Marvel's Luke Cage

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ymw5uvViqPU

I cannot wait for this

Definitely hopeful

He was the best part of JJ, so I'm anticipating this one highly.

I do 5-3-5 but I wonder if 5 in red is better? that shield tile is beastly.

A+ Euler (I'm also 5-3-5 but have considered trying 4-5-4)

great trailer, psyched for this. mike colter is so great as luke.

go 3/5/5 cage, mix with a 3/5/5 iron fist and then take any red/blue/yellow mix and that's my death roster

Stoked for this. After the initial '61-68(ish) wave of iconic heroes and villains, I think Cage is one of the best characters Marvel ever developed.

go 3/5/5 cage, mix with a 3/5/5 iron fist and then take any red/blue/yellow mix and that's my death roster

Pretty much this (though I'd stockpile the yellow for Luke's nuke). I don't get why, though, people don't go with Vision as a third in addition to Magneto.

Is this going to be as good as Jessica Jones, or as stupid as Daredevil?

After the initial '61-68(ish) wave of iconic heroes and villains, I think Cage is one of the best characters Marvel ever developed

Watching the trailer I was def missing his classic yellow costume with the chain for a belt, tho of course I realise a TV series more faithful to the 1970s comicsploitation vibe of Archie Goodwin, Steve Englehart, Don McGregor, George Tuska and other assorted white guys wld be very extremely difficult to pull off, today, but not impossible. I'm trying to think if there were that many working class heroes (for hire) before Luke Cage - I guess Peter Parker - Ben Grimm - Nick Fury?

Trailer looks dope, but I still think it's missing something. I want Danny/Misty/Colleen tagging along to complete the group.

Fist's series is up next.

iron fist is loras from game of thrones?

Fist's series is up next.

― Pleeesiosaur (Leee), Friday, July 22, 2016 1:19 PM (14 minutes ago)

What? Cage happens this September, and Iron Fist is sometime in 2017.

I didn't want to muddle the streams but this trailer came out as well:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCSPda7xQ3s

There's also this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBZtM8q2Z1g

The Defenders one is dispiriting - I'm dreading the fact that the Suicide Squad movie is going to be a big hit and usher in a new era of 'edgy' garbage complete w/ horrible Nirvana 'tributes'

What? Cage happens this September, and Iron Fist is sometime in 2017.

My "next" meant after Cage.

nah, i think marvel are secure enough in what they're doing that the defenders will be solidly in line with the tone set by daredevil and jessica jones so far xp

i'll grant you the music in that trailer was fucking awful though

mainly it just seems like a bad idea to make a trailer for a show that afaik hasn't shot a single frame of footage yet

Ward, that's a weird and, assuming you've watched the other Netflix series, borderline incoherent criticism.

Bizarro otm down the line. Music probably only grates on (or even registers with) People of a Certain Age.

"The world is ready for a bulletproof black man," says 'Cage' showrunner
Nice line

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytkjQvSk2VA

oh hell yes

I hope the rest of the casting is just as excellent. Mike Colter's parts in JJ were such a great mix of "don't fuck with this guy" and "I love this guy!"

Rah pretty psyched for this already.

Frankie Faison!

yep this looks great - already feel like this might be the best of the marvel netflix shows yet

The Walter Mosley paperback he's reading at the end, nice touch. Plus the nod to the Power Man bracelets from the original costume.

can't wait for this!

Hope Doom makes an appearance.

http://comicsalliance.com/files/2010/08/powermandoom02-hfh9.jpg

lol:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axd-SR43mKE

First big review is in:

http://io9.gizmodo.com/marvel-s-luke-cage-is-the-unapologetically-black-superh-1786315815

Has anyone seen any of the artwork from Genndy Tartakovsky's new solo Luke Cage book? It's... something.

https://thenerdsofcolor.org/2016/07/11/who-is-marvels-blaxploitation-luke-cage-comic-even-for-exactly/

I had a very similar reaction.

I'm very hopefuly about the netflix show!

just watched all the clips and i'm v all in on this now

all the cynicism about superhero shit and marvel shit in particular is to some extent v understandable but with the way this looks and the way jessica jones was, i'm fine w/ the big tentpole flicks paying the rent for more interesting/idiosyncratic shit like this

It looks, from the episode credits, like they're going to keep with their pattern of having characters cross between shows keeping continuity. Hopefully that means plenty of Misty Knight appearances from here on out.

