when they hear that he might have killed three innocent women, they must find out the truth.

Karen has a contact at the morgue, so Mandani and she go to see the bodies of the women. What they find is much different from what the police think.

The morgue guy tells them that the shots that killed the women were at a close range based on the fact that there are gunpowder burns on their skin. Since Frank shot from far away, he couldn’t have killed those women. Billy set it up to look that way.

This is shown even more clearly in a flashback where we see Billy shoot the women and then pick up the spent bullet casings so there is no evidence that anyone was there before Frank.

Billy and Dr. Dumont

Billy and Dr. Dumont are thrilled that their plan to break Frank worked, but Billy is still not as happy as he thought he would be. He feels hollow. Dr. Dumont is less than pleased. She did all this to make him happy and wants them to move on from this together.

She makes it clear that they need to leave NYC soon because the cops are still looking for Billy. He seems to know this but there is still something bothering him. Billy also gives Dumont the chance to leave, to go and not have to be a part of everything that comes with being with him. She refuses.

Billy and the doctor also discuss her injuries. Up to this point, she just said she fell when she was young, but the story is much more traumatic than that.

Her father was a Vietnam vet and came back from the war less than stable. Because of this, one night her mother asked for a divorce and her father began arguing with her. Wanting to try to make things better, Dumont as a young girl went to her father. At that moment, he told her mother that if he couldn’t have their child, she couldn’t either and grabbed Dumont and jumped out the window. She survived. He didn’t.

What’s Next

This episode also featured John Pilgrim figuring out his wife had died and Frank continuing to relive the death of his family. The next episode is sure to be all about what Mahoney does with Frank. Is he going to turn him in or does he have his own plans for Frank?

John Pilgrim is also still looking for Frank and Amy but he seems to be in a much less stable place than he was at the beginning of the series. There is no guessing what he is going to do. Here’s hoping he breaks from the Schultz family and starts fighting on Frank’s side.

What did you think of episode 11 of The Punisher season 2? Were you glad to see Karen back? What do you think Detective Mahoney has in store for Frank?