There is no better time to be a fan of Jon Bernthal’s Punisher than right now. After going on hiatus for a few years, Frank Castle officially returned last year in the first season of Daredevil: Born Again, and while he was absent from Season 2, Marvel still found a way to bring more Punisher to the screen. Bernthal headlines the new Punisher special, One Last Kill, which is now streaming on Disney+, and he’ll return as Frank Castle in one of the biggest blockbusters of the summer, Spider-Man: Brand New Day. Bernthal and his Spider-Man 4 co-star Tom Holland will also feature in Christopher Nolan’s new historical epic, The Odyssey.
The Punisher: One Last Kill has all the emotional weight and great action that Frank Castle fans could ask for. There are plenty of hallucination scenes showing Frank listening to the ghost of his old friend, Curtis Hoyle (played by Jason R. Moore), but the biggest surprise comes when Karen Page (played by Deborah Ann Woll) comes to Frank in a moment of weakness, when he’s left thinking about his wife.
Collider’s Maggie Lovitt recently sat down with Reinaldo Marcus Greenfor a new episode of Collider Behind the Scenes, who co-wrote The Punisher special with Bernthal and also directed the episode, and she asked what the conversations were like in the early stages of development when deciding to bring back Karen Page. “Because we use a sort of unreliable narrator, I think it was a great opportunity to bring back some of the characters that fans love in a way that helps us shape his psychological state, and where we find him in this story. Obviously, anyone who knows Karen knows that she is one of the favorites out of all the characters, and I think that there’s clearly some tension between the two, which everyone loves to see on-screen.” Continuing, he spoke more about how much love Karen and Frank have for each other, and how when Frank was thinking about his late wife, Karen is the one who came to him at that moment of reflection:
“It’s so organic, and it’s so real, and the two actually love each other, and you can see that on-screen just from actor to actor how intense they are when they’re together. So that was amazing to be able to utilize her character to help his headspace. I think she represents his wife in that moment, and it’s such a parallel between him and his real wife and what’s happening in his headspace, and just the connection to another human being. You know, she’s wearing the same sweatshirt as she [his wife] was wearing the night that she was [killed]. So I think all of that is important for the connectivity of Jon’s psychological state in the piece, and having Karen Page come back and do that with us was a lot of fun to see on screen and, hopefully, a lot of fun for the fans as well.”
Collider Exclusive · Marvel Personality Quiz Which MCU Hero Are You? Spider-Man · Daredevil · Iron Man · Punisher · Thor · Cap
Six heroes. One destiny. Answer 10 questions to discover which Marvel Cinematic Universe hero shares your personality, values, and fighting spirit. Will you swing, fly, or thunder your way to glory?
🕷️Spider-Man
😈Daredevil
🤖Iron Man
💀Punisher
⚡Thor
🛡️Cap
01
What drives you to do what’s right? Choose the answer that feels most like you.
02
It’s 2 AM. Where are you? Your answer says more about you than you’d think.
03
How do you handle a villain who keeps escaping justice? Every hero has a method. What’s yours?
04
How do you feel about keeping a secret identity? The mask — or the lack of one — says everything.
05
You’ve lost someone important because of your heroism. How do you carry that? Every hero pays a price. The question is how they pay it.
06
What’s your role when working with a team? Who you are under pressure is who you actually are.
07
Where do you draw the line between justice and revenge? The answer defines what kind of hero you really are.
08
When you’re not saving the world, what does life look like? The person behind the mask is always the more interesting story.
09
What keeps you up at night? Fear is useful data — if you’re honest about what you’re actually afraid of.
10
The battle is lost. You’re outnumbered, outgunned, and exhausted. What do you do? This is your tiebreaker — choose carefully.
Your Hero Has Been Identified Your MCU Hero Is…
Based on your answers, the Marvel hero who matches your spirit, values, and instincts has been revealed.
Queens, New York
🕷️ Spider-Man
You carry the weight of the world on shoulders that are younger than they should have to be — funny, loyal, and endlessly self-sacrificing.
You do the right thing not because it’s easy, but because no one else will.
You understand that responsibility isn’t a burden you choose — it’s one that finds you.
Whether it’s a neighbourhood mugging or a multiverse crisis, you show up.
Peter Parker’s lesson — that great power demands great responsibility — isn’t a slogan to you. It’s the code you live by, even when it costs you everything.
Hell’s Kitchen, New York
😈 Daredevil
You fight in the shadows between law and chaos, guided by a fierce moral compass that refuses to let the guilty walk free.
