The Punisher Season 2 featured some fantastic action sequences, with the show really ratcheting up the brutality in its sophomore season. One scene in particular that was quite impressive was an epic shootout in the finale between
Frank Castle (Jon Bernthal) and
John Pilgrim (Josh Stewart), with both characters completely destroying a pair of hotel rooms.
As viewers will no doubt recall, Pilgrim was occupying two rooms, having stolen one from his neighbor and taking possession of the drugs, alcohol and prostitutes inside. Speaking with
ComicBook.com, showrunner Steve Lightfoot described how the rooms were symbolic of the different lives Pilgrim had lived, with one representing his devotion to family and God and the other the sins of his past life.
When we were developing the scripts, we came to this idea that in a way Pilgrim, he stole the room from the guy nextdoor, it was full of drugs and booze, and the idea was that these two rooms became the warring sides of Pilgrim. There was the guy who used to be, that was a very tempting place to go back to, and then there was the one where he was now the family man who just wanted to get home.
Lightfoot referred to the rooms as "
almost the Jekyll room and the Hyde room," and stated that this theme of conflicting past and present lives also applies to Frank, noting that his murderous ways are also a result of trauma relating to his family. Therefore, they made sure to take the action to the hotel and have both Frank and Pilgrim moving between both rooms throughout the fight.
It was always this idea of mirroring, and then just having fun with the practicality of, you're in that room, I'm in this room, how do we swap, how do we change it up. So we wrote a version into the scripts, that, if you like, was driven by theme and where we'd gotten these guys to, and then let the stunt coordinator and the guys loose on it.
Lightfoot also revealed that the rooms were built as a set, enabling them to completely destroy them and allowing the stunt team to concoct the ultimate gun-blazing shootout between the Punisher and Pilgrim. The crew was even able to continue the action into the elevator as Frank incapacitates several cops that were responding to the shooting.
We had built those two rooms as sets, so we weren't in a real hotel, so we had carte blanche to do whatever we wanted with that location. So we wrote a version into the script, and then I said to the stunt guys, 'Look, just run with it. And then come back, show me what you've got.' And it came from them, refined it from there. We were shooting that sequence into the elevator, we were shooting that for quite a long time, that was a real labor of love.
Were you impressed by the hotel shootout between the Punisher and Pilgrim? Be sure to share your thoughts about this highlight of
The Punisher Season 2 below.