It continues to be indisputably enamoring how Jon Bernthal’s Frank Castle and Deborah Ann Woll’s Karen Page waltz into a scene and immediately steal the show. It continues to be so stunning how, despite the fact that I’m a Matt Murdock girl through and through, Kastle is the romantic relationship that has my heart’s full, undivided attention.
And after the Daredevil: Born Again Season 1 finale, there’s no denying the fact that Frank Castle is (soft) for one woman. You can’t make up stuff like this when their dialogue is the literal representation of the “you came”/”you called” micro-trope romance fans rightfully adore. There is quite literally nothing this man wouldn’t do for Karen Page. If she asked him to jump, he’d say, “How high?” If she asked him to crawl, he’d probably do that, too. (Hey Siri, play “Do I Wanna Know?” by Arctic Monkeys.)
Bernthal and Woll are such dynamic scene partners that even while they aren’t actively interacting within a frame, there’s still a mountain of tension building between Frank and Karen. Battered, bloodied, and bruised, but he pauses to consider making her coffee. When she politely rejects it, he’s visibly upset by it. He verbally tells us that he’s here fighting alongside Matt because she asked him for a favor. It’s the type of domestic stuff fan fiction is brimming with, and yet it’s so wild how the Daredevil: Born Again Season 1 finale plays with it so casually.
And it’s there because Frank Castle’s softness matters when we’re watching a scene where he’s the ruthless Punisher. His humanity could easily fall through the cracks, never to be seen again, if it weren’t for the profound hold Karen Page has on his heart. It isn’t hyperbolic to say she’s his literal beating heart at this point, and he doesn’t ever have to say those words aloud because we know that she’s the only person who’s given him a modicum of hope since his family was killed. She’s the last remaining bit of joy and hope Frank clings to.
The riveting thing is that it doesn’t even matter that they aren’t always in the same space. It’s gripping to know that so much of Frank’s humanity is grounded in the respect he has for Karen. The man shaved. Like, do we really need a deep analysis here to tell us what his actions are screaming? We don’t because it’s all there in the subtext. It’s in the way he looks at her. It’s the fact that we know he doesn’t look at anyone else like this.
Frank Castle and Karen Page might not get together on our screens, but there’s no rebutting the truth that they’re perpetually linked. There’s a spot in both of their hearts that’s reserved solely for the other person, and it’s a spot that’s sealed with an innate tenderness. This is particularly the case with Frank because no one else can give him a safe space not to yell every time he talks. No one else inspires him to be still and steady. But Karen does, and she does so without even trying. She does so because of her own heart and her goodness, which inspires Frank to try a little harder for her whenever the opportunity presents itself.
Daredevil: Born Again Season 1 is now streaming on Disney+
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