Luke Cage 2.0 — a review
He’s tall with broad shoulders. His grimace is framed in a tight goatee. His skin is like burnt umber, sweat glistening along his bald forehead. He’s Black — and much to the chagrin of the police, he’s bulletproof. So, if you’re unfamiliar with the Marvel Cinematic Universe, let’s recap.
Luke Cage season 1 ended in a duel between Luke (played by Mike Colter) and his brother, Diamondback (Erik Harvey) — an old rivalry that began over a loveless father. But the first season was still rife with tales of racial injustice, situations of our hero facing police bias, and a forgotten neighborhood built on injustices by a predominantly white society. In the final battle, Luke lives — he even wins — but he’s arrested. Of course, he’s blamed for two murders that others committed, which might be because his brother was a genius super villain (but not really, because he was terribly two-dimensional) or because society just wanted to blame the Black man with super strength. It’s not clear if he’s actually convicted of the murders, because he turns himself in anyway for that time he escaped jail (when the state accidentally turned him into a super hero and blew up a large portion of the jail as a result). I mean, the first season was fantastic television, but it ended terribly. If that weren’t convoluted enough, here comes an explanation of the Marvel/Netflix cinematic crossover, Marvel Defenders, that, contextually, makes far less sense.
Marvel Defenders doesn’t address racism much. Packed with extra special effects and a superstar cast, we’re introduced to Luke as he’s been released from jail. They never show his trial though. I can’t imagine him pleading guilty, though let’s face it — this is the same court system that never held police in contempt for killing dozens of unarmed Black men. Isn’t there a blind lawyer who works pro-bono that could help him out? Right, we have to settle for that blind lawyer’s best friend, “Foggy,” (Elden Henson) who gets Cage released early for undetermined interests but he’s a corporate lawyer so maybe just because I guess, just in time for Luke to join the good guys. Anyway, because youth in Luke’s neighborhood are disadvantaged, they’re being used by a (predominantly white but with unnecessary population of Asians just because of some increasingly tired stereotypes imposed by Iron Fist?) secret society to move explosives around New York City because I guess Amazon doesn’t carry that yet. The show was fine, because it brought Luke and his ex, Jessica Jones (Krysten Ritter), back for an adventure together that wasn’t related to the toxicity of their relationship illustrated in her own Netflix television series, Jessica Jones. Instead, Luke was reunited with his Latinx girlfriend, Claire (Rosario Dawson), and after allusions to “adult” wrestling, she introduces him to the rest of the group because she knows everyone in the “Defenders” because idk. Anyway, the lair of the final boss sinks into the ground without any residual destruction to the surrounding neighborhood, so Luke lives. He gets off scot-free despite being found-at-the-scene of the disappearance of an entire building and he and Jessica sit to talk about their crumby relationship, even though he’s still dating Claire. Which is about the only purpose Marvel Defenders serves if you’re a fan of Luke Cage.
Luke Cage Season 1 was a stark commentary on the lives of Black people in modern America. It addressed police violence, gang violence, drug abuse, and poverty in a way that no Marvel Comics story had before. Luke Cage season 2 picks up right where things left off — Cage is trying clear the streets of a potent heroin aptly named “Luke Cage.” As one corner dealer describes it, “It makes you bulletproof.” But the story takes a quick turn in a different direction — it focuses less on the plights of modern-day African-Americans and instead peers backward, toward the past. Though there are heavy familial themes within this season, its purpose seems address colonization, civil rights, and how gentrification has pushed people of color out of their communities.
“Just because you’re a woke superhero doesn’t mean you have to be a broke superhero.”
We quickly find out that Luke and his crew are losing the barbershop due to the rising cost of living in Harlem. The less obvious analogy to gentrification is that gangs from other neighborhoods and other ethnicities are pushing into Harlem, including Chinese, Korean, Mexican, and Italian. It would seem as if its being drawn and quartered away from its existing demographics, sold off bit-by-bit by the powers that be (coughcouncilwomanmariahcough) to build a generational wealth for the corrupt Stokes family, though it’s heavily debated throughout the season that this division and high cost of living will make Harlem great again.
Perhaps the starkest references to colonization are made by season 2’s new characters. Though some white characters from the Marvel Cinematic Universe make brief appearances, including Foggy and Danny Rand (Finn Jones), there is one notable difference from the diverse cast we met in the first season. Season 2 introduces only one new white character, Rosalie Carbone (Annabella Sciorra), who only appears as a minor character in two scenes. While we met characters like Scarfe (Frank Whaley) and Bailey (Justin Swain) in the first season to reflect on Black plight from a narrative distance, the white characters in this season feel like background. They’re a white noise (no pun intended) that hums behind the ongoing discussion between majority Black characters, like Cockroach (Dorian Missick) who jokes about “MAGA” and “blue lives matter” or Piranha (Chaz Lamar Shepherd), a stockbroker who lives to undercut honest Black entrepreneurs. The character who addresses colonization the most though, without a doubt, is Bushmaster.
