Karen and Frank: a deep dive into their relationship
The Punisher season 1 & 2 (part 2)
Read part 1, part 2 and part 3 first to understand the context better (this is becoming longer that i thought it would be). I left off in the middle of season 1 episode 9 and that's where I'm jumping right into sooo let's go!!!
Micro finds Lewis's address and Frank picks up a gun, ready to go. Micro suggests an alternative and have Curtis intervene but Frank insists he's doing this his way. There is no way he will leave someone threatening Karen on the loose, which Micro has to reluctantly accept.
Meanwhile Karen is talking to an FBI agent at the Bulletin. She receives an anoymous call which of course, it's Frank. He expresses concern over going after Lewis since now she has a target on her back and Karen asks what was she supposed to do, since he chose her.
Frank asks if the FBI is there, and to stay put until she hears from him.
Karen asks why she's hearing from him and what does he have to do with the guy. "If you do tell me, I can go to the FBI and we can deal with this."
Karen never stops offering Frank her support, in whatever he has to do, but as we said previously Frank has a bit of self-sabotaging tendencies and refuses to accept help from those who doesn't wanna put at risk.
I think what I also like about them is that he never doubts her doing cause he thinks she might not be capable or questions her morals (he even compliments her about having a gun in her bag at all times), every questioning that comes from Frank in her regards are strictly connected to how much risk it can occur for her safety. Cause thats what Frank cares about at the end of the day.
Frank tells her that it's faster his way and Karen remarks that in that way, it doesnt make him that much different from Lewis and he says "We're plenty different and you know it." It's so funny to me that she's clocking his ass because she spent the previous hourse defending him on the radio sdjkfnkjsd. She's like if someobody speaks ill on you I'll defend you but don't expect that treatment from me! Love her lol
"Do not do this and say it is for me." "Just stay put."
Oh Karen if only you knew the mental breakdown he was going through after he heard Lewis was threatening you...I wish you could have heard.
And it's so beautifully and organically confirmed 2 scenes later when Micro calls him and tells him: "You have to do whatever it takes to take care of the people you love."
And mind you! Micro up to that point only knew that Frank cared about two things: his family & Karen (whom he compared to Micro's wife too).
In that Frank has always been consistent even though his own mess of a mind doesn't always put him on the right direction. When it's said that Karen is his moral compass, I truly belive it.
It's a quality I believe he shares with Karen. They're both compassionate even if in their own different ways. For example, Karen has always believed in him and Frank shows that gratitude through acts of service. Whether or not those are approved by Karen is another story. I like to say that he's pretty much devoted to her. At the end of the day, Frank loves to help people in complicated situations just as much as she does. Sure Karen tries to get more inside their minds while Frank is more of a call to action, but it also mean they complete each other when you think about it!
When talking to Lewis on the phone (when he says "nobody gets hurt I think he meant Karen especially) Frank without realizing does the same thing Karen did to him: he provokes him. To the point that even Curtis is disappointed in him "Are you trying to get us killed?"
So again, they're not so different. They just used slightly different methods to do so.
"Not as long as hacks like Karen Page think they can write or say whatever it is they want. [...] They're not safe."
Lewis...you don't know what you just got yourself into.
Back at the Bulletin, Mr Ellison shows Karen a report on the news that shows a sight of Frank in public. "Did you know?"
In episode 10 Frank calls Billy to inform him that Lewis is targeting Ori. Billy asks what the deal between him and the kid is, Frank responds "We have unfinished business."
I like to think that also includes protecting Karen from him so that's why I'm pointing this out.
After the call ends, Karen arrives at the hotel, introducing herself to Billy (aka shit's about to go down).
While Karen's interviewing the senator, a bomb goes off. Frank and Lewis enter the room and Lewis is trying to shoot the senator but he manages to run away, leaving Karen there. Lewis picks up her and points out a gun to her head.
We then cut to Karen talking to officer Mahoney. She says Ori was lying about going to get help. She also denies that Frank and Lewis are working together. Karen tells him Frank would never bomb innocent civilians.
"It's funny how you and Castle keep...bumping up together."
Excuse her sir...that's her emotional supportive cosmic fated soulmates situationship
"In your opinion, why was he even here?"
"I think he was looking out for me."
Baby is smitten omg
She adds that if it weren't for Frank the senator would be dead. "Shooting a senator for a political opinion, does that sound like Frank Castle to you?"