Enjoy some opening credits

https://twitter.com/LukeCage/status/781534826541248513

And this story:

http://www.motherjones.com/media/2016/09/luke-cage-marvel-netflix-black-superhero-cheo-hodari-coker

Odd slam here:

Luke Cage starts out slowly, but builds, over the course of the season, into a raw representation of street-level heroism, sparing us the corniness of, say, Supergirl.

I was hoping for a funkier theme song, but I'm still very excited for this

Guy playing wah-wah guitar should have figured out the second half to that lick. It just sorta peters out...

Who's scoring this is it Sean callery again

Adrian Younge and Ali Shaheed Muhammad

Three episodes in and: Fuck. Yes. I'm feeling this hardcore. The scene at the end of episode two was moving and rousing, a real 'THIS is what a hero looks like' moment. Cage is about to enjoy the cultural cachet he's been denied for way too long.

And Simone Missick (Misty Knight actress) is incredibly crushworthy, omg.

Just finished ep 2, really into this.

On ep 7 out of a lack of anything better to do. The pacing issues are pretty brutal. These shows really should not be doing 13-ep seasons.

yeah i heard this suffers from the same issues that JJ and DD did being a handful of eps too long

this one also has a villain problem tbh, which is really too bad as it has the best hero out of these series

The theme song has this familiar-sounding John Barry guitar riff, did Portishead sample it?

Also: Blind Butchie!

lol this has been a v frustrating viewing experience but I will wait to say any more than that

xp: and Burrell!

What signs of when this is set are there. I didn't see anythi8ng at the beginning of the first show and the only indication of time there seemed to be when the street hustler is offering images of the big event or whatever it's called here. Which I thought was Avengers #1.
So does this follow on from when Luke has his place burnt down in Jessica Jones?

It's after JJ and very soon after Daredevil season 2. When Claire Temple arrives in the show, she talks about having seen a guy live after a shotgun blast to the head (from JJ) and a body that had been autopsy'd come to life (DD 2).

mike colter's ability to project invincibility by posture alone is incredible

"Your new VH1 show? Criminal Spinsters?"

best line ever.

this show really makes me wish that there was a great black family drama to watch on t.v.

that wasn't some empire/godfather/scarface thing.

Like Parenthood with an afro. that would be cool.

I mean, there's Queen Sugar.

i haven't seen it yet! would watch. i'll have to check and see if its on hulu.

i just watch alfre on this and i could watch her all day long as the matriarch on a complex family drama that runs for years. there are so many amazing african-american actors out there right now.

and a lot of actors doing great work on other shows. but you know what i mean.

i kinda feel like luke cage and kalinda the only reason i watched the good wife as long as i did. they should team up on a show together.

With the time setting thing, I was initially wondering why he had to establish himself enough that he was in a low pay job like pushing a broom and thought it must be closer to his origin. Butt looks like he was just totally wiped out by the destruction of his bar etc.

Surprised that he can shave with a plastic bic. Would have thought that all of him would have become impervious in the process taht made most of him that way. But he still had long hair and full beard when he came out of the tank. & they show a cheap disposable razor as what he's shaving with.
Reminds me of wolverine immediately healing everywhere. Does that extend to his hair restoring to what it would have been groomed from?

no splitting hairs on the comic book superhero threads.

tbh I noticed the Bic thing too

I haven't watched the show but it's supposed to be his skin that's unbreakable

i do like the music on this show. even the rap guy i've never heard of i liked. everything fits really well for the most part.

Yeah I'm digging the scoring on this. Much more than what the other guy did for jj

Would have thought that all of him would have become impervious in the process

would enjoy a marvel one-shot on sanitation workers trying to dispose of luke cage's impervious shits

you don't even drink coffee! I saw you this morning, you drank the orange juice!

v glad RD finally gets stuff to do in this one

I mean, pretty obvious she would be but Simone Missick has confirmed she'll be back as Misty Knight in the Defenders show

"You want a lemonade? Popular drink."
"And it still is"

cracked up, but not as thrilling as "I don't believe you. You need more people."

the bad/corny bits of this, particularly in the last couple of eps, reminded me a lot of The Meteor Man

lol

They went completely over the top with the Diamondback outfit. The Method Man cameo was just a little ridiculous until they stretched it into completely ridiculous.

Is Method Man just branching into acting and trying to do a lot of cameos or something? I just saw him in Difficult People though not sure when that actually happened since I'm still catching up with it.

