The first season of the American streaming television series The Punisher, which is based on the Marvel Comics character of the same name, sees Frank Castle uncover a conspiracy while seeking revenge for the death of his family.

The season was produced by Marvel Television in association with ABC Studios and Bohemian Risk Productions, with Steve Lightfoot serving as showrunner.

Jon Bernthal stars as Castle, alongside Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Ben Barnes, Amber Rose Revah, Daniel Webber, Paul Schulze, Jason R. Moore, Michael Nathanson, Jaime Ray Newman, and Deborah Ann Woll.

The season explores post-traumatic stress disorder for military veterans, and depicts "all sides" of the United States gun control debate.

The season premiered in New York City on November 6, 2017, with the full season of thirteen episodes released on November 17 on Netflix, and received mixed to positive reviews, with Bernthal's performance, action sequences and improvements to its source material from the previous films gaining praise, but criticism towards its pacing and amount of violence.

[1] By January 2016, ahead of the Daredevil season two release, Netflix was in "very early development" on a spin-off series titled The Punisher, and was looking for a showrunner.

[18][19][20] That April, Netflix officially ordered a full 13-episode season of The Punisher, confirmed Bernthal's involvement, and named Steve Lightfoot as executive producer and showrunner.

The Punisher begins with a teaser featuring Castle killing the gang members that he believes are responsible for his family's death, which is a conclusion to the character's story in Daredevil.

Carrying this over to The Punisher, Lightfoot saw in Castle the idea of "a man whose family was taken from him at a young age" and that a series focused on him should be an exploration of his grief and how he responds to it.

Rather than show the "beautiful" scenes of horror that were created for Hannibal, Lightfoot wanted to follow the lead of the character's fight scenes in Daredevil by not shying away from the cost of the actual actions, feeling that showing the brutal reality of Castle's actions would better convey to the audience that "This stuff hurts, and it's not OK" rather than glossing over the violence which he felt would have been worse.

Noting that a vocal community of United States soldiers and veterans were fans of the Punisher character, Lightfoot and Bernthal ensured that the series was always respectful of the military and law enforcement despite Castle's actions being generally criminal; Lightfoot said it was an "interesting thing to be respectful of the police and at the same time, the character is beyond the law."

[23] The main cast for the season includes Jon Bernthal as Frank Castle / Punisher,[2] Ebon Moss-Bachrach as David Lieberman / Micro,[3][4] Ben Barnes as Billy Russo, Amber Rose Revah as Dinah Madani,[3] Daniel Webber as Lewis Wilson,[5][6] Paul Schulze as William Rawlins, Jason R. Moore as Curtis Hoyle, Michael Nathanson as Sam Stein, Jaime Ray Newman as Sarah Lieberman,[5] and Deborah Ann Woll as Karen Page.

[2][7] In August 2017, Shohreh Aghdashloo was revealed to be portraying Farah Madani, Dinah's mother, in a recurring role for the season.

[14] Rob Morgan and Royce Johnson reprise their roles from previous Marvel Netflix series as Turk Barrett and Brett Mahoney, respectively.

[16][17] Geoffrey Cantor and Clancy Brown reprise their respective Daredevil roles as Mitchell Ellison and Ray Schoonover.

[30] Locations for the production included Greenpoint, Brooklyn,[31] the Williamsburg Bridge, Columbus Circle and Central Park West, Cortlandt Alley, Circle Line Downtown cruises, the Manhattan Family Court building, Long Island City, Grand Ferry Park in South Williamsburg, Brooklyn, Sunnyside, Queens, Pulaski Bridge, the Roosevelt Island and its steam plant, the Bronx County Courthouse, Newtown Creek, The Roosevelt Hotel, Astoria Park, Tudor City, Hunts Point, Bronx, the Forest Park Carousel, the Bronx–Whitestone Bridge,[32] the "GoodFellas Diner" before it was damaged in a 2018 fire and the Mount Zion Cemetery, both in Maspeth, Queens,[33][32] and in Astoria, Queens.

[37] As an example of the work Fuse did during fight sequences, Anderson discussed the scene where Russo and his men attack Micro's basement.

On this style, Bates said, "The rough edges and broken nature of [music like this] leaves a great deal of space for emotion and interesting color—and a bit of an attitude.

Ashley felt the inclusion of "One" by Metallica in the trailer "helps paint Frank as a badass unlike any we've seen on the Marvel Netflix shows so far.

[50] Bernthal and other members of the cast were scheduled to appear at New York Comic Con 2017 to promote the season,[51] but the panel was cancelled after the 2017 Las Vegas Strip shooting.

Tom Philip at GQ was not very enthused with the trailer, saying it was "hard to get super jazzed about another gritty, ultra-violent, gun-loving, non-superhero show right now."

Philip also felt the addition of Moss-Bachrach was "curious", and said "at least [the series is] a swing for the fences from a TV studio that tends to play it astoundingly safe.

[3] In early September 2017, Dominic Patten and Denise Petski of Deadline Hollywood commented on the lack of specific release date for the season at the time, calling it "an unusual" and "rare move for Marvel and Netflix, who usually give a lot of lead-up to the launch" of their high-profile series.

[60] Polygon's Susana Polo felt Marvel and Netflix would announce the date at their scheduled New York Comic Con 2017 panel in October, as the convention had been used in previous years to reveal "breaking fall Marvel/Netflix news".

[62] However, Marvel and Netflix decided to delay the release of the season to later in 2017 following the Las Vegas shooting and subsequent cancelling of the panel.

Bernthal hoped that these two shootings and the release of the season would together help further the discussion on gun violence, with "all sides of this debate" represented in The Punisher.

The site's critical consensus reads, "A rocky start can't keep The Punisher from pushing the boundaries of Marvel's TV universe with a fresh take on the comics-derived action thriller.

"[73] The New York Times said that although the action picks up later in the first season, the slow pace made it less pulpy and more of a procedural thriller with a moody and psychological approach, particularly for its focus on PTSD.

[75] Vanity Fair wrote a less positive review, saying the show was as "psychologically confused as its antihero," as the writers had Castle target people for questionable reasons but portrayed him as justified.