Netflix's other Marvel shows like Daredevil and Jessica Jones, was surprisingly canceled in 2019, with many fans continuing to call for a renewal of some sort.
Season 1 of The Punisher not only chronicles Castle's transformation into the ruthless antihero the Punisher but also Russo's downfall into becoming Jigsaw. Former friends and colleagues, the Castle and Russo have several notable fights throughout the show, with the season 1 finale seeing Russo brutally earn his iconic Jigsaw scars when Bernthal's character grinds his face into broken glass. Season 2 ups the ante even further, with Jigsaw becoming more of a threat and adopting a creepy white mask. After a number of close calls, Jigsaw ultimately meets his end in The Punisher season 2 finale after Castle finally gets the upper hand and shoots him dead.
In an exclusive interview with Screen Rant, Ben Barnes reflects on his time playing Jigsaw on The Punisher and addresses the chances of his character's return in the MCU. While acknowledging that chances of a Jigsaw return are slim, Barnes' certainly isn't opposed to a comeback for the character in some form. Check out Barnes' full comment below:
"Yes, no, very sad that my character is, in of canon at least, dead, because I loved playing that character, I loved the lost little boy inside the raging psychopath Marine, brutal. Bigger universe, it would have been nice to come back and play him with an even more destroyed face, I think that would have been great fun. Charlie [Cox] is one of my oldest pals, and I know he's going to just flourish in his own show. But yeah, I did love playing that character, and I'm a big fan of that whole universe, I'm a big consumer of it. So yeah, maybe there's a way back in one day, who knows? Probably not as that character, he's very dead."
Could The Punisher Get An MCU Reboot Like Daredevil?
Daredevil was canceled around the same time as The Punisher, Jessica Jones, Iron Fist, and Luke Cage, and is so far the only hero to get an MCU reboot. Cox's hero has already appeared in Spider-Man: No Way Home and She-Hulk: Attorney at Law and is next slated to appear in Daredevil: Born Again, an 18-episode reboot series. While Daredevil has been able to integrate into the MCU relatively seamlessly, The Punisher's more extreme violence makes his MCU introduction much less likely. Speaking of a possible return as the character, Bernthal himself has stressed that future appearances would need to maintain a similarly dark and mature tone in order to do justice to the character for him to be interested.
It's still unclear just how violent Daredevil: Born Again will be compared to the TV-MA-rated Netflix show, but it's possible that the reboot could pave the way for a reboot of The Punisher as well. As Barnes explains, however, his character had quite a definitive ending in The Punisher, so the only real avenue for Jigsaw's return would be a complete cleaning of the slate. It seems relatively unlikely that Bernthal and the rest of the cast of The Punisher will return to the MCU at this stage, but Barnes' comment certainly suggests that it's not outside the realm of possibility.