You use every tool available — your mind, your body, your faith — to protect those the system overlooks.
You’ve looked into the darkness and chosen not to become it, though the line has never been easy.
Matt Murdock’s duality — champion in the courtroom, devil in the alley — mirrors your own.
Relentless, conflicted, and unwilling to stop. That is exactly you.
Stark Industries, Malibu
🤖 Iron Man
Brilliant, driven, and occasionally insufferable — but always the person who solves the unsolvable problem.
You lead with your mind and back it up with resources, innovation, and a stubbornness that borders on heroic.
You started out looking out for yourself, but somewhere along the way the world became your responsibility.
Tony Stark’s arc — from ego to sacrifice — is your arc too.
You build, you plan, and when the moment comes, you’re willing to give everything. Because in the end, you’re Iron Man.
New York City
💀 The Punisher
You’ve been through fire that would break most people — and it did change you, completely. What’s left is unyielding, relentless, and operating by a code forged in grief.
You don’t ask for forgiveness, and you don’t expect gratitude.
You see a corrupt, broken world and you’ve decided to do something about it, consequences be damned.
Frank Castle’s war is born from love twisted by loss — and so is yours.
Uncompromising and unflinching — the world may not agree with your methods, but your conviction is absolute.
Asgard · Protector of the Nine Realms
⚡ Thor
Powerful, proud, and on a lifelong journey to become worthy of the legend you carry.
You lead with strength but have learned — sometimes painfully — that true greatness comes from humility and growth.
You’re larger than life, yet more vulnerable than you let on.
Thor’s story is one of transformation: from arrogant prince to worthy king, from isolated warrior to beloved protector.
You bring the storm when it’s needed — and the warmth when it matters just as much.
Brooklyn, New York · The Avengers
🛡️ Captain America
You believe in something bigger than yourself — and you fight for it even when the world has moved on and nobody else will.
You don’t bully the small guy, and you never stop when it gets hard.
Steve Rogers didn’t become a hero when he got the serum — he was always one. So were you.
Your strength isn’t in your fists; it’s in your refusal to compromise what’s right, no matter the cost.
In a world full of people taking the easy road, you’re the one who picks up the shield and stands up — every single time.
Was Anyone Besides Curtis or Karen Going To Show Up in ‘The Punisher: One Last Kill’?
While Frank may be more emotionally tied to characters like Karen and Curtis, he does have a deep relationship with Matt Murdock (played by Charlie Cox), who is now in prison after the events of Daredevil: Born Again Season 2. When Lovitt asked Green if there were ever any plans for other characters to show up as a hallucination to Frank in The Punisher: One Last Kill, he told Collider, “It really lent itself to our story [to only have those two],” speaking of Curtis and Karen. Continuing, he said:
“Sometimes, the story came, and then it’s like, ‘What’s the best way to achieve that?’ And who are the characters to help us tell that story? So I think that once we got the structure of what the movie was, Curtis and Karen surfaced as the key parts. Obviously, we introduce Ma Gnucci to the story, who is a new character, so we wanted to stick to simplicity. We only had an hour to get across what we felt was right for this particular special, and they just felt like the right pieces to help connect the timeline.”
The Frank and Karen scene in The Punisher: One Last Kill is eerily reminiscent of real scenes the two have shared in the past, both in the first season of Netflix’s Punisher show and in the first season of Daredevil: Born Again. Lovitt asked Green if this was a conscious choice, or something that’s emerged as more of a pattern in their relationship, to which he said, “I definitely watched the two seasons that pre-dated this, and I don’t know if we did it subconsciously while filming it, but it may have been in our subconscious. I don’t remember us specifically talking about it, but it could have been something that we just had in our DNA when making it.”
The demand for more scenes between Frank and Karen grows by the day, and the argument could easily be made that the two have much more chemistry than Matt and Karen. It’s unclear at this time if Bernthal will be back as The Punisher in Daredevil: Born Again Season 3 or in another mystery project, but it would certainly be a blow to fans if this were the end of Frank and Karen’s story.
Check out The Punisher: One Last Kill on Disney+ and stay tuned to Collider for more MCU updates and coverage. Be sure to check out the full conversation with Green in the player above.
Release Date
May 12, 2026
Runtime
60 Minutes
Director
Reinaldo Marcus Green
Writers
Reinaldo Marcus Green, Ross Andru, Jon Bernthal, Gerry Conway, John Romita Sr.