Don't remember having come across him appearing i this before , think I have seen other members of the Wu in things though.

he's been acting for ages. Most notably in The Wire

what is the origin of the phrase to 'put somebody "on blast"' ?

He and Redman had their own sitcom! xxp

Man, it's like the whole world has already forgotten Garden State.

You guys haven't seen How High smh

I live How High.
getting out my blender and dried ilxor corpse bits

it was like me and three other people in the theater when i went to see Keanu.

enjoying this so far, misty knight is great, very happy she'll be hanging around.

I couldn't make it through either Daredevil season or Jessica Jones, but I'm very down with watching the Lemond Bishop: Superhero show.

That said, the first ten minutes of this seemed very corny and staid. Does it get better?

It is extremely corny, and not really "better" than either of the other shows in any meaningful way beyond timeliness

Chuck, if you couldn't get through either previous Netflix show, I honestly don't know why you'd bother. It's like asking people if this fourth Nightmare on Elm Street is the one for you when you thought the last three were shit.

i like it because i like the people in it. pretty much all the people in it.

i liked daredevil 2 more than daredevil 1. i got a little tired of the agony of kingpin in 1. and also endless flashbacks of origin stuff. i mean i know why they were there, but it seemed like a lot. also i will watch RD in anything.

i didn't watch JJ. when i read about all the trauma/ptsd stuff and i just didn't feel like watching that at the time.

also, Old Lunch on the money. it's kinda easy to figure out if you like this kinda thing.

most of the people on luke cage are way WAY better than the material. they make it better just by being there. it's certainly not essential viewing. but people who like this kinda thing will probably like it fine.

it has about 500% too much Theo Rossi

it has about 500% too much Theo Rossi

wtf

eh, he doesn't bug me. he's suitably snake-like even if he's not really that menacing. he's supposed to be really menacing.

i've been watching this right now while surfing the interweb and went through two episodes without really worrying about missing anything...

I want to like this kind of thing because I like the original comics - well, not the Bendis ones, but other writers have written these characters well. Figured this one might be worth a shot because I like Colter, and maybe they'd worked out the logy pacing issues? I guess not but I'll give it a try, again. Persistence in the face of overwhelming contrary evidence is nothing if not a comics-reading habit.

Well, I'll certainly grant you that.

The first six episodes seem like they could have been a short season. The rest is more of a continuation and exploration into Luke's origins, which kind of felt a little mismanaged but still enjoyable.

They really need to stop with the bit where Claire ends up hooking up with title characters. If the next show arc has her anything more than chummy with Iron Fist, I'm writing my complaint letters

the part where snakehead holds the city councilman hostage and plays records and tells endless stories from his childhood is pretty funny. talk about cruel and unusual punishment.

The brief appearance of '70s-style Cage was a nice touch. For the sake of an opposing viewpoint, my gf was like 'why doesn't he take that stupid thing off his head' and then turned and just kinda stared at me incredulously when he dropped the 'sweet christmas' (she's otherwise enjoying it a lot, though).

I haven't gotten to the episode with the gang starr quote yet. Highly anticipating.

sweet christmas!

Cage also dropped a "Sweet Christmas!" in Jessica Jones after he and JJ boned.

I've watched the first three eps and am loving it. Just serious enough about its characters, setting and the black experience in America; just silly enough to end an episode with the otherwise "realistic" villain firing a rocket launcher at a restaurant.

it goes much more ridiculously pulpy

Bobby's comments on Diamondback's outfit at the end have stuck with me

This series has more death-defying cliffhangers at the end of episodes than I remember there being in DD/JJ/DD2 — feels very much like an old Saturday morning cinema serial that way.

I usually skip past the credits sequence in these shows after watching it once or twice, but I've let this one run in every episode because of how striking the visuals are, especially that shot of (I think) Macombs Dam Bridge overlaid on Cage's back, looking very much like scars — a really powerful image. And I like the credits music.

I feel like the only thing we really missed, which maybe they were holding back for later or left out due to additional casting/shooting, was the "Carl Lucas gets framed and goes to jail" part of the backstory. Well, and him as an enlisted man after Carl and Willis got busted for the car joyride bit.

It's dumb but it made me feel like the parts we did see or hear about ended up being the story of the favorite son who screwed up and *skips a bunch of years* was in prison after being framed and becomes a superhero.

