MARVEL'S LUKE CAGE - Season One - A TV Review

I'm back! I took a longer break than I'd anticipated, but you know what? It was needed and it was worth it, and now I'm back and ready to tackle the upcoming new seasons of comic book TV shows. Let's start off by dissecting the newest collaboration between Marvel and Netflix, Luke Cage!

Spoiler Warning - Oh, you bet your sweet ass this is gonna be chock full of spoilers, so consider yourself warned sucka!

It's been about what, ten months? Since 'Jessica Jones' dropped on Netflix and we were first introduced to Mike Colter's portrayal of Luke Cage. And what we saw was certainly promising - Colter's tough physicality and leading man looks definitely added to the success of 'Jessica Jones' and stoked up my interest in the series we all knew he would be headlining soon. So what's the verdict?

Honestly, kind of a mixed bag. There are moments of sheer brilliance, some really top notch acting - Colter, Mahershala Ali, and Alfre Woodard particularly stand out - but the plot is frequently unfocused and meandering. While this is not necssarily a bad thing, it can sometimes hamper the overall message of the finished product. Look, I think ambition, especially when working in the comic-book-adaptation genre, is to be aspired to and admired. But showrunner Cheo Hodari Coker wants to say so many things, that while most of it is worth saying (especially his various messages about the nature of being a black man in modern America) maybe some of them could have waited until season two, so that season one doesn't get bogged down in so much plot, and the occasionally ham-fisted speechifying.

While Colter, Ali, and Woodard are the biggest characters with the biggest arcs, other characters definitely stand out. A veteran character of the Luke Cage comics, Misty Knight, played here by Simone Missick, is the kind of cop I wish we'd see more of on TV: smart, capable, and willing to listen to both the evidence and her gut and seek the conclusion that makes the most sense. A native of Harlem, Knight has police IQ to have moved on to bigger and better things, but her loyalty to the neighborhood motivates her to keep it safe more than further her own career. Missick also has chemistry with her partner, Scarfe, played by Frank Whaley, a dude I haven't seen play a good guy since 'Career Opportunities'. So when we're told, fairly early on, that Scarfe is dirty, it comes as little shock. What is surprising however is that Misty, while ostensibly the "good cop" definitely has a dark side, and Scarfe, the "bad cop" has a backstory so heartbreaking that by the time his life hangs in the balance, you're rooting for him to live so that he can redeem himself.

Mahershala Ali brings a real sense of danger and charisma to Cottonmouth

The slow-burn nature of the series also affects the thing a good comic book hero needs most - a good villain. 'Luke Cage' breaks from the Netflix/Marvel pattern of having a season-long big bad. Unlike Daredevil's fight with Wilson Fisk, and Jessica Jones' battle with Kilgrave, Luke finds himself beset by several bad dudes, the most engaging of which is Cornell Stokes, aka Cottonmouth. Dressed to the nines, Ali plays Cottonmouth (he really hates that name) with such magnetism, I can't imagine why the writers would think "yeah, let's kill this dude halfway through the season" let alone act on that impulse.

So when he is killed at the hands of Black Mariah (Woodard), I found myself thinking, oh, ok, I guess she's the REAL bad guy of the season. And then she's supplanted by Willis Stryker, aka Diamondback, a few episodes later. Diamondback's sneering monologues are almost a diametric opposite of Cottonmouth's slick speeches, and I found myself missing Mahershala Ali's charisma nearly immediately. While Stokes' death does provide Woodard's Mariah Dillard with a powerful character turn, I wish we'd have spent more time with her than with the clearly batshit insane Diamondback. Played by Boardwalk Empire alum Erik LaRay Harvey, Stryker - while given a "tragic" backstory to motivate his hatred of Luke - is too much of a one-note psycho to be as interesting as Cottonmouth, or as compellingly  insidious as Black Mariah. And unfortunately, during his final battle with Luke, Coker and co. elected to put him in an outfit straight out of the comics that looks so dated and silly that I was unable to keep from rolling my eyes during what was otherwise a pretty badass fight. And then there's also Shades (Theo Rossi) a guy who evolves from lacky to genuine threat over the course of the season. He's interesting, for sure, but he's also one more dude to follow in an already full cast.

