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Frank Castle has hit rock bottom. He has already wiped out the Gnucci crime family and lives in an apartment in Little Sicily, New York, surrounded by photos of targets crossed out with red X's. He gets by on pills and booze and sees ghosts: his wife, his kids, his old friend Curtis Hoyle, and Karen Page show up and talk to him. At his family's graves, Frank considers taking his own life, but a vision of his daughter, Lisa, stops him.
Frank tries to walk away from the war. He tears down his wall of targets, locks up his guns, and starts walking the neighborhood like an ordinary guy. But the streets are worse. The news says crime in Little Sicily has gone up ever since the Gnuccis fell, because the power vacuum drew in other criminals. In his building and around the block, Frank lives alongside regular people, like Dre, a shop owner, his wife, and their little daughter, Charli.
Then Ma Gnucci shows up, the surviving matriarch who lost her husband and three sons to the Punisher. She confronts Frank and tells him she has put a bounty on his head. Every criminal in the city will strike at 6:47 p.m., the exact time he killed her youngest son. When the clock hits it, the building becomes a war zone. Frank, out of uniform and half falling apart, fights dozens of killers hallway by hallway, to the sound of "La Vie en rose," and escapes across the roof.
At the decisive moment, Frank has two choices: go after Ma Gnucci or protect the neighbors caught in the crossfire. He picks Dre and his family and gets all three out alive. That lets Ma Gnucci slip away. After the shootout, Charli gives Frank a paper rose, and he leaves it on his daughter's grave.
That small gesture gives Frank a purpose again. He takes back his guns, suits up in a new Punisher outfit, and returns to the streets with a different focus: protecting innocent people from those who prey on them. The last scene shows Frank executing a criminal who was attacking a homeless veteran. Ma Gnucci is still alive and free, a score left for later.