If you haven’t seen the first season of Luke Cage or The Defenders, don’t bother watching the second season unless you’re into Daredevil and Iron Fist, which has prominent crossover moments in Luke Cage’s second season. To be fair, Luke Cage displayed Iron Fist characters better than the first season of Iron Fist did (I haven’t seen Iron Fist’s second and final season yet so I’m hoping that it is a sign of good things to come.) Such scenes may be a sufficient lure to check out Luke Cage if you watch those Marvel Netflix series and are a completist like me. All the Netflix Marvel series coincidentally (yeah, right, sure) got cancelled shortly before Disney’s new streaming channel is anticipated to launch so I finally watched Luke Cage’s second and final season on Netflix just in case Disney snatches them from Netflix’s library.
The good news is that Luke Cage’s last season is better than the first, but the bad news is that the titular character is the least interesting character in the series. In retrospect, I can see how the writers were shaping his trajectory, and it is definitely more ambitious and nuanced than Daredevil and The Punisher’s moral arguments about the best way to protect their city, but it also was unevenly paced then rushed into fruition during the final episode. One of the most aggravating aspects of his character in comparison to the other Netflix Marvel leads is the practical aspect of his quotidian survival. There is a barbershop without a barber, and even when he begins to prosper, it does not necessarily follow that he would suddenly have a lifestyle change. I needed one extra line of dialogue that explains he got money and….because he isn’t known for his business acumen. Also side note: do not hire him to be your bodyguard. He is easily distracted, and you will get snatched under his watchful eye. I will compliment the swerve because initially I was annoyed by the early swerve and was concerned that the series was pulling a Judging Amy.
Let me explain. There was a character named Bruce, played by Richard T. Jones. He was smart, reasonable and even a potential love interest, but someone accused Bruce of something horrifying, and he understandably punched a guy. In any other show, the story arc may have been addressed realistically to show the impact that an inappropriate use of force could mean for a major character, but I’ll never forget how his friends react to this brief human moment. Suddenly his career and freedom were in jeopardy. Basically he suddenly became the brute black man, and instead of offering him their unconditional support, they were suspicious of him. Instead Luke Cage’s second season decided to do its take on Boardwalk Empire meets Game of Thrones—there was even an explicit reference, which it frankly did better than the final season of Game of Thrones (get me a cape, I’m still super mad).
Luke Cage’s villains stole the show. Alfre Woodward’s performance is extraordinary. Her character is evil, but may be the most sympathetic villain since Killmonger (more so for me). There is one episode in which she embraces her truth and lives in it, and I found myself cheering for her as she decided that she was just going to protect her own damn self, got strapped and walked out with her head held high in spite of the fact that her truth is not good news for anyone else. If I’m mad at the series, it is because they found a predictable way to deal with her ascendency. Lame! Woodward and Gotham’s Jada Pinkett Smith need to form a union though at least Woodward’s character never stops being a mastermind. My mom doesn’t watch this genre, but she was completely attracted to it because of Woodward’s performance.
While a new Jamaican major villain had a great storyline, it took a long time to not wince at the accents and sentence structure. I am not Jamaican, but I have Jamaican friends and family, and they neither sound like that nor do they structure sentences like that. I recognized the words, but the way that they were arranged them seemed almost nonsensical. On the other hand, I defer to Jamaicans to judge for themselves because what do I know. I always turn on my closed captioning, but I really needed it. This villain fought dirty, had no qualms about hurting people and also was a more skilled fighter so I don’t buy that Willis could have Luke Cage on the ropes, but this guy couldn’t.
A major disappointment of not having another season of Luke Cage is that the series was clearly setting up the next story line with Annabella Sciorra, who has a brief appearance in The Kitchen otherwise I don’t remember seeing her since Jungle Fever because of alleged serial rapist and poster child for workplace sexual harassment Harvey Weinstein. She makes her character immediately memorable, and she may be slightly racist.
After Marriah, Misty Knight’s rediscovery of her true self was more interesting than our impenetrable hero although for me, the most unrealistic part of Luke Cage is not a bulletproof hero, but that she got a 75% pension and went back to work, or that she dropped her groceries and never retrieved them. Also most of the storylines of the supporting characters at her work are lame. One minute they want her to leave then they beg her to stay. Her fight scenes with Luke are some of the best in the series, and during the last two episodes, Simone Missick was at maximum gorgeousness. If you pair Missick with anyone, those scenes are usually the best showcasing of two actors in the show. I was kind of annoyed that the last episode seemed to be a reprise of her character’s first season, but now I don’t have to worry about it so yeah….?
If Luke Cage were coming back for a third season, I would plead with the writers to not use references that will become dated and weigh the show down as it gets further from its original release date. For example, when Mike Colter dapped, a little but of my soul died. While the cameos are cool, they are sad in retrospect so while timeless Harlem icons such as Dapper Dan work, maybe fewer television personalities.
Luke Cage did a terrific job with their new and old supporting players. The best actors after Woodward are Theo Rossi as Shades, who was at maximum creep level early in the second season, then Chaz Lamar Shepherd as Piranha and Sahr Ngaujah as Anansi who come out of nowhere then used their limited screen time to imbue their seemingly two-dimensional characters with brief moments of emotional resonance worthy of Shakespeare. I actually ended up caring for characters that I had written off as being one way, but they actually ended up being three-dimensional people before they got caught up in the hurly burly of the larger than life people who suck up all the oxygen from the room that makes us forget about the ordinary people.
Luke Cage was going in the right direction of stressing character development, and while I’m disappointed that it got cancelled, I also love having one less show to fall behind on. Who knows, maybe we haven’t seen the last of our hero in a hoodie.