Crime
The Punisher: One Last Kill
Disney+’s ‘The Punisher: One Last Kill’ is as unforgiving as its hero. Indeed, it’s the bloodiest, most graphic MCU product we’ve seen.
It was supposed to be a fun mother-daughter trip.
When Orna Levy arrived in India to visit her 23-year-old daughter, Gali, she was excited to spend some quality time together. Even Gali seemed excited by the prospect.
Everything seemed to be going to plan—until the women’s layover in Russia on their way home to Israel.
As they’re boarding their flight, airport security guards apprehend the women. Orna and Gali are separated, taken to separate interrogation rooms. A few hours later, Orna is released. Gali is not.
They found drugs in her bag, the guards tell Orna. She’s been arrested.
Orna doesn’t buy it for a second. Gali doesn’t even smoke cigarettes, let alone do drugs. She’s a good girl. She always looks for ways to help others. She volunteers as a tutor. She extended her military service past the minimum requirement. She helps her mom take care of her father, who suffers from Alzheimer’s. There’s simply no way Gali could have done what they say.
But as Russian authorities refuse to release Gali, to disclose her location, to provide the evidence against her, refuse even visitation rights from her lawyer, Orna grows increasingly worried.
She starts searching for proof of Gali’s innocence, but her investigation is uncovering things about Gali that she can’t explain. For instance, why did Gali warn Orna not to eat or drink anything provided during their interrogation? Orna later learns from a lawyer that the Russian police sometimes drug refreshments in order to get a positive drug test to use in court later. But how would Gali have known that?
And then there’s the Polish passports sewn into a stuffed animal that Gali was carrying around. When Orna convinces a friend to use his government connections to look into the passports, they discover one of them belongs to a wanted man, considered armed and dangerous.
Was Gali involved with dangerous people? Was she smuggling drugs for them?
Orna doesn’t know what to do. She’s been advised by her own government to keep the matter quiet, to let them secure Gali’s release behind closed doors.
But her motherly intuition tells her that if she doesn’t speak up—if she doesn’t get her countrymen invested in Gali’s unfair treatment—she’ll never see her daughter again. Or, at least, not for the next 18 years, which is the prison sentence being sought by Russian authorities.
Orna’s love for her daughter is unconditional, but she worries that getting Gali back may mean uncovering things she’d rather not know.
Apple TV+’s Unconditional certainly may remind viewers of similar stories they’ve read about in the news—stories about tourists who get detained as they’re traveling through Russia and wind up trapped in the country’s enigmatic criminal justice system.
But that’s purely coincidental, a placard tells us. This story has nothing to do with those.
Uh huh …
Well, likenesses aside, Unconditional certainly seems to have as many twists and turns as the prison system Gali’s being held in. The narrative unpacks the mystery behind Gali’s incarceration, which puts Orna in danger, involves a lot of violence and is at least tangentially related to drug trafficking.
The story also focuses on Orna and Gali’s relationship, which is being tested by Gali’s perhaps unfair treatment. But that’s just the thing: Is her imprisonment unfair? Or did Gali do exactly what the authorities say she did?
Whatever the answer may be, the show has some other content concerns as well: Orna’s husband, Benni, is suffering from Alzheimer’s, and we see the strain it puts on their relationship. Orna tries to keep Gali’s status secret from Benni because she doesn’t want to distress him, but he can tell she’s lying to him. Worse still, media outlets target the family when they catch Orna in a fib. Unaware of Benni’s condition, two radio hosts call and mock Benni during a live show, gravely frightening him. We also learn that Orna had an extramarital affair (as of Episode 2, it’s unclear if this occurred before or after Benni’s diagnosis), but that Benni is unaware because of his illness.
Add some foul language into the mix (this is a primarily Hebrew-language show with English subtitles) and Unconditional becomes a show that some families may say, “Under no conditions will we watch this.”
(Editor’s Note: Plugged In is rarely able to watch every episode of a given series for review. As such, there’s always a chance that you might see a problem that we didn’t. If you notice content that you feel should be included in our review, send us an email at letters@pluggedin.com, or contact us via Facebook or Instagram, and be sure to let us know the episode number, title and season so that we can check it out.)
When Gali gets arrested on drug trafficking charges during a layover in Russia, her mother, Orna, begins searching for a way to set Gali free.
Airport security guards escort Gali and Orna into interrogation rooms, scaring both women and causing them to miss their flight home. They release Orna several hours later, but they inform her that Gali has been sent to jail. When Orna refuses to leave until they tell her which jail, a female guard kicks the chair Orna is sitting on and grabs Orna roughly. A male guard separates the women, claiming his colleague has had a long day.
When Russian authorities refuse to disclose Gali’s location to her mother or lawyer, Orna hires a second lawyer who promises he can secure a visit. The man tells Orna to wear a revealing dress—presumably to entice the prison guards—and the guards indeed ogle Orna as they sneak her into the cell of a young woman who matches Gali’s description. Orna is visibly frightened during the experience, though she’s not harmed physically.
Gali’s treatment while incarcerated is less than stellar: Guards drag her into court and shove her into a cell. We hear that Gali is not permitted to have visitors, not even her lawyer. The prosecution refuses to provide evidence, but they seek an 18-year sentence. We hear that Gali was not provided with a Hebrew translator during her initial interrogation.
Many in the criminal justice system treat Orna with rudeness and disdain. An official at the Israeli Embassy scoffs when Orna insists that Gali is innocent. Orna lies to her husband about what’s happening to Gali because he has Alzheimer’s, and she doesn’t want to frighten or worry him.
Flashbacks show Gali and a heavily intoxicated Orna returning from a bar. Orna is confused by her own condition, since she allegedly only had a few drinks. Gali gets charged with organized drug smuggling, though Orna insists Gali never did drugs. We see some characters smoke cigarettes. A couple of women have wine with a meal. Someone describes an imprisoned young woman as a “junkie girl from the Middle East.” We hear that Russian police sometimes spike drinks with cocaine during interrogations in order to get positive drugs tests that they can later use in court.
Gali teasingly tricks her mom into looking at a guy who is “hot.” We see a man in a hostel wrapped in a towel.
A man draws stick a stick figure angel and devil. A lawyer pretends to be Gali’s public defender in order to trick Orna into signing a contract with him. (The real lawyer shows up and shoos him away before she signs anything.) Orna finds several Polish passports hidden in Gali’s things. There are jokes about food poisoning.
We hear two uses of the s-word, as well as uses of “b–ch,” “d–n” and “h—.”
Orna faints and collapses to the ground. A woman helps wake her, then takes her to get some food. Several people come to work during a national holiday to assist Orna with Gali’s case.
Emily studied film and writing when she was in college. And when she isn’t being way too competitive while playing board games, she enjoys food, sleep, and geeking out with her husband indulging in their “nerdoms,” which is the collective fan cultures of everything they love, such as Star Wars, Star Trek, Stargate and Lord of the Rings.
Disney+’s ‘The Punisher: One Last Kill’ is as unforgiving as its hero. Indeed, it’s the bloodiest, most graphic MCU product we’ve seen.
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