"The Judas Goat" Redefines The "Wounded Hero" Trope For The Punisher!

The Good: Wonderful direction, Amazing performances, Good themes, Decent pacing
The Bad: Simplistic plot progression, Painfully obvious reversal
The Basics: The Punisher makes a surprisingly complex and gripping episode out of consequences with "The Judas Goat!"


There is, unfortunately, a pattern to most of Netflix's Marvel Television Universe shows. At or near the midpoint of the season, the protagonist is severely wounded and/or loses their powers entirely. In the first season of Daredevil, that happened with "Nelson V. Murdock" (reviewed here!) and in Luke Cage, the protagonist's unbreakable skin was broken and the character was taken out of action in "Blowin' Up The Spot" (reviewed here!). So, by the time The Punisher gets to "The Judas Goat," the wounded protagonist episode is more an issue of reinforcing the pattern, as opposed to creating groundbreaking television.

"The Judas Goat" opens with Frank Castle severely wounded, an event that occurred in "Gunner" (reviewed here!). It's impossible to discuss "The Judas Goat" without references to "Gunner" as the circumstances under which Castle was wounded resonate into the new episode. As well, Rawlins, having lost an entire team of operatives (how he could deploy military personnel on domestic soil is a mystery that survives "Gunner"), is now that much more desperate to silence Frank Castle.

Frank Castle dreams of his coming home party - where his family and Lieberman's family's are blended. The dream turns into a nightmare when assassins come in and kill everyone in front of Castle and he awakens in Lieberman's bunker, with Gunner's arrow still in his shoulder. Lieberman has left the bunker to get the only aid he can think of: Curtis Hoyle. Hoyle extracts the arrow and sets to mending Castle, while elsewhere Madani wakes up with Russo. Russo uses his access to go through one of Madani's files and he recognizes the material as relevant to him. Russo demands to know why Madani is investigating Frank Castle and he insinuates that he knows Castle is still alive.

While Sarah Lieberman deals with her son becoming a bully, Lieberman intercepts a transmission that Castle identifies as coming from Billy Russo. Lewis Walcott is attempting to pass out literature in front of a courthouse when a police officer, when he gets arrested and abandoned by his co-conspirator. Madani and Stein investigate the scene of Gunner's death and Madani figures out essentially what happened and tasks Stein with running blood from the scene against Castle's DNA on file. Lieberman begins to suspect that someone other than Russo might know Castle is alive. Madani turns to Russo for help in finding Frank and Russo turns to Hoyle.

"The Judas Goat" opens with an obvious dream, but despite the fact the viewer knows it must be a dream, the direction is good-enough to make it engaging and it sucks the viewer in. Director Jeremy Webb stops just short of showing, on screen, four children being shot at the dinner table, but the nightmare sequence is still effective at conveying all Castle fears. Webb's direction in "The Judas Goat" is refreshing in that he takes the time to focus on expressions of the performers and he has a real artistry to his direction.

Jason R. Moore wins the performance award for "The Judas Goat." Moore plays Curtis Hoyle and during the gruesome surgery scene, his facial expressions of disdain completely characterize the military officer's distaste for civilians and their weaknesses. Moore is saddled with telling a story at a key moment and as Curtis Hoyle tells the story of the goat upon which he trained in order to be a field medic, the subtlety of his performance makes the story utterly compelling. Webb and Moore make a potentially dull expository scene absolutely gripping and heartbreaking.

Daniel Webber continues his utterly unsettling performance as Lewis. In fact, Webber's acting is so good that it compelled me to look up his biography. For someone who seems to have been an athlete and not part of the military, he plays shellshocked incredibly well.

"The Judas Goat" is a generally quiet episode that does an amazing job of exploring consequences, especially in how military people are treated after they are programmed and after their service is done. Hoyle, Walcott, and O'Connor all illustrate various aspects of veterans issues, but their common thread is that they have been left feeling betrayed by the country for which they served. Hoyle throws wood on that fire for Lewis when he outs O'Connor as a fraud. The entirety of Frank Castle's character arc has been about dealing with the consequences of his service, but the fact that so many others in his world are shown in "The Judas Goat" as having far more practical PTSD arcs.

Russo is presented in "The Judas Goat" as an old friend who has the resources to help Frank Castle. Castle seems to be the only one in the world who seems unable to grasp the concept that Russo might not be at all trustworthy, but the savvy viewer is likely to suspect Russo, much like Lieberman does. So, when Castle and Russo finally meet, there is a subtext to the scene that adds all sorts of tension to a very simple scene.

"The Judas Goat" is a decent reinvention of the "wounded hero" story in the Marvel Cinematic Universe as it leaves Frank Castle with a compelling choice. Castle is torn between his old comrade and his new one and as the episode winds to its conclusion, Webb does an amazing job of re-establishing Lieberman's loneliness. Lieberman had a one-man crusade and he saw Frank Castle as a way to advance his cause and he now faces losing Castle. Lieberman is self-tortured by his solitude, which is an interesting foil to Frank Castle.