This is a side note that goes beyond Kastle but i truly did like what they did with Karen in this season. Her doing her job on the side while Frank is dealing with his stuff and sometimes the two things collide...I'll never stop campaigning for her to have an important role in a future punisher solo project. I do think she fits so much better in his side of things than she does in the dd one, which sounds crazy since they're all connected and she's a character from Daredevil's world. I still enjoy watching her there it's just that she doesn't work as a romantic fold to Matt as well as she does with Frank. If her and Matt were allowed to stay just friends who help each other when in need I think I would enjoy it much more.
And we're back at the starting point: the explosion of the bomb and Lewis trying to kill the senator. It also shows Karen checking her gun in his purse. Just like a Frank in a sense, she has an immediate call to action.
Frank jumps right in front of Karen before Lewis shoots her. The senator manages to escape but Lewis holds Karen in his arms, threatening that he's wearing a bomb. At that point Frank is full on panicking but still trying to talk Lewis throught it and calm him down.
I think you can see very well the distress in his face.
The situation at this point is very tense. They're in the hallway, some cops are trying to intervene, Franks puts his gun in his pocket to show he's not trying to hurt Lewis and Karen is the one in the most difficult situation since she's trapped by the bomber.
"I will come for you."
Chills, literal chills.
Agent Madani and Karen meet briefly before she goes in to talk to Mahoney. Dinah at this point has understood that Karen has lied to her about Frank not being alive. Dinah reveals that there's a lot of people who want Frank dead and she doesn't want that to happen. Karen immediately tenses up and asks who.
"If you know who, do something about it."
"I need Frank. You two have a connection, I know that."
I wonder if Madani meant simply as in "you can easily contact him" or in the double sense of "there's something between you too". Probably the former since she technically never saw them together except maybe on TV during the trial but I like the double implication the dialogue plays here.
Madani asks Karen to tell Frank to contact her if she's able to see him, cause she knows how to help him.
"He's not who they say he is. Saved my life. Again." (Cue the attempt shooting scene in Daredevil s2, a big fave moment on mine as I've mentioned).
Also I love that she gets to remark that he's not a bad person every chance that she gets. No one has ever believed in him more than her.
Back in the hotel's kitchen, Karen is trying to reason with Lewis and convince him that nobody else needs to die for his doing. Lewis is upset at Karen, tells her that he thought she would understand him, Karen offers him help to understand. I think Lewis probably saw Frank's trial and thought that Karen was gonna reason with his motives too. What he failed to notice (but we, as the audience do) is that Karen has always being scared with him while she's never been scared with Frank, not even when she hadn't his motives clear.
Frank finally reaches Karen, assures Lewis he's unarmed, and tries to stop Lewis from blowing up (literally). He says out loud looking at Karen that the white wire is what he pulled to save Curtis back at his house. Karen understands what he's getting at. Frank once again asks Lewis to let Karen go, but he doesn't budge.
As Frank tries to distract Wilson by talking to him about his dad, Karen desperately tries to pull out the white wire from the bomb and Frank in the meantime shakes his head everytime she's touching the wrong wire. She finally succeeds in freeing herself and also manages to shoot Lewis's foot in the process, thanks to Frank reminding her the gun she has in her bag. They would work very well as a dynamic duo me thinks!
Lewis while closed behind a door, reassembles the broken wire and implies he's going to make the bomb explode. Karen exhorts Frank to get out of that kitchen but Frank refuses, pushing her to get out of there alone. Neither her nor him want to listen to the other. Frank wants Karen to be safe above everything else, and Karen is not leaving without him.
Lewis blows the bomb up and Frank and Karen manage to get away from the big explosion just in time, even though they remain injured. And we get this beautiful, tender shot:
"Are you okay?"
He holds her with such care and softness oh the buzzzzzzz. See I try to keep this a professional analysis but they make me so giddy I can't fdkjgnkdf
A bunch of cops and officer Mahoney are waiting for Frank just outside the kitchen, so they pretend Karen is being held at gunpoint by the him in front of them to get out of the situation. And this is how we get to the elevator scene™ (I was so excited to talk about it):
Also I love that before escaping Frank hands Karen his gun. Partners in crime indeed! These two need to work together again listen to me Marvel !
There's so many positive things for me to say about this scene. First of all, Karen is concerned about seeing him that wounded, probably took her back in time a little bit. I wish we got to see a patching up moment (born again you will pay for your crimes). But now let's get to the mother of all scenes.
