Have Spoilery Feelings About Netflix’s Luke Cage? Share Them Here!
I haven’t finished Netflix and Marvel’s Luke Cage yet but I know bingers may want a safe place to talk spoilers. Welcome to TheNerdyBird.com!
So yeah, SPOILER WARNING in effect! THE COMMENTS ON THIS POST WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS FOR LUKE CAGE SEASON 1. Please preface your comment with which EPISODE you’re going to talk about, that way folks who aren’t as far along can still take part in the comments but know which ones to skip. PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK AFTER THESE GIFS.
Apologies, I should have thought about putting this up the day Luke Cage premiered but it slipped my mind. I finished episode EIGHT last night. I won’t go into plot detail yet but so far the biggest standout from the show for me is the true sense of community they were able to portray. Performances have been fantastic, everyone feels authentic. The only character I’m bothered by so far is “Shades” but I’m interested to see how it will all wrap up considering the big events I just witnessed.
Let me know your thoughts, don’t forget the episode note before your comment please!
I’m pretty sure that Luke Cage failed the Bechdel Test.
[…] Have you watched Luke Cage yet? There’s an open thread to talk spoilers right here! […]
I have finished! I can finally read comments. :)
I enjoyed it. I’ll agree with the criticism that women seemed a little too eager to jump Luke but otherwise it was fun. Also I was actually surprised to get a full-on costumed Diamondback there at the end.
I finished the series a few hours ago. The end was very anticlimatic for me.
But on the whole I liked it a lot.
Turk name drops Johnny Blaze!!
That made me want to see Blaze in Agents of Shield as sort of a grumpy mentor-type figure for Ghost Rider, TBH. “…You sold your soul to Mephisito?…Congratulations, son – you’re now my problem until I say otherwise.”
Where was that? I missed it.
During the gun sale right before Luke shows up, he says “This is some Johnny Blaze shit”. I don’t know what else he could be referring to.
So I finished it.
This is gonna get me pitchforks, but I didn’t enjoy it as much as DD or JJ (the latter being my favorite so far, even with its pacing issues). However, I dunno how much of what I didn’t enjoy while watching it may be because I couldn’t connect to it (Mexican here).
Good: Rosario Dawson and Mahershala Ali owned every single scene they were in, and it’s a shame they didn’t interact. Alfre Woodard as Black Mariah was REALLY SCARY, like Umbridge levels of scary, but she also managed to bring a great balance to her character, so I loved that she’s still in the game. Theo Rossi had the best non-main villain arc I’ve seen in a long time, and in hindsight his character is hilarious. There’s a great sense of community (which counterbalances Jessica Jones seeking isolation and Daredevil’s descent into it), and you can see why these people have no issues approaching each other (I would never be able to approach a stranger without a reason). The fact that we finally got to meet Reva (a huge complain a lot of people had was that she was fridged in Jessica Jones, but I was hoping it was because Reva was always meant to be part of Luke’s story, not Jessica’s, so I’m happy that I was right). The way they portrayed Power Man’s outfit (and the running joke of Pop nicknaming him Power Man) was good.
Special mention: BADASS WOMEN DOING BADASS SHIT AND TAKING NO ATTITUDE FROM ANYONE. Misty. Mariah. Claire. Claire’s mom. The girl that wants to bone Luke. Misty’s boss. Misty’s IAB inspector. Every single woman here was complete and awesome and does not have any time to deal with your shit. That was AWESOME.
Bad: The writing. The dialogue. It felt clunky. It felt bad. Not all of it, but sometimes I couldn’t just listen – it was disconcernting. DIAMONDBACK. After that build up it ended up being a cartoon – I totally thought Shades was gonna be Diamondback pretending not to be. They tied him too closely to Luke, making him reductive instead of expansive in the Universe. As hilarious as it was, the Frankenstein science scene was bad (at least they showed how smart Claire is! Love me some Night Nurse). This show was not gonna be on par of action with DD, but sometimes the action felt… bad (exception: the Crispus Attucks – that was dope). Claire and Luke (then again, I don’t know how much of this is my JJ/LC shipping goggles, but in Claire’s own words, it was corny).
