Luke Cage S1 Ep4 – Step In The Arena

Well, episode three was my favorite up until this one.

In the aftermath of the missile at the end of the last episode, Luke digs himself and Connie, his landlady, out of the rubble. Meanwhile, he reflects back on how he got this way, and man oh man, is it a story.

RIP, Reva – as well as Carl Lucas, I suppose.

I didn’t recognize Reva – aka, Luke Cage’s late wife whom Kilgrave forced Jessica to kill – for a little while. But that just made it more poignant as this pretty prison therapist does her best to get Carl Lucas, ex-cop, to open up – and then someone calls her “Dr. Connors” and that’s when I remembered who she was.

It’s interesting that, throughout the saga of Carl in prison, we never do hear what his alleged crimes were. We do learn that he doesn’t trust easily, but that he’s always been willing to fight to save others. (Also, it’s really weird to watch him fight in the illegal prisoner matches without his abilities! My brain doesn’t want to absorb the sight of him actually getting hurt.)

Again, it was obvious that Squabbles was going to be an innocent who had to be taken out to move the narrative forward. But I appreciate how even minor characters in this show seem like real people, who would be worth more time if the show had it to spend. Rackham the evil prison guard was more two-dimensionally Evil Prison Guard. On the other hand, at least I’m used to that actor playing evil characters.

Oh, and I take back any nice things I said about Shades. Anyone who can beat up an unarmed guy with metal tools just to keep their off-the-books system going is horrible – especially since he’s half the reason Luke (Carl, I should say) almost died. My only question is whether Shades recognized him when they met at Pop’s barbershop. I honestly couldn’t tell.

Now, for the crux of the origin story: there’s no getting around the fact that Luke in that tanning-booth-looking capsule was not a particularly original image, even if you narrow it down to just Marvel superheroes. It could have been Wolverine or Captain America in there. But that’s okay. Some parts of this kind of story are bound to be overly familiar.

Sweet Christmas, indeed. (Comic image via Screenrant)

And it was worth it for the image of Luke in that tiara, bracelets, and yellow jacket, like his comicbook self. I did laugh out loud when he told his reflection, “You look like a damn fool.” Hee! And to have him give his signature, “Sweet Christmas,” just minutes before – as he punches through the prison wall – made it all perfect.

I really need to know more about Reva, now. She was pretty mysterious in Jessica Jones too, and it’s even more important to know what she meant when she told Luke she hadn’t always been a therapist. So what I’m saying is, I’m all for more flashbacks with Luke and Reva, even though it makes me sad whenever I see her.

Oh, and just what is dirty Detective Scarfe going to do with the footage of the attack on Connie’s place? The plot certainly thickens.

on October 2, 2016Posted in: Featured, Reviews, Television

Tags: luke cage, marvel, netflix

Angela

Posted October 2, 2016 at 5:39 AM

It didn’t bother me that Luke’s tanning booth looked familiar – in this case, I think it was supposed to. It links back to how in the first Avengers movie they make it MCU canon that the Hulk was created via an attempt to replicate the super soldier serum. It’s mentioned that there have been many many attempts over the years. So I feel like this prisoner program – although they claim it’s just to accelerate healing, and maybe it is, maybe after decades of failure they are trying to narrow the field down a bit in an attempt to finally have some success, or maybe that was another lie – was another attempt to recreate it.

I’ve been thinking a lot about it, and really Luke seems more powerful than Steve to me. The smaller stuff – photographic memory, enhanced (but not really super) speed – doesn’t seem to be present, but Luke is definitely stronger (perhaps not quite as much as Steve), but Steve definitely isn’t invulnerable like Luke. Anyway, where I was going with that, as I was watching the tanning booth scene I got so many flashbacks to Steve receiving the serum, but the biggest difference was choice. Steve chose what he was doing. He competed for it. Luke didn’t. And of course, what is the one huge key difference between Luke and Steve.

Now, in the comics Luke chooses this. In the show, Luke definitely didn’t, but it seems that the other volunteers did. But there’s still such obvious poor morality in giving choices like these to a prisoner – how much of a choice is it, really? We saw that with Rackham’s methods.

So I feel like the visual parallels are definitely intentional, both to just reference the rest of the MCU at large, but also link both to the real world with things like the Tuskegee experiments, and to contrast Steve’s choice with Luke’s lack thereof. We know that the showrunners are definitely making a lot of real world statements with this show, and I think that was another one of them.