You can literally hear his breath stopping as soon as their foreheads touch. Sometimes things like these are way more intimate and romantic than a kiss is.
I wonder if they both thought they weren't gonna see each other again in that moment and they were sort of going for a goodbye kiss type of deal. It's what it felt a bit to me (I'll get back to this concept during the s2 analysis). But were they ready to cross the line? I think Karen was. It's Frank who wasn't.
I think kissing her would have made him realize the actual weight of his feelings for her and he's not in a mental state where he can allow himself to accept that. Frank is so sure he cannot recreate the happiness he once had anymore, especially not when Karen was so close to risking her life because of him. And so, he doesn't even let himself have one kiss. At the end of the day, that's where lies the complicated nature of their relationship. He'd rather be out of her life completely than cause any harm to her. But for how long can he truly be okay with not ever seeing her again? How many times he's been wondering if she was danger and he wasn't there to save her? For how long can he pretend he wouldn't fuck the entire world up just to save her? He can't let himself be happy at the risk of losing again someone he’s in love with. Cause in the end that's what it is. It might take a while to get him properly to that, but those feelings are in motion.
"Take care."
I love you sooo, please let me gooooo (I say while everything hurts)
Its the fact that all of their final moments in a season are Frank asking her to be careful, to take care etc it hurts so bad that it's so good you guys what an angst, what a ship!
As for Karen, well I think she has it written all over her face undeniably (she still is 10 years later lol. It's easier to forget someone you've been with than someone who've had almost but never was with. And almost is truly a recurring theme in Kastle's history. We'll come back to that).
Poor baby's devasted, look at her.
We go back to present to hear the rest of Karen and Mahoney's conversation where Karen's explaining how Frank is the one who saved lives and he's not a terrorist. Mahoney says he should arrest her for helping him escape and she rebuts that if Frank's a terrorist, then that makes her a victim. The officer obviously doesn't believe her.
Mahoney then asks Karen where Frank is and she responds that she doesn't know. "Do you really think Castle's the kind of guy who walks into a building he doesn't know how to get out of?"
Episode 11 opens with Frank thinking about his wife (amogst other things) and I find that so interesting, especially since it's been actually a while since she had visions of her. He has that moment with Karen and they come back. I'm not saying the two things are necessarily connected, but I'm #noticing anyway.
"You'd rather be dead than feeling?"
At the end of episode 11 Madani and Frank finally meet up to talk. Micro can't believe he called her and Dinah adds that neither can she. I wonder if that was also something of Karen's doing that happened off screen. Guess we'll never know.
Frank officially introduces himself as himself to Leo and the kid tells him "He's a lot scarier than Pete" and he agrees. I think this makes a point to what will be his brief fling with Beth in S2.
I was also thinking that it's good that Billy never got to truly understand the nature of the bond between Karen and Frank otherwise he would have totally used her to get to him (if there's a fanfiction about that let me know).
Billy telling him that all the people around Frank are dead because of him must have stuck in his brain for a long time.
I wonder if Karen got actually to be informed about what happened they last saw each other in the elevator. Season 1 concludes with Frank being a "free" man even though we really don't know what free exactly means to him.
Season 1 ends with Frank saying that it's the first time he doesn't have to live with a war to fight and he's scared.
Now, onto season 2.
I gotta say I was pretty disappointed to learn Karen had a very small role in it. It feels to me that she needed to be more pivotal seeing how they've built their worlds colliding. I don't know if it was due to some external motives like perhaps Deborah Ann Woll's schedule was too busy and they couldn't find more than an episode to squeeze her in? I'm not sure what it was. I don't know how Kastle shippers survived back then but I admire your endurance! We are surviving just like Frank and Karen in their fucked up world!
There are however some crucial scenes to discuss.
In episode 1 Frank meets Beth, who's working in a bar. Some drunk guys tries to make pretty aggressive advances on her and Frank defends her from him by punching him. Beth asks Frank his name and he uses his fake name from s1: Pete.
It's a Frank a bit different from the one we've seen in s1. A lot less troubled I would say. Maybe not entirely at peace, but definitely in a more calmer state of mind.