Jon Bernthal continues to rock The Punisher with his smart, subtle performances. For a character who is often emotionally distant, Bernthal has made Frank Castle gripping to watch.

Ultimately, "The Judas Goat" continues the trend of making The Punisher into a surprisingly smart, complex, character-driven piece that exceeds the expectations one might have from the Marvel Cinematic Universe!

For other works with Jaime Ray Newman, please visit my reviews of:
Heroes - Season 2
Veronica Mars - Season 3
Rumor Has It. . .

9/10

For other Marvel Cinematic Universe reviews, please visit my Marvel Cinematic Universe Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2017 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Generic Pirate Episode For Doctor Who: "The Curse Of The Black Spot"

The Good: Special effects, Early humor, Acting is as good as the writing
The Bad: No real character development, Dull plot, Poor writing
The Basics: "The Curse Of The Black Spot" makes a pirate episode for Doctor Who . . . which is pretty much the same as any other episode of Doctor Who with a creature that appears at first to be supernatural.


One of the interesting aspects of Doctor Who is that, as an episodic work that can go anywhere in time and space, the show has license to go anywhere it wants and it can do so fairly organically. So, if the show wants to do a circus episode, it can; if it wants to go to an underwater city next week, there it goes. Given the infinite potential range of Doctor Who, it is almost a surprise that it took the show so long to get to a pirate episode since it returned to television in 2005. The pirate episode is "The Curse Of The Black Spot" and while it might initially appear to be a divergence from Doctor Who, it does not take long before it falls into the very standard Doctor Who formula.

In other words, and there are no spoilers here, while there is initially something that appears supernatural, it turns out to be something alien. Anyone who has watched any five episodes of Doctor Who that have a creepy artifact or an apparent supernatural creature like a ghost, will recognize this as the formula. "The Curse Of The Black Spot" follows that formula very closely.

Opening with a rowboat full of pirates returning to their ship, the returning pirate is alarmed to learn that one of his crew was wounded. The wounded pirate has a black mark on his hand and almost immediately after the captain sees the mark, the song of the siren begins and the wounded pirate suddenly disappears. The Doctor, Amy and Rory appear in the ship and Captain Avery decides they must be stowaways. While The Doctor and Rory are threatened with walking the plank, Amy gets a sword and holds the five pirates at bay. When Amy cuts one of the pirates very minorly, a black spot appears on his hand and Rory is similarly wounded and marked. When The Siren begins singing, Rory gets wacky . . . and then the Siren appears to drag the two wounded men away. Amy manages to save Rory, but the other pirate dies.

After another pirate is killed, the survivors move to the armory because The Doctor realizes that the Siren can transport out of any water source and the magazine is the driest place on the ship. Inside the armory, Captain Avery discovers his own son has stown away. With his son so marked, Captain Avery and The Doctor set out to retrieve the TARDIS. While they are in the TARDIS, the other pirates mutiny against Avery to try to save themselves. But after the TARDIS disappears on its own, The Doctor realizes that the Siren can burst out of any reflective surface to kill. With only their wits, The Doctor and his friends must try to survive.

"The Curse Of The Black Spot" has The Doctor playing ridiculous right away and the humor starts very organically and cutely. But as the situation turns increasingly horrific, The Doctor's humor becomes terribly forced. What is far more irksome is the fact that The Doctor shows no care when Rory is marked for death. His jokes about death fall particularly flat when Rory is in mortal peril and he continues to act casual about it.

Karen Gillan is given a poor part to play in "The Curse Of The Black Spot." Amy seems more upset that the brainwashed Rory found the Siren attractive than she does by his imminent death. The problem is in the writing, but Gillan is unable to make the jokes land or the concern about something so trivial seem at all reasonable.

Hugh Bonneville makes Captain Avery into a credible captain and a reasonably well-rounded pirate. When Avery has to dump all his loot overboard, there is a moment when Bonneville uses his eyes to emote the moral dilemma going on in his character's mind where he weighs the crown vs. his son's life. It's a compelling moment and an exception to the rule of the episode.

Lily Cole plays the Siren and her job is basically to look as good as she does in the episode. She succeeds. The disappearing TARDIS feels very contrived in "The Curse Of The Black Spot" and the serialized element in the episode - Amy seeing the mysterious woman with the eye patch, who tries to reassure Amy, but ends up alarming her - stands out appropriately.

"The Curse Of The Black Spot" is more contrived and formulaic than it is ever engaging or impressive.

[Knowing that single episodes are an inefficient way to get episodes, it's worth looking into Doctor Who - The Complete Sixth Season on DVD or Blu-Ray, which is also a better economical choice than buying individual episodes. Read my review of the sophomore season of Matt Smith as The Doctor here!
Thanks!]

For other works with Lily Cole, please visit my reviews of:
The Zero Theorem
Snow White And The Huntsman
The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus

3/10

See how this episode stacks up against other episodes and seasons of Doctor Who by visiting my Doctor Who Review Index Page where the reviews are organized from best to worst!

© 2017 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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