After the last episode managed to get the Luke Cage experience down cold, it’s now up to the rest of the season to maintain it, and what better way to churn up that superhero momentum than to focus on our unbreakable hero finally striding out into the streets of Harlem and attempting to clean them up with some literal strong-arming. It’s here that we truly get to reap the benefits of that all-encompassing image that only gets more vital as time goes on: a black man impervious to gun crime. But beyond the fact that our hero is immune to various calibres of gunfire, we find that he’s now ready to step up and purge Harlem of crime in the memory of recently slain father figure, Henry “Pop” Hunter after years of hiding his abilities.
However, this wouldn’t be a Marvel/Netflix show without an opposing force that wants the same thing, but is prepared to get it by any means necessary. No, I’m not talking about Cornell “Cottonmouth” Stokes; I think it’s time for us to take a closer look at Mariah Dillard…
After placing himself on the bench while tending bars in Hell’s Kitchen and sweeping hair in Harlem, Luke Cage realises that it’s time to get in the game after the overzealous actions of an excitable gangster tragically took the life of Pop. A friendly pillar of the community, Pop was shot down after trying to put together a parley to save the life of overstepping youth, Chico, who had been part of a trio who thought it would be a great idea to rob local Kingpin, Cottonmouth.
While I genuinely thought Chico had been fatally torn up in the salvo that killed Pop, it turns out he was merely hospitalised and we soon find him nervously fielding questions from Misty Knight and her partner, Scarfe. However, while Chico remains tight as a clam, he eventually spills all to Luke, who needs to know how Cottonmouth’s operation works in order to hit the gangster as hard as he can in the place where it hurts the most – his wallet. Raiding his money drops, but leaving the illegal money for cops to find, Cage is softening up Cottonmouth’s operation just enough for all the funds to be transfered to the fortified Crispus Attucks building for safe keeping. But when it arrives, he springs into action, using his durable hide and super strength to bulldoze his way in, beat the crap out of everyone, and make off with a large pile of money.
His aim? Cage hopes to not only hurt the operations of Cottonmouth and his corrupt counsel-woman cousin, Mariah Dillard, but he hopes to use the cash to keep Pop’s bullet ridden barber shop afloat and help a few others with their financial woes. However, despite trying to frame the raid on rival gang boss Domingo, matters are undone somewhat when Chico finally grows a conscience and goes to the cops. Unfortunately for everyone involved (and especially for Chico) it seems that Scarfe is as corrupt as they come, and after murdering his wannabe informant, he delivers news to Cottonmouth about who really put a dent in his operation. Cottonmouth’s reaction proves to be fittingly explosive…
We’re only three episodes in and it seems that the neo-blaxploitation vibes the show was hoping to evoke are still firing on all cylinders. I was worried that after the huge moment of killing off Pop, the show would take an early time-out to let that death percolate, but thankfully the powers that be have recognised that it’s in their best interests to seize the day and capitalise on the moment. Yes, there’s plenty of eulogising of the fallen pillar of the community, but the episode is far too smart to spend it wallowing in grief when there’s far more valuable ways to utilise it. Remember, in the short time it’s been on, one of Luke Cage’s greatest assets is the sense of community the show puts out that connects virtually everyone together, no matter which side of the law they fall on – and Pop connected everybody.
This provides an organic and convenient way (not for Pop, obviously) to bring a lot of characters face to face and have confrontations about the big picture. For a start, it’s always a good idea to get your hero and villain together for a pow-wow and while Cage and Stokes have met a few times before, they’re now on far equal footing as they discuss Cornell paying for Pop’s funeral with barely concealed threats. With every episode, Mahershala Ali is getting ever cosier in the skin of Cottonmouth and the more stress the gang boss gets put under, the more fun the actor is obviously having, which proves to be a remarkably good counter to Mike Colter’s clench-jawed righteousness. In fact, by the end of the episode, both characters have gotten to fully embrace their character’s comic book nature by forging full-tilt into full-blown heroism and villainy. Cage gets to go on a cool, superhero rampage, busting up crooks and bending car doors around them in a manner that may not match the scope of the MCU movies, but still gets the point across. However, on the other hand, Cottonmouth gets to retort by dropping subtlety and ends the episode by shooting an actual fucking rocket into a Chinese restaurant while his enemy is chowing down on dinner and it continues to perfectly exaggerate the blaxploitation vibe with superhero bombast.
However, as cool as this all is, the supporting characters are also undergoing intriging changes of their own. Take Frank Whaley’s cynical detective Scarfe, for example – I don’t think anyone’s overly surprised that he’s turned out to be rotten, but rather than just selling info to Cottonmouth, he takes it upon himself to murder notorious loose-end, Chico, by throttling him to death with a necktie, which is way more dramatic than just being on a criminal’s payroll. Similarly, Alfre Woodard’s Mariah is proving to be one to watch as she seems to have the same warped views on preserving a city as Daredevil’s Wilson Fisk. She genuinely seems to love Harlem and wants to preserve both the community and her place in it, but the fact that she’s willing to allow her cousin to use any force necessary to keep the money flowing makes her both an incredible hypocrite and extremely dangerous. Still, while they both operate in the shadows, thankfully the show has allowed Misty Knight to finally use those “superior” detective skills she’s supposed to have and figure out that Cage has powers. However, where the character has weirdly failed put two and two together in the past after seeing bullet holes in Lukes clothes but not in his skin (while living in a world where the Hulk exists, no less); thankfully she’s catching on, but this is thankfully diffused by the fact that Simone Missick is given more chances to flesh out the iconic, destined to be one-armed, detective by having her deliver stories from her past which go even further to create that sense of community the show does so well to cultivate.
Another super-stong episode arrives courtesy of Guillermo Navarro – frequent cinematographer to both Guillemero Del Torro and Robert Rodriguez – and he takes that blaxploitation motif and brings it deeper into the world of superheroes than ever before by letting both it’s hero and villain fully cut loose. However, while its great to watch Luke Cage haul off on some fools and Cottonmouth retaliate with some heavy ordinance, it’s the changes in the supporting cast who are starting to really deliver the sense of community that the show us excelling in.
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