It feels like it was just yesterday when the first season of Daredevil premiered on Netflix. Time sure flies. Especially considering the Man Without Fear now has two seasons under his belt, Jessica Jones has her own show, Iron Fist is practically upon us, and the Punisher will be getting his own very soon.
But this ain’t about those cats! It’s about the guy who’s just gone through a season of his own: Luke Cage.
Marvel’s Luke Cage is an alright show. It’s not bad, it’s not mediocre, but it’s not great either.
It’s not that the show is doing anything wrong per se, it’s just that it’s now more evident than ever that, while doing justice to Marvel’s B-tier heroes, these shows follow a specific and rather predictable formula.
Interestingly enough, this makes the first season of Daredevil still the best of Netflix’s superhero endeavours in my book. I might cover that at a later date.
Jessica Jones worked because it was fresh, the first after the surprise that was Daredevil. Luke Cage isn’t that lucky. Coming on the heels of a combined three seasons of two shows following a very similar formula. It also doesn’t help that it’s much more similar to Daredevil than it is to Jessica Jones.
It kinda feels like I just wrote a bunch of paragraphs without saying much so here it is. This is how Netflix’s Marvel shows go: season starts, we are introduced to key players, and an arc. Details vary from show to show. At about the quarter point, a side character is killed (bad guy on bad guy) so that we ge the idea of how ruthless the main villain is. Around mid-season, a death or some big event ends one story arc, a new or different threat is introduced starting a new arc, our hero suffers a big setback via injury and emotional turmoil, but eventually overcomes it by the end of the season.
Both Daredevil and Luke Cage go along a very similar route, both plot and atmosphere-wise. About three episodes in, Netflix’s latest got quite predictable. Even the opening credits are more or less along the same line (Daredevil‘s theme song is better, though). The major difference in how the story goes is in the little details, certain plot points and the themes it explores. That’s where the show shines most.
Like the Man Without Fear’s tales, Luke Cage’s story is tied to a specific part of New York City. Predictably enough, with the devil residing in Hell’s Kitchen, the black guy resides in Harlem. Cliché setting choice aside, it makes perfect sense as the show focuses on New York’s legendary black borough.
What I appreciated about the whole thing was that the story didn’t automatically go the politically correct route and present the African American community as a group of victims harrased by the police. Instead, the show goes an arguably much more realistic route in presenting the issue of gang violence and black on black crime, while also touching upon the black-guy-in-a-hoodie thing (“Black guy in a hoodie, must’ve been Cage,” to paraphrase the cops’ attitude at some point) and tension between law enforcement and black communities that comes as a result. What current themes are explored are done well and, depending on one’s opinion, right.
The progression of the season is kind of disjointed, I’m sorry to say. There are pacing issues that aren’t too frequent, but when those dull parts happen, they happen big. And not in a good way. The finale especially, was terribly executed. It was basically just telling the viewer what they already knew, already saw. More than once throughout the season. I thought that was DC’s (Zack Snyder’s) fucking problem. Marvel gonna start with that “treat your audience like complete and utter idiots” crap too? In what are otherwise the best and most intelligent stories in their cinematic universe?!
Whatever, man.
Despite the aforementioned predictability and pacing issues, the show still manages to shock and surprise. Events, even the foreseen ones, all effectively kept me invested and interested for the most part. I’d be lying if I said it didn’t take me at least the first two episodes to get me fully interested, though… And a few good scenes here and there throughout the season to keep me going.
Visually, the show is great. There’s a lot of visual symbolism and the cinematography is impressive overall. The action scenes work for the most part, but there was a very choppy chase scene that looked terrible and an amazing fight scene early on set a very high standard for fights down the road that simply wasn’t met again.
Something that continues to shine in Netflix’s Marvel prodcutions is the impecable casting.
Mike Colter does a fantastic job as the titular character and is supported in style by the likes of Simone Missick, Theo Rossi, the awesome Ron Cephas Jones, a haunting Erik LaRay Harvey as antagonist Diamondback, and Rosario Dawson returning to the Marvel Universe as Claire Temple.
I especially appreciated the latter here, because her role is finally more than an obscure comic book cameo. She’s more than just the (un)lucky nurse patching them pesky heroes up. She’s a proper developed character with a meaningful impact beyond advancing the plot. Not a particularly huge fan of hers in most cases, but I really liked Dawson here.
Colter, as mentioned, embodies what is essentially what I imagined Luke Cage to be in real life. I haven’t read many comics featuring him, but from what I did know about him, Colter is about as good a choice there is to portray Power Man. My issues with Cage’s portrayal have nothing to do with Colter, who’s fantastic in the role. My problem is that he’s just too much of a Gary Stu a lot of the time. He’s never really wrong, he’s just the best of the best of good guys, stuff like that. I can’t help but compare the character to Matt Murdock (as the shows are so similar as it is), who’s a much more conflicted and therefore more compelling character. Sure, Cage has some issues to deal with, but I never felt his decisions ultimately had much weight to them. He was gonna save the day either way and doing it any other way than is his way would go completely against who the character is. Which brings us full circle back to predictability and lack of high stakes.
The main villain, while well portrayed and sufficiently menacing and scary, could’ve been better. Again, I’m sorry, but it just takes me back to Daredevil (some tiny Daredevil spoilers incoming, but come on… it’s been over a year, people). Wilson Fisk was a big psycho criminal with da
ddy issues. Willis “Diamondback” Stryker is a big psycho criminal with daddy issues. Each individual’s issues differ, true, but they are still freaking daddy issues.
Their motivations are different, though, that’s true. And funnily enough, that’s what makes me kinda like Diamondback. He feels like an old school supervillain because of his origin and his reasons for what he’s doing.
The other villains were pretty meh and by the numbers. Big-but-not-quite-at-the-top types, that hate being called by their comic book villain names. I can’t put my finger on it, but something about that last part felt extremely cliché to me.
Okay, it may seem like I didn’t care much for Luke Cage. Well… I certainly won’t be thinking about it much in the future. It definitely wasn’t as good as season one of Daredevil, and Jessica Jones got it beat on story progression and… er… well, I guess ‘originality’ is the word I’m looking for. Plus I kinda preferred Luke Cage as a supporting character in the latter, rather than a full fledged main character (although I did want more of him back then). Maybe it’s just the direction they took with his solo outing, I don’t know.
I still liked Luke Cage and I appreciate it for the quality production that it is. It had a lot to live up to. It’s a shame it didn’t. Not entirely anyway.
I give Luke Cage Season 1 7,7/10
Your pal,
Vid.
Vid, the Critic 