Frank and Beth flirt at the bar and then she invites him for a drink at her place. While talking he discovers she has an 8 year old kid named Rex. Beth thinks it might bother him but I think it's actually what interests him more about her. She also asks Frank if she has someone waiting outside the porch for him and Frank replies that he wouldn't be there if there was (a loyal man!). Anyway that's a lie cause you know damn well Karen's waiting---
Frank and Beth end up hooking up. I think it's important to mention cause I've seen around a lot of discourse on how Frank's pained by the guilt of loving another woman after his wife but he seems to have no problem having intercourse with one. Granted, it is different. You can have sex with no feelings and Frank had been severely touch starved at that point. But Karen for Frank has never been a matter of lust. I don't think Frank would ever have sex with Karen just because. If it were with her, I believe it'd come from a place of love.
Despite him being honest with Beth about losing his wife and kids being with her is definitely easier cause it's someone who doesnt know every part of him. It's someone who doesn't know him as the Punisher.
Karen knows every part of him. She knows the man and she knows the killing machine. And even if he wasn't open with her, Karen would still read his mind like a book.
And now for the most clown moment Frank Castle has ever been in his life I present to you:
Talking about Karen with another woman in bed after sex!!! Round of applause for the smartest clown in the circus!
"I had this friend, said that we're all lonely. And all life is, is just trying not to be." Those words really stuck with you uh Frank?
He has the audacity to smile like this while talking about her who do you think you're fooling mr Castle?
Oh Karen Page...you're always on his mind...your power.
Beth immediately clocks him. "It was a woman who told you that wasn't it?" "Yeah it was."
Holy yearning, somebody save him.
Even Beth looks shortly at his expression after realizing he's gone silent lol.
Frank tells her he doesn't feel lonely in that moment. I think it's probably one of the first times he considers he can have a peaceful life with someone else. To the point he recklessly confesses to her that his name is actually Frank, not Pete and that he did some stuff he just need to be Pete for and doesn't offer any other explanation. What matters to him right now is not the past, but that said past doesn't come to her front door and he promises her they won't.
I don't think Frank was in love with her or anything of the sort (I mean how could he be, they had just met) but he was in love with the idea of starting a new life with a woman who already had a kid on her own. In his mind this was probably the best chance he can get at having some illusion of a happy family again. But how much could have that last with someone who had no 180 of the real him?
"Guess you gotta take the good when it comes right?" Well...that's what he's doing I'm afraid. Maybe in some sick twisted way, he's doing what Karen wanted for him: to not be alone.
Frank is about to leave Beth's house when he meets her son and the 3 of them go get pancakes. I think this also solidifies Frank's desire to have what he's currently lacking: which makes him go back to the bar the night after.
Frank helps Amy get rid of the people going after her and that causes a whole brawl at the bar and Beth ends up shot because of it. No matter how hard he tries troubles follow Frank around. He also loses his wedding ring in the process.
At this point he jumps right into punisher mode again.
In episode 4 Curtis tells him that not caring about anybody, running away from all kinds of feelings, worrying about nobody but himself is miserable, but it's easy. It can be applied to Karen too.
In episode 7 Curtis tells him:
"You hate standing still, that's why you always look for a fight Frank." [...] Most people are just looking for a place to be happy to stand still in. Someone to do it with."
Frank replies that he had that but that now it's gone.
"So you deny yourself another shot at it?" (and the person who offers him that is Karen big sigh. It's heartbreaking when I think about it cause she probably thought she would have managed to convince him somehow, that her love was stronger than the mess in his head. Frank doesn't believe it and makes the mistake he'll regret for the rest of his life).
Episode 7: Frank tells Curtis about Beth and how she wanted to help his kid but then she got shot and everything went downhill. To me he is quite over romanticizing what happened with Beth cause like....he knew her for two days. He just wanted a safe place to stay and hide from himself. At end of the day, the punisher is also part of Frank as much as his humanity, and he can't really escape from that either. He can instead find a purpose and use his abilities for good, which I believe is the point where we're at after OLK.
At the end of episode 10, Frank thinks he is the cause of death of three (innocent) women and this absolutely devastes him.
"I know how to break Castle. Take him away the idea that he's somehow better than you, that he's good."
And you know who made him believe in the fact that he's good? Exactly.
Finally in episode 11, Karen returns. She's at the hospital where Frank is staying, and she's trying to gain the access to see him. Of course my girl is smart and manages to gain access from the cop guarding the door.
"She's good. It's his lawyer."
Mind you, this is the first time she's seeing him since the elevator. It's gonna break me to talk about this scene. I'm so glad there's an "after" to comment on otherwise I'd be losing my mind, truly.