Particular pet peeve: Missick’s speech patterns as Misty. I loved her energy, the way she handled herself in the scenes, and the phsyicality of the role. But to me she was enunciating too much – like, making sure everybody understood her. But this was a pet peeve, not something bad, so I mention it separately.
MCU connections: SO MANY. Rebound girl (rude! Don’t talk about your future wifey like that!). TRISH TALK! (That has to be the best integration of the MCU so far, and something that has been asked for a lot on tumblr – have someone listen to Trish on the radio). “I know a lawyer” – I know the consensus is that she’ll call Matt, but from the fact that the next show is IF I think she’ll call Foggy (since a – Hogarth hired him specifically to defend superpowered people and b – Hogarth and her firm will show up in Iron Fist and therefore the liberation of Luke can happen during IF and have him free in Defenders instead of having to heist him out). Black Mariah using both JJ and Kilgrave as reasons to get better guns. Hammer Industries. Claire interested in self defense lessons taught by a Colleen Wing.
All in all, I don’t know. I liked it, sure, and it was great TV, but in the pantheon of the MNU it sits in the latter half, not the top. But I am reticent – I’ll give it a second watch, maybe I’ll feel more comfortable then.
*pitchforks you slightly, only with the loving end of the pitchfork… if there is one OO*
*starts bleeding lovingly*
my favorite character in the show (aside from Cage himself) was Psychologist Cop who had a heart-to-heart with Misty Knight. He wasn’t portrayed as sleazy, corrupt, an obstacle, or anything negative – Dude was awesome.
We need more of those.
I know it’s the easiest trope to have good cop bad cop, but sometimes we just need lawful good cops. Guy’s doing his job, and he probably has a family he goes to. No need for him to be power hungry, sleazy, or shady about his methods.
I also loved Captain Audrey (Misty’s boss) for that.
He just talked to her. He was patient, kind, and didn’t rise when she struck back, just nodded. I hope we see more of him.
Me too, since Turk also seems to be popping out everywhere.
He’ll probably be confined to the Harlem side of things though.
EPISODE 07
I’m hating the fact that every woman in this show is ready to drop their panties in a second for Luke. It turns them from characters to trophies to show Luke’s manliness. For one hot second Claire redeemed that facet with her, “I’m not having sex with you”, but that went out the window in the next episode. You have failed me Luke Cage.
Yeah, same opinion on that here.
It was disappointing to see the shift from comrade to “omg heart eyes” thing she had going on later.
Maybe I’m forgetting something, but the only characters I seem to recall who immediately wanted to drop their draws for Luke was Misty Knight and the mom from the barbershop, and Misty was the only one who actually slept with him. Everyone else just acknowledged that they found him attractive… which is a thing that happens.
The romantic arc with Claire was at least built up over multiple episodes. Was it a perfect buildup? Not necessarily, but I bought and appreciated it a lot more than her fling with Daredevil.
Idk, the idea that the women on the show finding themselves attracted to Luke undoes all the brilliant character work that went into them is… an interesting hot take, to say the least.
And Reva, and Jessica, and the married woman from JJ.
Reva was his wife, and if anything, Luke was just a trophy for Jessica’s sexual conquests on her respective series. But all that aside, you did say “Every woman on this show.”
“Luke was just a trophy for Jessica’s sexual conquests on her respective series.”
And if it was just her, that would be true. But with all of the other women lining up to sleep with him, her sexual conquest actually becomes his.
No. I’m sorry, but no. The story centered on Jessica Jones. Everything was based on her experiences including her sexual encounter with Luke Cage. Therefore, he is a trophy for her sexual conquest because he’s nothing more than a supporting character on that series. Other women (including his dead wife) find him attractive on his own show and suddenly that just takes away the development and agency of Jessica Jones? That’s some wild logic.
In an age of increasing sexual freedom, your words sound a lot like “women who want to have sex with Luke Cage are automatically lesser because of it” which also sounds like “they’re not as valuable because they chose to have sex with this character.” And to be honest, that’s very odd.
But that’s also your opinion, I guess.
Agreed.