He enlisted and presumably grew up, then was framed! The guy who was in prison definitely wasn't a reckless teen.

Does this map to his character history as a comic character?
I just downloaded most of his history and haven't had a chance to read through it yet.

Did really enjoy the series.

Though still surprised a bic would work on him, might think the plastic holding the blade might not being the best of shape after being in contact with him anyway.
Does he just heal the hair out of the way most of the time when he hasn't just been referencing his 70s look?

Wonder how they managed to do the tattoos for the title sequence. You'd think the needle would break

Luke Cage is all about the henna, yo.

The opening credits are remarkable, not least for the kinda more metaphorical featuring of New York City written on the (a) Black body.

I am loving this show so much. One of my new fave podcasts, called "Tea with Queen and J," was complaining that a review at Blavity had called this show "The Blackest thing you'll ever see" or some clickbaity headline, and the podcasters were complaining that that is only true if you presuppose that drugs, gangs, foodstamps, and housing projects = "Blackness," which granted would be a weak point. But one thing I like is how much the show normalizes Blackness by having so few white ppl on it at all! Maybe I just didn't watch Empire so I didn't know everyone was already past this point by now but whatever, I like it.

it has about 500% too much Theo Rossi

― a serious and fascinating fartist (Simon H.), Sunday, October 2, 2016 11:25 PM (two days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Oh also you is out of order, Rossi was always the cutest one on Sons of Anarachy.

Juice forevah <3

sorry but when yr character's defining characteristic is his eyewear you don't deserve 4th or 5th billing

man, I want to love this but I'm struggling to even like it. obvious, stagey, slow, with nothing even resembling tension or an arc or even an inhabited Manhattan really

it does get about 50x more entertaining the moment I realized Alfre Woodard is doing a dead on impression of Tituss Burgess in every scene

i dont mean to be pvmic but goddamn that luke cage is easy on my eyes good lord

corny & expositiony but i am into it & in for the ride

yup, the most unrealistic aspect of this show is that every character isn't throwing themselves at him in every scene

lol vg i wouldn't have put it quite that way but yeah the lead casting is excellent. also always good to see Kima Greggs working

The Defenders one is dispiriting - I'm dreading the fact that the Suicide Squad movie is going to be a big hit and usher in a new era of 'edgy' garbage complete w/ horrible Nirvana 'tributes'

― Foster Twelvetrees (Ward Fowler), Friday, July 22, 2016

lol don't need to worry about this i think

bwahaha

Have they used the coffee machine running gag from the original comics? That made me laugh as a kid. I'd rather see that than the headpiece.

the last episode was really long. i honestly thought they were gonna do that thing where the people on the street help out and start fighting snakehead as luke writhes in pain. was that in a superman movie? my memory is gone.

Alfre Woodard is so good in this.

I wasn't going to spoil the later episodes over the weekend, but let me now say the the progression of Method Man appearing as himself, to appearing on Sway in the Morning in the Marvel Universe, to rapping about Luke Cage, to inspiring a groundswell of support of people wearing hoodies with bullet holes

it went a notch over the top at some point in there

Have Marvel started marketing the bullet holed hoodies for real or are they missing a market opportunity?

Probably catch on in the wake of the ripped jean thing that is still really popular at least here. & I'm assuming must be traceable back to the Ramones look.

So is Claire Temple a love interest of the comic Daredevil or is that a later development or a TV one. I just started reading hero For Hire from 72 and she's in the 2nd edition. So looks like she was with Luke Cage first anyway.

in the context of the show, she did Daredevil before Luke, as she has just come up/back to Harlem from Hell's Kitchen

Somebody further up the thread was complaining about the way that she seemed to be getting off with all the individual heroes or something to that effect. Looks like she was actually Luke's love interest in the comics way before she had anything to do with daredevil.
Actually looks like she only turned up with the character name in the Daredevil tv series because Night Nurse the character that was initially supposed to fill the role was probably going to be a character in films. So Night Nurse was replaced with Claire Temple who's in Hero For Hire from #2 onwards.

this looks v cool and fun to watch, but is it anything more than a fundamentally conservative clean-up-the-streets-and-kill-the-thugs Death Wish style fantasy?

it's about the legacy of abuse and the corrupt and unfair system that perpetuates that abuse.

also, OMG, D-Nice!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPuvn4-x8ww

http://static1.comicvine.com/uploads/scale_super/4/46646/3712772-9096630483-Cage4.jpg
or http://static1.comicvine.com/uploads/scale_super/4/46646/3712772-9096630483-Cage4.jpg

Luke Cage gets his costume in Hero For Hire #2
I saw the joke about Shazam's costume there, so assume that the court case about who had the rights to the name captain Marvel must have just happened when it came out.

like every marvel hero of his era he just naturally has those folded over boots

man alive, Luke doesn't kill anyone and it's more of a "push out the criminals in our neighborhood" story. The beginning sets up, very clearly, a link between a crime boss an elected official and their joint corruption and influence in the neighborhood is what spurns action.

