For the most part , Luke Cage digest aside from most of the other Marvel superhero adaptation . Created and executive create by Cheo Hodari Coker , it uses its setting and its main character as a conduit to a specific cultural account and a set of experience , and that makes Luke Cage singular among all of Marvel ’s live - action properties . It ’s one of the series ’ biggest strengths — and here ’s what else we loved about the show , too .
Note : gravely , if you have not watched all of Luke Cage yet , we suggest you turn back reading now . Everyone else , rent ’s start breaking things down .
We Loved…
At the end of episode four , Luke Cage climbs out of crumble remains of a construction that gets destroyed after gun - black market crimelord Cornell “ Cottonmouth ” Stokes fire a bazooka at him . When reporters run up to him and ask for his name , he think about it for a beat , draw down his hood and say “ My name is Luke Cage . ” He ’s not going to hide from the spotlight and what he has to do . He accepts what he ’s become and the role he has to recreate .
While he does call himself a freak two episode subsequently , Luke does n’t walk around with nearly as much inner excitement as Matt Murdock or Jessica Jones . He ’s got a complicated past that haunts him like those two characters , but he is n’t battling ego - destructive demeanor . Sometimes he even seems to be having playfulness contain down risky guys . It ’s a nice change from all the intense ego - loathing Netflix ’s other superhero shows have given us .
Luke Cage does n’t really have a fighting style , which is perfect for a theatrical role with his powers . He just walks through people , never feel a single blow , and casually takes them out with a toss or a punch . There was some business organisation about this when the previews were all we had to go on and some of the fight scenes looked ungainly and uncool . But having watch over the whole serial , it makes a lot more gumption . In most of his brawls , he ’s play a videogame with invincibility on . There ’s no challenge , and no reason to do anything flashy . And when he finally encounters something that can legitimately take him out , his triumph feel like it pass because of intestine and purpose , not as a result of a cool martial art style .
The master conceitedness of the Marvel approach to superheroes is that the stories set in the fellowship ’s fabrication pass in the real world … or a relatively tight idea of it , anyway . The Hell ’s Kitchen in Daredevil and Jessica Jones wander up feeling like a clean - ticket AnyCity , USA , over the line of those shows , a backdrop where ninja mayhem now and again take place . But , in Luke Cage , the neck of the woods affair in multiple slipway . Harlem ’s status as an epicentre for black story and culture is waver into the backstory of the show ’s villains and the ongoing gentrification of the famous uptown enclave informs the political motivations of conniving councilwoman Mariah Dillard . It ’s an area in the midst of irritable reconfiguration , ripe to be reimagined in someone ’s vision .
And the fact that Luke Cage was n’t from Harlem makes his valorousness find more selfless . He did n’t have to be born in Harlem to decide to protect it . There was no horse sense of obligation and — thankfully — no moments where he runs around yelling about “ my city . ” His position as an foreigner opens him to attacks by some of the very the great unwashed he ’s protecting and offers up a different form of vulnerability for the bulletproof Heron .
The villains and supporting characters on Luke Cage all get along across as more nuanced than fundamentally everyone other than Patsy Walker in Jessica Jones . The good guys , villains , steady folks likewise — they felt like they exist before and after Luke Cage was on - projection screen . Family way out repulse most of the dramatic play in the show and do so in heartrending way . Even after she killed him in a tantrum of anger , it still experience like Mariah sleep with her first cousin Cottonmouth . Whether it was the Stokes kinfolk ’s condition as Harlem ’s alpha malefactor , or Carl and Willis ’ sour sibling relationship , viewers were getting a windowpane on on-going saga that stretched back generation .
There ’s some sharp recombination of major character from Luke ’s backstory , too . In the comic , former best champion Willis Stryker / Diamondback and Luke Cage ’s brother James Lucas , Jr. were freestanding characters . make them into one soul only increases the animus between Cage and his archenemy . James Jr. undergo a exchangeable subprogram like to one that establish Cage his powers to fight his brother ; the scene in the final episode with Dr. Noah Burstein visiting Willis in the hospital plausibly betoken that something similar will happen in season two .
Everything leading up to the release of Luke Cage framed Cornell Stokes as the primary antagonist for the show ’s hero . And for seven episodes , Mahershala Ali wormed his fashion into our hearts as Cottonmouth strutted , scream and animalize his room through a collection of hypnotic scenes . Then he died , club to decease by his first cousin Mariah . The most surprising thing about Cottonmouth ’s exit is n’t that it happened ; it ’s that the creators had the confidence to take such a charismatic performance off the plug-in , completely . But that pull in the decks for something even better …
The Marvel Netflix show have excel at bear bad guys who sense three - dimensional , fleshed - out by impressive performance , strong writing , and believable need . When Wilson Fisk and Kilgrave appeared on Daredevil and Jessica Jones , they were fully formed and already committed to movement of putrefaction and terror . In Luke Cage , we watched Mariah Dillard slip down a slippery slope of morality , shedding the tegument of a well - import but compromised politician to become Harlem ’s Modern queenpin .
Alfre Woodard ’s fantastical turn as Mariah offers up multiple facets of a middle - senior fair sex . One second , she ’s a career politico , an election - winning auntie who proffer platitude she does n’t necessarily think . The next , she ’s scheming and spinning incriminating circumstance into a sympathetic narrative for herself . Mariah ’s struggle and transformation is by far the estimable part of season one ’s back one-half .
There ’s a great tantrum in episode eight where Inspector Ridley , Misty Knight , and Claire Temple are all reckon with each other , and another in episode 13 where Misty , her boss and Mariah have a tense here and now , where each adult female stand for different vectors of superpower , morals , and obligation clash with each other . It ’s the variety of moment where all the reference would ’ve been flirt by white guys in a different sentence or series . One of Luke Cage ’s bounteous wins is in having woman of vividness bid part like these .
But We Didn’t Like…
The prison experiments that give Luke his steel - hard skin and super - effectiveness are the worst sort of music genre convention . They just survive to turn him into “ Power Man ” and are n’t grounded in the logical system or the flavour of the show . We get some vague account about the military and/or aesculapian app of Dr. Burstein ’s prison experiments , but it all comes across as heavily - to - swallow false science instead of entertaining mad scientific discipline , like if a regular MRI simple machine wrick Bruce Banner into the Hulk .
In his various comics series , Luke Cage is a hot - tempered blusterer from the street . He detonate into action and talks a lot of trash when fighting offence . The Netflix iteration of the character comes from a middle - class ground and suffers his dramatic event in silence . That shift key in tone locks lead actor Mike Colter into a glum mode that falls categoric compared to some of the more up-and-coming or modulated performances of his co - star topology . Hopefully , he gets more fun stuff to do in The Defenders .
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