I felt shorted in the first season of Luke Cage when the show’s antagonist, Cottonmouth (Mahershala Ali), was quite suddenly killed and replaced by Diamondback. Just as I was starting to empathize with one villain, I was forced to figure out who the next villain was. Though it was originally scripted that way, it felt as though it were more by accident, although perhaps that happy accident was intended to build toward season 2, as it only works retrospectively. On the other hand, our new big bad definitely has every intention of settling in this season all the way through.
“Them call me Bushmaster, the stone that the builders refused.”
Bushmaster (Mustafa Shakir), of Jamaican descent, practices a capoeira-like martial art and unique tribal rituals. If you took DeeJay and Dhalsim from Street Fighter and mashed them together, you’d get this guy sans maracas. He runs a gang called the Brooklyn Stylers, a vicious Jamaican gang armed with futuristic weaponry, and he has a few tricks beneath his own sleeve that will pose a serious threat to Luke. The most interesting characteristic of Bushmaster though is that he’s spent his entire life in servitude. He comes after Black Mariah (Alfre Woodard) because her mother had stolen his family business of rum production and forced them to return to Jamaica, among other crimes. Though Mariah is his priority, his overall goal is to take back his home of Harlem. While Cottonmouth hung a portrait of Biggy Smalls in his office, Bushmaster displays Marcus Garvey — the founder of Garveyism, a political philosophy born out of the Harlem Renaissance founded on building an African utopia.
This season is rife with references to old literary and political philosophy though. Shades (Theo Rossi) and Mariah are back — they’re lovers know, and while Shades is the epitome of toxic masculinity, he’s dressed to the nines. For what we lost in Cottonmouth’s immaculate fashion, Shades makes up for it. Mariah spends this season obsessed with protecting her most cherished family heirloom, a painting by renowned artist, Jean-Michel Basquiat — one of New York’s most thematically progressive artists that had trained under Andy Warhol. She’s also become obsessed with collection generational wealth — who do you think is selling Harlem, after all? She almost feels like an Uncle Tom (Aunt Tamara?) trying to find her place in the white world, not to raise a Black one. But Shades and Mariah’s their relationship is flawed — Shades takes on the role of Lady Macbeth in way that isn’t even remotely subtle. There’s literally a scene where he washes his hands obsessively in the wake of his queen’s actions. Mariah, on the other hand, is more of a central character to this story than Luke Cage in many ways. Within a single scene, I both love her and praise her as being like my own mother before I condemn her as demonic for her actions — and this has nothing to do with my relationship with my mother. She’s the one character that I came away from this season demanding more of, though Bushmaster, Shades, and Luke Cage himself aren’t that far off. I think it’s because her ability to express both love and hate simultaneously feels so natural. It feels so organic to the point where as I watched scenes when she reduced her daughter to tears or fought against her personal demons that I also truly felt hurt and frightened by her.
Which brings us to our next theme: domestic violence. Not only is it prominent here, but it’s a focal point of the story. Whether it’s Shades throwing shade at his girl or Cockroach being a cockroach, this season means to illustrate the domestic violence and abuse with communities of color. In fact, without too many spoilers, Rosario Dawson gives one of the best performances of her life in regard to this topic — at least the best performance that I’ve seen her in since KIDS. But they address everything from deliberate physical violence to neglect. In a strange way, it’s kind of jarring to see this in a super hero show, but I think that’s why it works — the same way that Luke Cage has always worked in addressing racism or how Jessica Jones addressed both domestic violence, rape, and toxic masculinity.
As we know from season 1, Luke Cage was a child of neglect too. But his dad, Reverend James Lucas, played by the late great Reg E. Cathey from House of Cards and The Wire, appears in a stunning performance that both makes you hate the man and love him from scene-to-scene. He’s a character who fluidly evolves from vitriol to empathy so organically that you hardly know the difference. It’s the last role that he would ever play, because he passed away during the filming of this season, giving us no true resolution for that character, but it’s enough that we can accept it for what it is and praise the work he’s done. His final appearance in the season is truly heart-wrenching — so much so that if you don’t shed a tear or choke back a whimper, I resent you. Rest in peace, Reg.
“I don’t care. You can’t be shooting my baby.”
The other prominent new character is Mariah’s daughter, Matilda Dillard (Gabrielle Dennis). A gifted doctor and holistic medic, she’s essentially the character that villains of the show, Mariah and Bushmaster, pivot on, as she discovers her identity within the superhero realm. A lot of this is about her coming to terms with being the daughter of Mariah Stokes-Dillard, who had neglected her throughout her childhood. But a lot of this season is also Tilda, as she likes to be called, determining her own ethics in a world that has been unkind to her, for the shame she feels in her dark skin and eyes and the father who loved others but she inherited nothing from. Bent on concluding her own definition of justice, she is by far one of the most fascinating new characters in the season despite her naive and sudden appearance in the story.