Somebody further up the thread was complaining about the way that she seemed to be getting off with all the individual heroes or something to that effect.

It was more of me questioning whether we really need to go down the route of every man/woman friendship or alliance eventually having to end up in a relationship. I know comics are mini-soap operas where eventually all of the main characters are going to end up with each other at some point over the years, but it'd be nice if a man and woman could get along well and work together without the plot throwing them into a romance. Especially if this is over the course of one season.

I mean, I understand everyone wanting to hook up with Luke Cage, he's a good-looking dude!

https://thenerdsofcolor.org/2016/10/04/luke-cage-is-the-most-feminist-show-on-tv/

https://twitter.com/imbobswaget/status/783544087257485312

the white people commentary is o_O
the people commenting on that are lol

I wish people the best when they're recognizing and confronting their biases

feeling uncomfortable because it's a majority black cast on screen is o_O though

I find the commentary about how "woke" this show is to be a little off. The depictions of "bad cops" is hilariously dated, for starters.

it's pretty sympathetic and reminiscent of tv cop shows

I really have a mixed reaction to these shows (DD, JJ, LC). Laboriously paced, near-episode length longeurs, the visual gloom, the tone of it all, a bit too heavy and sonorously delivered for its content. Story often seems to run out of puff and need defibrillating with increasingly weak devices. And yes, totally standard cop show portrayals (maybe a historical comic source material thing?).

BUT Luke Cage as an imperfectly attempted celebration of Harlem, competing visions of, cultural figures belonging to, future of, was a great not-very-sub text, and a great thing to attempt to portray. The interleaving of musical performance in most episodes was really good (with good music!). Alfre Woodard was awesome.

Similarly the way the whole shape of JJ was entwined with angry explorations of consent... these are things *now*, that tv *now* she certainly be doing.

On that basis DD is probably the weakest here and certainly DD2 was shit, but i still q enjoyed DD1.

like every marvel hero of his era he just naturally has those folded over boots

― I wish you could see my home. It's... it's so... exciting (Jon not Jon), Wednesday, October 5, 2016 10:11 PM (two days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Odd thing is that they suddenly become all yellow by the next issue, with no explanation.
Wonder when continuity came in in comics?

But do like that look.

I started watching the first episode of this and loved this, especially the cast (altho it is driving me crazy that I can't think of where I've seen the chess-playing guy at the barbershop in the opening scene of episode 1 before). just checked imdb and lol D-Nice is in this?!??

I dunno, did you watch Mr. Robot? That's the last place I saw Bobby Fish/Ron Cephas Jones (I also mistook him for Andre Royo in his first fleeting scenes).

I pegged it - he's the afrocentric dad dude in The Getdown

planning to watch this over the weekend, wife was into it

2 episodes in and I am in love with this

Yeah this is v good

hang in there. it definitely starts strong. and then gets....different. but the people in it make it worth watching for sure.

Interesting how many women are in positions of authority so far!

I liked the first episode a good deal and crime dramas generally not my thing, but the cast is good and the blaxploitation touches are all v well integrated. My wife was impatient for the super-heroing to start but I don't think she was disappointed by slo-mo shot of dude's hand shattering against Luke's face lol

IS the appearance of Dr Strange teh movie totally coincidental to the Defenders being set up as a group? ONly just realising that he's not in the group despite him being in all the comic versions I'm aware of.
Is the film in the same marvel Universe?

Looks like those members of the team who were members in the comic were only associated members there.

Anyway Luke Cage is great and I hope we get a bit more of this story, it does end on a real cliffhanger if that isn't too much of a spoiler.

I liked this ok. Wish it was more like 8-10 episodes, as it dragged a lot in the middle. I'll wait a bit more to discuss as to not spoil anything.

I liked the bit at the end of Luke Cage where Claire checks out a flyer for a self defense class taught by Colleen Wing

Love the music.

