Wednesday, January 24, 2018

Relationship Spotlight: David Lieberman & Frank Castle (The Punisher)



Given that both are men who the world at large believes to be dead, it makes sense that Frank and Lieberman find their most significant relationships in The Punisher are with each other.  With such heavy secrets to keep and dangerous enemies to investigate, neither has many other places to turn, and even though the two spend much of the season wishing for anyone else as a partner, they’re mostly left with what they’ve got (spoilers.)

Since faking his death to escape dirty government agents, Lieberman has been holed up in high-tech hideaway, where he watches his family through hidden cameras and uses the web as his information treasure trove.  As such, he’s not exactly socialized or well-adjusted when he discovers that Frank Castle, a.k.a. the Punisher, is alive, and so he reaches out by making creepy phone calls and sending him what for all intents and purposes are incriminating tapes from Frank’s time in Kandahar.  Is it any wonder they don’t get off on the right foot?

Both guys have been put, not just through the wringer, but through the wood-chipper by the U.S. government, and it’s an understatement to say that both have serious trust issues.  Their early relationship is largely a string of incidents of one getting the jump on the other, one blackmailing the other, one imprisoning the other, one threatening the other, and one head-tripping the other.  Because of the horrible things they’ve been through, both feel the need to have the upper hand in the situation, and that means neither is willing to surrender any ground to the other.

But there are bigger things at play here, and ultimately, they have to cede at least a small amount of trust to one another in order to work together to bring down the corrupt soldiers and officials who destroyed their lives.  Even though their partnership is plagued by obvious issues, when they do work as a unit, they’re a force to be reckoned with.  Lieberman’s tech prowess and intelligence-gathering skills are vital in giving Frank the names and details he needs to go after the bad guys, where he puts his own, very bloody skillset to use.

It’s interesting to watch them work.  They’re capable of being so efficient together, but they’re also seriously dysfunctional.  And it’s not just their mutual, justified paranoia – both are also guys with strong opinions who’ve gotten very used to going it alone, and when they clash over mission tactics, they risk derailing what they’re trying to do because neither wants to let the other be right.  At the same time, though, as the season goes on, both realize they really can’t lone-wolf it.  Frank doesn’t have the technical skills Lieberman does, and the higher-ups hide themselves too well for him to find them through anything other than the most covert methods.  And even if Lieberman had Frank’s hardcore military training, he doesn’t have it in him to do what Frank does.

And so, they’re kind of stuck with each other, warily working alongside each other as they work toward the same goal for similar but not identical reasons.  They give each other hell along the way, side-eyeing one another and playing power games to try and convince themselves that they feel safe, but if either of them has a hope of seeing this through to the end, it has to be together.

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