When Karen enters the room, she finds Frank sleeping. She sits at his side of the bed.
She's so worried for her man look at her.
Frank wakes up and hears Karen's voice asking him how he's feeling. What gets me is that he can't even bare to look at her face. She tells him that something about this feels kind of familiar (a callback of course to their fist meeting) and that she's been watching the news and assumes this has something to do with Billy Russo.
Karen keeps asking him questions but Frank doesn't reply nor looks at her. He simply says: "You should walk away."
The stunt Russo pulled took an intense toll on him mentally. How can he look at Karen in the face, the person who more than anyone else has always believed in his goodness, if he thinks he made such an impure action that did not respect the "code of honor" Karen has always been vehemently insisting on since she met him? Why should Karen even be there by his side?
"You think you can scare me off that easy? You know better than that. Besides I don't really think you want me to go." I love that he slightly reacts when she says the last part. (This reminded me so much when in Born Again Karen tells him "I don't believe you don't care.").
Truly though. She's been by his side when all of NY thought he was a cold-blooded murder. That's not gonna do anything on her.
"It's a tough situation. It's nothing we haven't dealt with before. We just have to figure out what to do about it." It's always been a we for her and it's so sweet when I think about it. There is no trouble Karen Page would not help Frank Castle with and viceversa.
Frank finally confesses what has damaged him. He says he killed three women. Karen offers his help.
"You're not gonna fix this. Okay?"
"It doesn't matter what you did. It doesn't change of I feel about you."
"It should."
"It doesn't."
The desperation in her voice pains me so much. I think she was trying to reassure him that she could never stop seeing him as a good person, no matter what he believes in his head. Obviously Karen doesn't know the contest of the killing but she knows in heart that it wasn't intentional on his part, especially cause she above all can have the privilege to say she knows Frank well.
Frank has a nightmare about Maria and the kids and wakes up abruptly. Karen is still by his side, listening to him talk about how he had finally decided that he was gonna stay home and be with his family, just right before the tragedy happened.
I like how he's still resisting the urge to look at her, but not her touch. It's another one of those moments where Kastle has the ability to convey a very intimate moment without actually kissing and once again, they're more romantic than a kiss is.
When he talks about wanting to hold onto the laughters even in his dreams, it made me think so much about his halluctionation of Karen in OLK. I mean the parallel there serves a very specific purpose already but...yeah this is to say that if Frank really loves he's gonna hallucinate you at some point I don't know!
Anyway thats not the focus here. He basically compares what happened to his family to the lives of those women he took. Karen reassures him that he couldn't have known.
"Right there I would have killed anything that got in my way. You know what it means right? That now I'm the monster." The fact that he's telling this to Karen that fought so much for him to never been addressed that way. In a way, I do think he thinks he failed her. That he let her down, so why Karen should be at her side still?
Heck Karen getting the fuck away from him would probably be one of his biggest punishments. He concludes saying he deserves to die which makes Karen tear up and squeeze his hand even more.
I love that first he looks at her and then down at their intertwined hands.
I wish I could find the gif of this moment cause they're literally stroking each other's fingers tenderly. Again, intimacy that goes way overboard without it being with a kiss.
Amy enters the room and looks like she just caught two lovers having their little private moment fdjgnkjdf
Karen and Amy introduce themselves to each other (kinda? I think they're both trying to figure out the role they play respectively in Frank's life lol)
Karen's even passive aggressive to her kdgnkdf "They need protection from every hitman in NY or so she says whoever she is."
Amy asks both Karen and Dinah for help to get Frank out of the hospital. Meanhile Russo calls Dinah threatening her and Frank's safety.
Karen especially is so tense while hearing Billy's threats.
Outside the hospital Dinah and Karen are talking about the women that Frank supposedly kill. Karen insists that if there is even a slight chance that he didn't do it they need to check that out and offers to help her get in the morgue to check the bodies.
By examining the victims, they find out that the shots that actually killed were taken only a few feet away from them, Karen is relieved to know this means Frank did not in fact kill them.
A fake cop tries to kill Frank, Amy stops him and then also Dinah and Karen come to the rescue. Karen tells Frank that she did not kill the women, everything was a set up.
"You're not a monster. You never were."
Frank asks to be freed from the cuffs so he can go take care of the fake cop. Karen tries to tell him that they need a plan before acting everything out and ends up yelling at him to listen to her. Frank asks Madani and Amy to leave them alone for a bit.
