First Impressions of Luke Cage (Spoilers)
I just finished watching Luke Cage. Am I a bit behind? Yes, but I prolonged it because it was heartbreaking to finish. I have a lot to say on Luke Cage and can only hope to stick to the basics in this blog post.
Luke Cage is an absolutely brilliant show. The bullet proof black man facing police brutality and gun violence against the black community is important because these issues are CURRENT! Talk about a perfect character to bring out from the shelves into the live action universe! We say that representation matters; and not only does this show give us a well developed black character, the show has no qualms about showing police brutality blatantly and without hesitation. There is no sugar coating here!
Back to that. What, you say? A well developed character of color? Yes! Not only one, but an entire cast of people of color that have well developed histories and motives without harmful stereotype. The story of Luke Cage shows people of color from the streets, to congress!
As for the conflicts. Our first conflict involves Cotton Mouth who was a great villain. What is so tantalizing about this villain? His back story. This is a man who had a gift of music, described as a "Harlem Original" exposed and forced into the life of crime through abuse and inheritance. Tragic and beautiful. My only complaint is the missing link between his childhood and the man he is now. What switched that made him so cold a man as he is now? I honestly blame time constraints because my belief is that he was originally intended to be cold but also the glue that held together the street community of Harlem, through crime, yes, but still a structure that kept peace nonetheless. We see this slightly but it is not explored as well as it could have been. Pride before the Fall was a theme that took over for this villain but it was not done poorly. Just fell flat in some places in my opinion.
Next villain who happens to be my favorite: Mariah. She is brilliantly done. Her killing Cornell was a great move. Not only did it deviate from the stereotype hero killing or "getting rid of" the main conflict; she also had a great set up to kill him! Fantastic motive! Here is a man who was deviating from everything she was taught in the crime family: Family First. He was so wrapped up in his hatred of Luke that he was slipping in his responsibilities as a crime lord. These responsibilities involving Mariah. He is shown to be flippant towards her and her career. (Later we see his resentment of her which made his motives more apparent.) The other think that moved her to kill him was his disregard of her sexual abuse as a child. He triggered her and in this moment I felt for her and her rage. It was a nice twist for the show to do. I was sad to see Mariah immediately become a pawn to our next villain: Diamondback. But eager to see her keep making her own moves despite it. You go girl!
Diamondback. I felt like this was a poor move. There was a lot there with Cottonmouth and Mariah to explore. Tons of themes. Introducing a new villain took away a lot of time for better exploration of those themes like the role of crime in Harlem, the corruption of politics, the history and hope of Harlem as a center for black culture and how Luke fits into that dream and future. All for what? Some family drama that could have been done way better if given more time? I think they should have waited on DB and set him up in the background but stick with our original two baddies.
Love interests. I usually do not like them, but they were not a focus here as a diversion. They actually play an important role instead of being an annoying side thing we have to pretend to enjoy out of the happiness of our main character. (Sorry, as you can tell I am not a big romance person.) Instead, we have the wife who was a big motivator for our Hero's past. Not only that she is also critical to the plot in many other ways. She has tons of information that spans the Marvel Universe. Her lying to Luke Cage also made him the man that he is in the show and gave him perspective change when found out. We have Misty who was key of her own accord, love interest or not. As a love interest however, it showed us early on how LC treats women helping us gain some key insight on our man. (What a man!) Claire is critical because she helps Luke trust again. In friendship and in love affairs. Because that whole thing with Jessica. Was NOT healthy. (Bless me some JJ though, I still ship them, regardless!)
Well, that is all I have for now. I do have more to say but I would like to get a re-watch in before so!