Two Dead Men

"Once upon a time, in the middle of the night, two dead men, they got up to fight."

- Frank Castle

Two Dead Men is the second episode of the first season of the television series The Punisher.

Synopsis
A mysterious phone call force Frank's hand. Meanwhile, Madani goes digging for suspects and Curtis delivers a message.

Plot
In a flashback, Frank Castle takes his son and daughter on a ferry trip past the Statue of Liberty.

Frank goes to a diner where he orders food and reads a story about his massacre of the Gnuccis, written by Karen Page. While there, the waitress tells Frank there is a phone call for him. Surprised and suspicious, he takes the call. The caller claims to be another ghost and asks if Frank got the disc he left for him. While talking, Frank notices a flash of light from the rooftop opposite. After the call, Frank leaves the diner then races to the rooftop to confront the caller. Reaching the roof, Frank finds a flashlight pointing at a mirror. A cell phone hangs from the mirror with a note saying "Don't disappoint me." Frank looks across to the diner and sees the caller on the roof before he leaves.

Back in his apartment, Frank watches the Micro disc. The contents of the disc disturb and anger him – it is a recording of an incident in Afghanistan where he was part of Operation Cerberus and shows the murder of Ahmad Zubair. Frank visits Curtis Hoyle; only a few people know that Frank is alive and he needs to be sure that they have no divulged the information. He also wonders how Micro found him.

At the United States Department of Homeland Security, Dinah Madani tells Sam Stein that she received a recording of Zubair's murder, but that the evidence was stolen. She is of the belief that Colonel Ray Schoonover and Frank Castle are in the video, but since they are (to her knowledge) dead, she wants to talk to Billy Russo who served with Frank in Afghanistan. Russo now runs a private military company, Anvil. She convinces her superior, Carson Wolf, to schedule a tactical training exercise to bond with the team.

Frank goes to meet Karen Page to make sure that she has not told anyone about his survival, disguising himself as a homeless man. Karen takes him to her apartment and they talk, with Frank convincing Karen to help him find out who this "Micro" is. Karen starts digging through the archives at the New York Bulletin and finds reference to a "Micro" but no story attached to it. Questioning Mitchell Ellison, she finds out that Micro was an NSA analyst who was leaking classified information. However, no one could corroborate the story and it was dropped completely when Carson Wolf asked them not to as doing so would endanger an ongoing investigation.

Micro watches his family while in his hideout, looking at them through secretly placed security cameras.

At Anvil, Dinah and Sam go through the tactical exercise. Following the operation, Dinah meets with Russo and begins to question him. Carson Wolf stops her, but Russo invites her to join him for a drink.

Karen meets with Frank having got the information he needs. However, before she gives the name to Frank, she wants to know what he intends to do. Frank promises that if Micro proves to be no threat to him, then he will not kill him. Karen provides his name – David Lieberman. According to records, Lieberman was killed by Homeland Security while resisting arrest.

Frank heads to the Lieberman household, where he engineers being hit by Sarah Lieberman's car. Sarah takes him into her house to treat his injury and they start to take over their deceased family members. Micro watches on his computer and panics, calling Frank on the phone he left him. Frank deactivates the phone, causing Micro to head over to the house. However, he does not confront Frank.

Frank shaves his beard and hair, and when he leaves his apartment he changes his walk to throw off gait recognition software. Heading to Carson Wolf's home, he attacks him and knocks him unconscious. When Wolf comes to, he is tied to a chair and Frank begins to torture and interrogate him about Lieberman's whereabouts. Wolf insists that torture will not work; Frank shoots him in the leg. During the torture, Wolf manages to free himself and grabs Frank's gun. While holding Frank at gunpoint, Wolf reveals some information about why Frank's family was killed then pulls the trigger. However, Frank knew that torture would not work so had made sure the gun was unloaded. Wolf revealed the information with duress and then Frank kills him.

Dinah and Russo drink at a bar, and their conversation turns to Frank and their time in Afghanistan. Halfway through, Dinah receives a call to attend to Carson Wolf crime scene. When she arrives, Sam tells her that with Wolf dead, she is the ranking agent.

Reactivating the phone, Frank is contacted by Micro. Frank, now with leverage, arranges a meeting. He sends Micro to a location, then calls him to send him to another location, and so on to ensure that he is not followed. The final stop is the cemetery when Lieberman is "buried." However, Frank has enlisted Curtis to meet Micro. Curtis tells him that Frank has rethought the entire situation and does not want to meet. Furthermore, if Micro tries to contact him again, then Frank will visit Sarah again.

Despondent, Micro returns to his hideout. However, it was a ruse – Frank used Curtis' distraction to sneak into the trunk of Micro's car. Frank gets out and punches Micro.

Cast
Main Cast:
 * Jon Bernthal as Frank Castle/Punisher
 * Ebon Moss-Bachrach as David Lieberman/Micro
 * Ben Barnes as Billy Russo
 * Amber Rose Revah as Dinah Madani
 * Paul Schulze as William Rawlins
 * Jason R. Moore as Curtis Hoyle
 * Michael Nathanson as Sam Stein
 * Jaime Ray Newman as Sarah Lieberman
 * Deborah Ann Woll as Karen Page

Guest Stars:
 * C. Thomas Howell as Carson Wolf
 * Geoffrey Cantor as Mitchell Ellison
 * Ripley Sobo as Leo Lieberman
 * Kobi Frumer as Zach Lieberman
 * Kelli Barrett as Maria Castle
 * Nicolette Pierini as Lisa Castle
 * Aidan Pierce Brennan as Frank Castle, Jr.
 * Shezi Sardar as Ahmad Zubair
 * Jeb Kreager as Gunner Henderson
 * Darlene Violette as Waitress
 * Bill Walters as Flophouse Background (uncredited)

Locations

 * New York City, New York
 * Graniteville Diner
 * Micro's Hideout
 * Karen Page's Apartment
 * Lieberman Residence
 * Carson Wolf's Residence
 * Pete's Diner
 * Mount Zion Cemetery
 * Grill in Sunnyside (mentioned)
 * Central Park (mentioned)
 * Kandahar, Afghanistan (video footage)
 * Bagram, Afghanistan (mentioned)
 * Basra, Afghanistan (mentioned)
 * Iraq (mentioned)
 * , Cuba (mentioned)
 * , Cuba (mentioned)

Events

 * Attack on Carson Wolf
 * Chase of Micro
 * (mentioned)
 * Duel of Harlem (newspaper)
 * Battle of New York (newspaper)

Items
To be added

Vehicles
To be added

Organizations

 * New York Bulletin
 * United States Department of Homeland Security
 * Anvil
 * Gnucci Crime Family (newspaper)
 * NSA (mentioned)
 * CIA (footage, mentioned)
 * United States Marine Corps (flashback)

Mentioned

 * Ray Schoonover

Trivia

 * The diner that Frank is eating breakfast at the start of the episode, is the same diner that is seen in Goodfellas. In that film, it is used for the meeting between Ray Liotta and Robert DeNiro, when DeNiro's character finds out that Joe Pesci had been killed.
 * When Frank is seen lying on his bed reading 'The Crack-Up' by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the camera shortly afterwards zooms in on the alarm clock - showing it's 03:00 AM. This is a visual quote of the books "...in a real dark night of the soul it is always three o'clock in the morning, day after day".
 * The poem that Frank recites at the beginning of the episode is an example of nonsense poetry and is a variation on an Old English poem called "Two Dead Boys."