If I had to guess what Marvel is going to do with their Netflix series in terms of comic plot influences, I'd go with
- Brubaker/Fraction's Iron Fist stories
- Luke Cage's New Avengers, specifically the later arcs where it alternates between NY street level action and exploring the problems faced by the individual members
- Shadowland stuff from the Daredevil book

Luke Cage: Family Matters

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gpED0Z57RU

XD

Marvel Netflix shows really need a Reginald VelJohnson appearance imo

so... Alfre Woodard is fucking incredible, huh

also when is this slump in pacing supposed to start

For me, once things shift from cottonmouth to diamondback

^^^

The scene where Misty is going through her emotions after her showdown with Cottonmouth gave me massive chills, both from the acting and how it was shot

That was great. Everyone else continues to be great, I just think cottonmouth is totally boring.

Everyone was great but I'm still just basically like baffled and wondering where Simone Missick has been all my life and why she isn't already halfway down the road to EGOT-ville by now.

This was really three shows:
a great-to-excellent street-level drama;
a boring, drawn-out back-and-forth;
a sloppy superhero show with a bunch of stupid plot holes.

But, it has a lot of Wire alums! (Clark Johnson directs the finale!)

Actor who plays Cottonmouth is super-charismatic, but I think he falls back on the laughing-when-things-get-tense thing too much.

For me, once things shift from cottonmouth to diamondback

― look at the morning people (Jon not Jon), Wednesday, October 12, 2016 4:07 AM (six hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I'm assuming that since Diamondback is a story that appears inside of the first couple of issues of Hero For Hire it must be something that recurs through Luke's history. So it was inevitably going to be part of a series based on him. As was Clare Temple, even though the character of the name was used in Daredevil.
Thought it was handled ok in this and interesting to see how the costume's been updated from its 1972 version.

BUt only got as far as issue 3 of the comic so far so not sure to what extent the character reappears. He's apparently been killed but it does look like that is only apparently. Also I didn't notice the tv version being as adept with knives as the comic one.

There were a couple of moments in the tv version where it looked like Diamondback was already enhanced though maybe he was just a bit more driven. & I don't think it was enhanced in the mechanical way he's specifically shown to be. Won't say more tahn that in case anybody hasn't seen this yet.

I'm assuming that since Diamondback is a story that appears inside of the first couple of issues of Hero For Hire it must be something that recurs through Luke's history. So it was inevitably going to be part of a series based on him.

I don't really buy this argument at all! The tv version of the characters is a pick-and-choose of backstory along with whatever the writers decide works best with their vision. There's an entire television subplot about Luke and Diamondback being half-brothers from Georgia which is an original creation.

I hope there's some super-fan out there annoyed that Daredevil didn't have several seasons of punching out Stilt-Man before they got to the Frank Miller origin retcon stuff.

No Mike Murdoch, no credibility

yesssss

wasn't there a mike murdock joke somewhere in season one of dd?

no sleep 'til stilt-man afaic

the beetle!

want to root for this because love Cheo H. Coker (Source Mindsquad 4 lyfe) but honestly I'm just so. burned. out. on. marvel. shit.

plus it's never like you can just watch a fuckin show it's always like "Well, to really understand Luke Cage you should probably watch Jessica Jones and to really understand Jessica Jones you should watch both seasons of Daredevil and to understand Daredevil you should really watch Iron Man 3 and his appearance in that calls back to episode 15 of season 2 of Agents of Shield, which is a reference to a post-credits Easter egg on the finale of Agent Carter"

No, this makes complete sense on its own, I swear

I still haven't watched DD and it didn't cause me any problems in watching JJ and LC

cool, hopefully i'll get the bug, haha i just really wanted to rant about marvel's labrynthine "fan service" callback bullshit

I don't thin it's really obvious when it's set in relation to other Marvel stuff. The only giveaways are references to the Event which is Avengers related and in some things that Claire Temple says. & I think that can just be put down to past history between the characters without necessarily having to go too much further into it. Though did enjoy those earlier series, sop would see them if you haven't already anyway.

So yeah I think this does stand on its own ok.

also when is this slump in pacing supposed to start

― ¶ (DJP), Tuesday, October 11, 2016 7:45 PM (yesterday)

Yeah, I felt the whole thing was well paced, compared to Daredevil and Jessica Jones. Daredevil being the slumpiest of the 3.

