Karen Page visits Frank as he struggles with his actions, and as Billy taunts the Punisher, John Pilgrim spirals further into a crisis.
A blood-drenched Frank lies in an ambulance in a daze, horrified about killing the girls last episode. A paramedic tells Mahoney about his extensive injuries.
They discuss how his killing people led to this and he jolts awake, but can't hear them over the sounds of gunfire and screaming from the night before in his head. Mahoney refuses to remove Frank's handcuffs as a team of surgeons works on him, and the Punisher it turned to face his logo-emblazoned body armor. Curtis returns to the trailer, where Amy is upset to learn about Frank and how Curtis knows little; he is struggling to process having killed a man. Amy pulls out a radio and finds a news broadcast about Frank being at the hospital, and decides they have to get him, as hitmen will be coming for the bounty. Curtis blurts out that helping Frank is what caused this situation, and declares he's done, earning him Amy's disgust as he goes to shower. John Pilgrim wakes wracked with pain and takes a swig of alcohol, remembering his vision about Rebecca when he sees a picture of their family. He responds to a voicemail by calling home, and gets Eliza Schultz; she claims Rebecca can't come to speak because she's resting. She claims she's the one who called before, as they've worried about him, and he assures her he's fine and will stay by the phone, wanting to hear Rebecca's voice. Eliza then hangs up and leaves the empty room as two men outside close a hearse. At the hospital, Karen Page arrives to see Frank, and though a guard doesn't want to let her through, she reminds him of laws regarding due process and representation. He relents when she points out Frank could walk for a technicality, and she enters to find Frank restrained and sleeping, covered in cuts and stitches.
Curtis exits the shower to find Amy has left, and Frank wakes to Karen trying to figure out what's going on; he ignores her questions and suggests she walk away.
Undeterred, she says they've been in situations like this and just need to figure out what to do, but it taken aback when Frank tells her he killed three women. Against his suggestion, she says her thoughts on him haven't changed. Back at Valhalla, Madani arrives and an angry Mahoney tells her the gang obviously wasn't trying to kill Frank, as they used rock salt and rubber bullets. Though Madani realizes this was to make Frank suffer, Mahoney leads her to the bodies of the three women, horrifying the agent. Shocked since this isn't how Frank works, Mahoney says he might not have planned to kill them but obviously did the deed, and isn't saying otherwise. Madani asks to speak to him, pointing out he might respond to her, and Mahoney allows it, saying he'll let the hospital know. At the hospital, Frank jolts awake after a dream about his family ends with their deaths. Breaking down, he tearfully tells Karen about how he'd promised Maria he was done with the military just before it happened and it felt right to them. Their visit to the carousel had the kids laughing, a sound that stuck with Frank and he wanted to hold onto, but he has since forgotten what it sounded like. The looks on the women's faces caused him to wonder what they'd thought when his bullets hit, just like he could tell what his kids were thinking when they died. Karen reminds him he didn't know, but Frank interjects that he didn't care at the time; he would've torn through anyone or anything to get Billy, and he now believes himself to be just as bad as the people he's killed.
Amy sneaks into the hospital and grabs hospital garb and Frank's file, then charms her way past the guard and into Frank's room, to his irritation.
She and Karen get a short, confused introduction as she tells Karen about the bounty and he resists her attempts to get him out. Madani enters as well, annoyed to see Amy, and Frank brushes off explaining the bounty, instead telling them to leave. As Amy comes up with plans since Frank will die no matter where he is, he brings up having told her to stay with Curtis and Russo gives Madani a call. He taunts her that he'll always be able to see her and Frank, so she puts it on speaker, and once he knows, he turns things to Frank, asking how he likes being stuck in a room with just his miserable thoughts. Certain that Frank is now no better than him, he declares that his old friend is done and he's won, then hangs up and destroys the sim card. Dumont applauds him, but is surprised when he says it's not enough; he claims it's disappointing and he feels hollow, even though she hoped to help him move forward. Billy makes a row of bullets and asks how she feels, being responsible for the women's deaths, but Dumont shrugs and says she didn't know them. His insistence that they died painfully makes her think he's blaming her, but he's afraid she'll one day blame him; she says she helped so they could be happy. With the police still looking, however, she says they need to escape, so he asks if she's sure she wants to give up everything she's worked hard to build. Billy explains no one knows what she's done, but Dumont says she'd know, and he agrees they can have anything together, saying she makes him happy. Back at the hospital, Amy exits while Karen and Madani talk; the latter says something is wrong about the crime scene and Billy being able to call her. Though she wants to check the bodies, she knows Mahoney wouldn't allow it, but Karen believes they need to be sure, saying she'll get Madani into the morgue. John Pilgrim draws his gun when he hears a knock; it turns out to be Eliza, who horrifies him with the news about Rebecca. Breaking down, he claims she was with him the night prior. After Karen and Madani discover the truth behind the shooting, Dumont opens up to Billy, Pilgrim struggles with his beliefs, and the attacks on Frank begin.
