Marvel's The Punisher Season 2 Review: 6 Ups & 4 Downs

3. Ben Barnes Is Too Stupidly Handsome (And Other Jigsaw Problems)

It's not Ben Barnes' looks per se that are the problem - although he is handsome in an annoying kind of way - but rather in how people seem to ignore how obviously handsome he is. The producers have decided not to go all the way with Jigsaw's comic book appearance, giving Billy Russo more mental and emotional scars than physical ones.

That's an interesting idea in theory, but it doesn't work in practice when Russo is so driven, in part, by the ridicule he suffers because of his appearance. The man has a couple of scars on his face, and is still preposterously good looking, so it's quite absurd to have various random characters making fun of how he looks, telling him that he ain't so pretty anymore when he quite clearly is.

That's just one part of the problem with Jigsaw though. Barnes does a great job at convincing us of this tortured soul who doesn't have his memories, but with that the story of him and Frank often falls into just repeating so much of what we dealt with in Season 1, only this time it's Billy in the dark rather than Frank. That, in turn, means his arc as a whole doesn't quite work. There are still some great moments with the character, but we don't quite get the same clash that the end of Season 1 hinted at.