Shades, Diamondback, Black Mariah and Scarfe

Yet while the plot definitely takes its sweet time getting where it's going, it's never boring and most of the stories it slows down to tell are actually rather compelling. One in particular, the origin story of Luke's powers is fascinating because of the way it turns what we know about Luke's late wife on its head. When last we saw the late Reva Conners, she was Luke's beloved saint of a wife who was punched to death by Jessica Jones (while under Kilgrave's control). Reva's death was a painful ghost that hung over both Luke and Jessica in her series' first season. Yet Coker and company twist things up, first introducing Reva in that same saintly light before revealing her as a lying and manipulative cohort of the scientist whose inhumane experiments granted Luke his abilities. And yes, Reva eventually helped Luke in his escape from prison and they apparently did get married at some point, but the revelations we're given here change Luke's perception of his wife so much that he's able to more or less move past her death. And it also gives him enough freedom from his grief to gently pursue a relationship with Claire Temple.

Speaking of Reva and Claire, while there are numerous references to other MCU entities - particularly 'Daredevil' and 'Jessica Jones', the latter of which is actually pretty necessary to understanding a good portion of this series - 'Luke Cage' never feels too beholden to whatever else is going on in the Marvel world. Oh sure, there are plenty of easter eggs, and Justin Hammer's company plays a significant part in the story (under apparently a far more effective R&D leader, because the tech they provide to Stryker actually works). But with all the hubbub about Luke and his abilities (which become public knowledge as the season progresses) it does seem a bit weird that no one ever mentions The Avengers, or the events of Civil War/the Sokovia Accords or any of the other massive plot points that have to do with "protecting" normal humans from superhumans. That Chinese wall between Marvel films and TV appears to be holding up strongly, even when maybe it shouldn't be.

Despite the fictional public's uncertainty about Luke, in our real world, I can't imagine a better time to tell a story about a superhuman black man who wears a hoodie and is literally bulletproof. That is, until the police grow to fear him so much that they unwittingly get into bed with criminals so they can use bullets that WILL kill Luke. It says a lot about the current atmosphere of racial tension and fear in America, particularly between the police and black men. In an extraordinary, late-in-the-season sequence, we see many people in Harlem sporting bullet-riddled hoodies in a show of solidarity with Luke as the police publicly denounce him. It's also completely and totally badass that this sequence is shot over an original song from Method Man who has maybe the coolest cameo this side of Bill Murray in Zombieland. This is Coker's message at its best.

Shortcomings aside, Coker is clearly the right person for this job. And the reason I say it is because the way every shot it set up, the lighting, the composition of the frame, the set designs shows a real love and respect not just for the source material and characters, but for the other major character of this story - Harlem. As much as he as a million things to say about Luke, Coker has a million more to say about Harlem. And while sometimes he is eloquent, and other times less so, he is certainly and undeniably at his best when he lets his handpicked soundtrack do the talking. From the stage music in Cottonmouth's throwback club, Harlem's paradise, to the scoring, which sounds at times as though it could have come straight from a 70's blaxploitation movie, the music is the lifeblood of this series, and elevates even some weaker scenes and sequences into pretty good stuff.

It's abundantly clear Coker and the writers had a lot to say, and a lot they wanted to do, because they tried to do so much. I have no doubt 'Luke Cage' will be picked up for a second season, so maybe it would have been better served if some things had been left for later. That being said, this is still a very solid first season, and if/when Luke returns for season two (and there are several dangling threads that Power Man has to tie off if I'm to be satisfied!) I'll definitely tune in and binge watch the shit out of it.


Final Score - 7/10

Misty Knight and Luke will be back for The Defenders

All thirteen episodes of 'Luke Cage' are currently streaming on Netflix. Luke will next be seen in next year's ensemble mini-series, Marvel's The Defenders, where we'll see him team up and kick ass with Daredevil, Jessica, and Iron Fist. Sweet Christmas, I can't wait!