'The Punisher' Introduces A New Badass Woman & Here's What You Should Know About Her
The Punisher is introducing a bunch of new characters into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and perhaps the most interesting is the tenacious Homeland Security agent Dinah Madani, played with steely resolve by Amber Rose Revah. The character is a main player in the new series, but stands out from the rest of the main cast in that she is completely new to the Marvel universe, having never appeared in the comic books before. So who is Dinah Madani in The Punisher? Let's get into the exciting character.
We first meet Dinah in the pilot episode of the new series — she has returned from a stint in Afghanistan to pursue an investigation into a potentially huge military cover-up in New York City. Immediately, this seems to set up how she may cross paths with The Punisher's title character, given Frank Castle's background as a Marine sniper who served in Afghanistan. Dinah doesn't receive a warm reception in New York, as her senior officer quickly transitions his "Welcome to your new office" speech into an ominous warning that she not pursue her investigation into the military cover-up. But she does seem to get one new ally in her move, as her newly assigned Homeland Security partner Sam Stein assures her that he is eager to help out... if she's willing to accept his help, that is. She seems to share Punisher's distaste for relying on others, opting instead to set out as a lone wolf in general.
Dinah's relationship with her family is another major part of her character. Now that she is back in New York, she is living in her mother's luxurious Manhattan penthouse, but fancy amenities aside, it does not seem to be an ideal living situation for Dinah. Her mother Farah is a professional therapist, a profession that we've seen given to especially prying TV moms for decades to further magnify their insistence on advising their children. Right when we meet her, Farah is both psychoanalyzing and mom-ing her daughter hard, basically telling her to back off of the case for her own safety (along with a quick jab about her drinking habits).
But most importantly, let's talk about what exactly this mysterious, dangerous case is that Dinah is dead-set on investigating. Of course, the case heavily involves the Punisher himself, Frank Castle, although it actually takes a while for Dinah and Castle to meet in the series. The Homeland Security agent definitely knows who Castle is, though, having obtained video taken from Afghanistan that she believes to be the former Marine shooting and killing an innocent man.
She seems to be onto the fact that Castle was part of an underground subsect of the U.S. military called the Cerberus Project, which was put together in Afghanistan by a particularly amoral general named Rawlins and was encouraged to torture and kill civilians without due process or remorse. It was this training that helped Castle actually become the Punisher after he returned to the United States, but it was also the catalyst for the traumatic murder of his wife and two children. Dinah probably doesn't assume that Castle shares her mission of taking down Rawlins once and for all at first, so hopefully they can meet and clear that up as the series progresses. Then again, neither Dinah nor Castle seems that open to communication.
What makes the character of Dinah really exciting for diehard Marvel fans, though, is that we have no clue what the future holds for her. Comic book readers already have some idea about what is in store for the Punisher, Micro, Billy Russo, and Rawlins, but since Dinah was freshly created for the new show, her story can really go anywhere. Will she wind up dead, or maybe develop superpowers of her own? Who knows!