I'm trying DD s2 right now, struggling from the beginning tbf

you don't have to know anything about any other marvel stuff to watch luke cage. or daredevil.

i'll tell you one thing, my 11 year old is totally growing up a DC kid. "dark" marvel does not entice him at all. he loves flash and supergirl.

you don't have to know anything about any other marvel stuff to watch luke cage. or daredevil.

― scott seward, Wednesday, October 12, 2016 8:00 PM (one minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

you get odd references to things elsewhere but I think they're peripheral enough not to confuse. Like what the touts around the neighborhood are trying to sell people but might as well be another pop reference if you haven't seen the other stuff.

THough maybe it is assumed taht most people would have anyway.

Still wondering how popular a show like any of these Netflix Marvel's are. Are they current expectations taht you'll have seen them if you're remotely into watching trending tv or are they still a bit marginal?

Did wonder if anybody would be thinking the market would be large enough to start trying to sell tie in hoodies for real

idgaf about any othe Marvel shows/movies tbh and found this perfectly coherent. I'm sure I missed a bunch of callbacks/easter eggs but they had no bearing on the actual plot.

how is supergirl, scott? think a 9yo girl could dig/follow it?

yeah, i think? depends on the kid, i guess. it has a lot of action but of the comic book variety. not the bleak no exit world of marvel.

Hell is other series

ally mcbeal is in supergirl. haven't seen her in a while.

Finally finished this the other night. I thought it was great, better than DD season 2 for sure. And a surprisingly morose ending!

This show had the most attractive cast I have seen on TV in a long time.

i told Cyrus about the new DC universe show that is on Netflix and he seemed into it and i talked about the differences between the DC and Marvel shows and he said he tried to watch the first episode of Luke Cage but half the show was just people standing around talking in a barber shop so he stopped watching. the youth have spoken.

i would be excited about the DC show too but i friggin' hate time travel. some serious bill & ted shit in the trailer for that show. einstein gets punched in the face!

Loved the rapper cameo in this.

which?

All the live music seemed pretty good.
I think main rapper cameo was Method Man in attempted robbery drugstore, then radio show where he gave an improvised rap.

it's called freestyling fyi

This was fucking badass

I hope Mike Colter ends up in everything based on his work in this. Ditto Simone Cook and Mahershala Ali.

i am only a few eps in but i fucking love this, i retract my earlier "slow & corny tag" & say this is cool, badass and vv enjoyable

also full-bearded shaggy Luke Cage in prison, he looked like a lion <3

can someone tell me about the landscape painting (photo?) behind Cottonmouth's desk?

kinda dark desert maybe with a glowing sky/weird vignette effect, I'm really into it

from the set decorator

alison Froling ‏@moonraker_1 21h21 hours ago
@licjulie The painting is original painted by amazing scenic team- loosely in style of Charles Alston- we wanted tension btwn Lt&dk- & wings

it's so good. wow to them, that's awesome.

i will watch this sooner or later but this elicited a chuckle

http://67.media.tumblr.com/9aa69c724c8ba81d16a6c110a7bedfaa/tumblr_oegd8bBjRQ1s71q1zo1_1280.png

that's every marvel netflix show!

well yeah but this is the active thread so...

I'm going slow through this series (just watched ep2 last night) but man the music in this is really well done - bits of Byrd's "Cristo Redentor" for the bookend scenes, the nightclub song repurposing the riff from George Benson's "Footin'" as a 60s R&B tune (also meant as a nod to Diamond D's "Freestyle (Yo That's That Shit)", I assume. Plus it just looks great and the cast is v good. Cottonmouth guy overdoes it a bit but whatever.

Didn't connect Turk's "I'm goin back to Hell's Kitchen" line to Daredevil until this morning, I had registered his name when it was dropped during the chess game but I didn't connect it to the bit player in Miller's Daredevil run til afterward

some of the best original music for a marvelverse project yet IMO

xp have you watched Daredevil? He appears there a few times.

I couldn't make it through a single episode of Daredevil. It was all downhill after the credit sequence.

Don't watch DD, you'll hate it more than I do.

Daredevil had so many polite assailants that waited to take their turns in hallways

i really hate the acting in DD

and even not in hallways! I'm not the type of viewer that focuses on the credibility of fight scenes, but it got too ridiculous even for me.