I'm liking how even after the assault on Pilgrim and the show focusing more on Billy and Frank again, they still found a good way to keep Pilgrim involved.
At the moment he's still recovering physically from the attack, and he's having a hard time believing in his mission as well. By slipping back into his old habits, Pilgrim shows that he's having problems with his faith right now, and having lost his wife when she wanted him there is going to be something that will massively damage him. In what few scenes he has this episode, Josh Stewart gives a fantastic performance as John Pilgrim, expressing a constant pain at the things he's experiencing. Along with repeatedly wincing and limping due to his physical injuries, you can see him snapping as a result of his actions and the loss of his wife. There is a scene intercut with his final talk with Eliza this episode in which he demolishes his room, and you can feel the rage coming from him. His faith already in doubt, he's just learned his wife is dead and he can't come home yet, and he takes it out on everything possible. There seems to be a great deal of manipulation when it comes to Pilgrim, as the Schultzes have him wrapped around their finger despite not always being honest. The night before she arrived at the hotel, Eliza told Pilgrim Rebecca was resting despite already having died, and while this could be chalked up to wanting to say it in person, it's strange that she does this and then focuses on the mission. She could easily try to comfort John or be understanding of the situation, but all she does is tell him he needs to finish the mission. I find it interesting how this episode gives us three people struggling to cope with having killed people, in three different ways. Curtis is only in the episode for a short time, but he is struggling after losing Billy's man, as like he tells Amy, he's lost men but never ones he shot. Taking a human life is always brutal and difficult to come to terms with, so it's surprising Amy hasn't struggled with it more, and it's clear Curtis is feeling rough. While he deals with this, Frank is horrified at apparently having killed three innocent young women, just like those he's killed before would've done. The flashes to his family fit with his code of not killing innocents, especially women, I'd think, and here he's gunned down three women who happened to be in the way. Then there's Billy, who seems surprised Dumont isn't more upset at what they did, and is similarly having to cope with causing the girls' deaths. While he's killed people before and doesn't have the moral code that Frank does, he still caused the deaths of three women just to further his own cause. Another shared issue is the struggle of what to do after experiencing something terrible, with these three and Pilgrim sharing it. While Curtis quickly decides to end things, it's likely he'll return, and we don't see his struggle much this episode. With Billy, there's a lot of doubt about what he's done as he now feels hollow, and he's paranoid about moving on with Dumont. Since getting out of the hospital, he's learned the man he most trusted is the one who damaged him, so it's easy to see why he would think Dumont might do the same. Then there's Pilgrim, who is suffering a crisis of faith and identity, especially after learning of his wife's death. Before, he had strong convictions in Christianity and believed he'd quickly get this job done and come home to his wife as she passed. Now, however, his past has come back to haunt him, and it caused him to wonder about his beliefs and sort of kept him from finishing things sooner and getting home. Getting back to the Shchultzes, I have a feeling this will be a way he could turn against them later, as Anderson was the one who urged him to seek his old contacts. He already had plans for getting Frank and Amy, but Anderson insisted he find his old contacts, which led the attacked and being stuck in the hotel as Rebecca died. Frank is suffering greatly wondering what to do now, feeling hopeless an dlike he's no better than anyone he's gone after before. Frank has always been a dedicated, strong man, and Dumont was able to impressively device a way to shatter him, leaving him awaiting death. I was glad Karen was brought back in this episode, trying again to help Frank and make him see he has a choice. There is a joke in one scene about how cute they are together, but I still love that the two have never had any romantic moments. Frank is usually still thinking about Maria, and only ever really tried things earlier this season, and he and Karen have a great friendship. It's nice to see them be able to be so close without romance being shoehorned in, and Karen is essentially the only person left who can both get through to Frank to make him open up, and allow him to question his moves. With a broken Pilgrim now going after the injured Frank and Billy thinking he's won, I can't wait to see the Punisher action I'll see soon.
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