"Can I ask you something? That Matt Murdock...does he know you're here?"
Karen doesn't respond.
"Yeah that's what I thought."
"What does that have to do with this?"
"Come on Karen, he is good. Don't throw that away from me."
I truly believe he's lying about Matt being good for her fgknfkd I feel like he's more saying so cause he wants her to find happiness far away from him and never been involved with risking her life ever again, but what he fails to realize is that, at that point, Karen doesn't care. She has made her choice. She accepts Frank how he is. Frank instead, made the choice for her.
While Karen is unlocking the handcuffs he asks her to walk way (even though he looks like a kicked puppy in the process). Hello Frank it's me from the future and you're sooooo gonna regret this.
"Come on, Karen. Look, I know you. You're brave. You're strong, but you're so goddamn stubborn and you will throw everything away for me and I cannot let that happen." Well looking at her right now....she isn't much happier Frank isn't she? I wish you knew!
"So it's okay for them to risk everything but not me?"
Karen makes a good point. Frank's point is that Dinah's lost as much as he is and Amy needs him to stay alive. In his head, Karen doesn't. Karen is much better off and happier without him ruining her life and bringing her to her dark side. I also believe is that he cannot live with the idea of losing Karen. It's not something he tells her directly but we know it's at the core of his train of thought.
"What if there's a better way? What if you and I figure it out together?"
And there it is. Karen offering him a chance of a better life, with her.
"There's no cozy ending, not for me."
"You cannot keep loving people in your dreams!" Oh Karen...if only you knew now what his dreams consists of...
"There's no light at the end of the road Karen."
"There could be if you let it."
"You could choose to love someone else instead of another war." My poor girl was in trenches omfg.
"I don't want to."
Frank tells Karen that he's gonna kill all the people that go after Amy and if she really wants to be apart of all of that.
"Karen I can't tell how much it means to me that you came here. You sat with me."
I always appreciate when his soft side comes out because of Karen. Cause after all, we're not talking about a man who’s taking the decision of keeping Karen away from him wholeheartedly . This is a man who couldn't even hold her gaze when thinking he failed her a good person. This is a man who’s broken and hurt by said decision but cannot bring himself to be happy with her when there's so many other things he has to deal with. Once again his self sabotaging part really plays out. He didn't think he was good enough for her. He doesn't think she should throw away her entire life to adapt to his lifestyle. It's so tragically beautiful. Also I know man regrets everything he ever said in that hospital room so I'm good with him suffering for a bit.
"So make it mean something."
"I gotta walk out of here and you can't do it with me."
Had not Amy interrupted here they were so gonna kiss. Was it gonna be the goodbye kiss he didn't get to give her in the elevator room? Probably. In a way it means that this time, he was ready to give in. And maybe who knows, that kiss could have been a goodbye and a promise.
I love that Kastle circles a lot around the "almost" of it all. The kisses that almost happened, the suggestion of being happy that almost happened, the almost making up with a cup of coffee. I love it cause it tells that their story isn't over. It never was. Cause there's so much stuff they're not telling each other, they're both still haunting each other and so on. And that's what makes it so compelling to watch.
Amy jokes: "You guys are the cutest. I'm almost jealous. But do you mind if we continue this heart to heart once we're outta here?"
The face of a man who knows he fucked up big time.
Before leaving, Karen makes her last good deed to help Frank by activating the fire alarm, allowing him to escape.
We then find out that the favor the morgue guy asked Karen were her shoes. Mahoney asks her what happened to them.
"Gave them away for a worthy cause."
Cause Frank has always been her worthy cause, since the beginning. Nobody else saw the light in him like she did.
"Good luck, Frank." while he can't hear her gave me such "Stay safe." in Born Again vibes. ughhhh why they gotta be like this.
I think the difference in the pain of letting her go can also be seen in the way he's happy that Amy gets to have a new life for example. He would be happy for Karen too, but a lot more in pain. And he literally gives her the speech Karen was trying to give him. Moving on with her life, leaving that life in the past. He can wish happiness for others, never for himself.
"Sometimes you find things and they change your life." I wonder if that could apply to Karen too, who knows.
And that concludes Kastle's journey in the Punisher series. It's been one hell of a ride, but I cannot wait to talk about the next and final segment, which is the MCU part and I cannot wait. Stay tuned!! This took me the whole night to write I'm not even kidding lol