Feminism has its place in this show too. After suffering from PTSD due to loss of her arm in Marvel Defenders, Misty Knight returns as the handicapped detective. Only she isn’t a detective anymore — she’s struggling to live a normal life with one hand. She drinks, she dissolves, and she tries to build herself anew while figuring out her place in the world now that she’s no longer pitching right-handed. But with the help of Colleen Wing (Jessica Henwick) and a hand (literally) from the Rand Corporation, she develops her strut again — a friendship that’s no doubt alluding to the Daughters of the Dragon, a superhero duo that made up of the pair. I’m really hoping for a mini-series of these two. It’s not enough to suggest that these characters pass the Bechdel Test — Colleen shows more character in the few scenes she has in Luke Cage than she ever had in Iron Fist and Defenders combined. And frankly, I’m crossing my fingers for a Daughters of the Dragon spin-off.
“You don’t know what it’s like to feel powerless — to have someone take your identity from you, your soul.”
But that’s where Luke Cage season 2 faces its biggest flaw. There’s little wrong about it except that it has to fit in its place in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. So, of course, Danny Rand, better known as Iron Fist, makes an appearance. If it’s the only allusion to Power Man and Iron Fist that we have to endure, I’m fine. But Rand is privileged in a place that really needs privilege. Yes, he and Luke team up together to shut down a drug warehouse. That’s fantastic. But Rand is a billionaire — how come it never occurs to Luke Cage to ask Danny to help people struggling in these communities? How come Danny doesn’t donate to the community of his own volition, even though he is quick to buy a drug warehouse that he just burnt down? It’s one thing when you have a bulletproof man or a girl with a robotic arm. It’s another thing when you have a character who pretends that he has no power to make real, meaningful change in a community when he does. Some fantasies I can endure or appreciate — but then there are others I just don’t buy.
But let’s really talk about where Iron Fist fits in in the same universe as Luke Cage. Here’s what we know about Iron Fist: he fetishizes Asian women, he has what can only be described as infinite wealth and he does nothing to benefit struggling communities, and he’s an all-powerful white master of Chinese spirituality. I don’t know about you, but even if I tried, I couldn’t write a better analogue for colonialism. And yet he’s supposed to be held up as a hero in this story? In a world where Harlem is fighting this very notion and struggling to survive? Iron Fist feels like the white apologist that made the world of Luke Cage, but that we’re supposed to support him because he’s supporting Luke Cage. Let’s get real though — there could be no gang violence or drugs in Harlem if Iron Fist stepped in, instead of providing the bare minimum to tag team some young thugs with Luke. Frankly, we all ought to expect more of Iron Fist, the self-proclaimed “good guy.”
Maybe Danny can’t see how providing wealth to a project could change things, but Netflix certainly can. While Season 1 was woke, it was also terribly shot. Directors purposefully avoided trying to illustrate the whole space of a scene, and as a result, I often felt as if I were watching it through a fisheye lens. Season 2 takes advantage of the spaces that its shot in though. Each individual is explored thoroughly from numerous angles. I didn’t realize how few places there were to shoot in New York, in fact, until I recognized that Rosalie Carbone’s house is the exact same one used as the F Society headquarters in season 2 of Mr. Robot. The acting hasn’t just improved in dialogue either — each fight scene is exquisitely choreographed, with Bushmaster performing amazing stunts of martial arts ballet while Luke Cage actually physically recoils when hit by a surprise bullet. Perhaps the best part of this season is the soundtrack, which is used to define each character or group. Luke Cage is hip-hop, Bushmaster is reggae, Mariah is jazz, with interstitial blues building to the story’s politically conflict-driven denouement.
“Somebody’s got to take over. Harlem doesn’t need a sheriff anymore.”
“You’re right. It needs a king.”
Overall, I would say that this season is true improvement on the first, and certainly eons better than Marvel Defenders. It stays woke and finds new approaches to the ongoing racial divide that continues to embroil our country. Where it truly falls short in is its place in the Marvel Universe, where racism simply doesn’t seem to be as big of a priority as aliens or ancient dragons. One can only hope that in the next season of Luke Cage, the universe becomes a greater depiction of the plights that actually challenge our world today instead of the fantasies that are growing more and more difficult to submerge ourselves in. It’s time for the Marvel Universe itself to be influenced by Luke Cage or Black Panther or Miles Morales or the Daughters of the Dragon instead of these works being influenced by the Marvel Universe. But this is a start. I hope you like it as much as I did.
My upshot?
Rastaclat makes bracelets woven out of shoestrings. The one pictured above was given to me by an ex-girlfriend three years ago. I don’t so much as keep it for sentimental reasons anymore, but just because I still just love the way it looks. In fact, as we speak, I’m buying more bracelets from them right now. I chose Rastaclat, because as I was watching Luke Cage season 2, the Jamaican characters would often refer to their enemies as rasclaat. It’s a curse I was unfamiliar with, but the names were so similar, I had to look up the connection.
Daniel Kasidi, Rastaclat’s founder, was born in Kenya and moved to Orange County in his youth. He immediately attached himself to skater culture, making these bracelets in his spare time, before they started picking up — where did they pick up, you ask? Bob Marley concerts and reggae festivals. As an entrepreneur, he built his chops working with fashion brands, like Levi’s and Reebok, before he dove all-in. Today, the brand continues its CSR initiatives by joining forces with numerous non-profits to create better communities.
I don’t have any bracelets that have lasted three years and still look this cool. Check’em out.