Luke Cage was so so so much better than Daredevil

i still like jessica jones just a tad more than luke cage, if only because JJ has by far the lowest cornball factor of any marvel thing i've seen without ever seeming like a posturing sort of grit. like SPOILER her final moment with kilgrave

that said a lot of the cornier stuff in luke cage is moving in a way that falls flat in other marvel stuff, because colter's depiction of cage is hugely convincing as an imperfect but earnest hero

so far there's barely been any action at all in Luke Cage! which doesn't really bother me. It really is more like a black noir/crime thing a la Himes/Goines/Slim etc.

xp

lol i didn't finish my sentence there re: that jessica jones moment, whoops xp self

Jessica Jones was great. It's why I watched the other two. Daredevil is the weakest show of the 3. I don't think it's just because he's a cute scruffy white guy, but, that's part of it.

DD is still worth it just for Foggy and Karen, though.

daredevil is like, perfectly fine popcorn shit imo for the most part, but its failings (all dialogue not spoken by scott glenn, many though not all the performances, some, uh, /questionable/ portrayals of japanese ppl, etc.) really stand out compared to cage and JJ

i was a huge fan of the bike chain fight in season 2, despite the somewhat valid criticisms of the action choreography upthread. but that in and of itself, to bring it back to cage, didn't impress me as much as luke storming the crispus attucks center while listening to "bring da ruckus"

so far there's barely been any action at all in Luke Cage! which doesn't really bother me. It really is more like a black noir/crime thing a la Himes/Goines/Slim etc.

xp

― Οὖτις, Friday, October 21, 2016 1:41 PM (twelve minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Don't know if you've made it that far but they explicitly namedrop those authors (among others) within the show.

yeah, i chuckled when Frankie Faison's character mentioned Richard Price and Dennis Lehane, as they both wrote episodes of The Wire

yeah those names are all dropped in ep2

which is pretty heavy-handed DO U C meta shit but eh whatever

it is, but keep in mind ppl who are well aware of the through-lines between cage and chester himes/mosley/goines novels are, ah, not this show's primary audience.

How mainstream is the audience for this?
Is it something that most people are likely to see or is it still in the realms of comic book fanboy stuff for most people?

Hoping that it is at least stumbled on.
& I guess Netflix is in a lot of people's homes now worldwide.

I think the Marvel Netflix shows have proven to be pretty popular but I also don't know that there's an effective metric for actually measuring that popularity atm.

my FB feed isnt lit up with posts about it like Stranger Things was but I've seen a couple.

yeah, i chuckled when Frankie Faison's character mentioned Richard Price and Dennis Lehane, as they both wrote episodes of The Wire

Pelecanos and the other guy got a shout too!

first season of DD was just too mean and brutal for its own good in my opinion and i almost didn't watch the second season because of that but i kinda liked how over-the-top and demented the second season was. i liked the elektra stuff.

yeah, the 2nd season was way better!

re: slowness -- i didn't feel this re the pace of the story, but i did feel it in some of lay back and conversate scenes, starting with the barbershop in the first ep; which seemed careful and stately when conversations in such places tend to be fast and, well, unstately

this wasn't a huge deal but it meant a scene that was important to setting a mood and a community and culture was more tell than show (i felt)

(i only know marvel via the movies -- the vast interconnectedness daunted me as a kid, even tho lol i was a kid like 40 years b4 most of the rest of you, and i never embarked on them -- anyway, this is entirely watchable and explicable w/o needing to know anything abt other storylines)

many many xposts: scott upthread lamented there not being "a great black family drama to watch on t.v." and it suddenly made me flash on a series from, i'm guessing, the early 90s, which was exactly this -- i think it was named for the name or number of the house, but i honestly don't remember much about it except that it was a bit groundbreaking for being about urban black american life and family without being embedded in crime or social justice issues? haha this is not much of a clue -- maybe i shd ask my sister, i watched it with her

227

well wait that was a sitcom, not a drama

was it this? http://www.famousfix.com/topic/413-hope-st

huh totally don't remember that

p sure it was not 227 tho lol

yes i think it was, dan, thank you -- i was going to say i think it was cancelled before first season finished, which it was

wikipedia: "The topics addressed by the series included drug addiction and recovery, HIV and AIDS, foster care, re-integration into society after incarceration, and homelessness" <-- so a bit more social-justicey than i remembered

anyway, digression, sorry

there was another series that meets the criteria (well maybe not the number in the title) that ran around the same time - maybe earlier? - and only lasted like one season. arrrgh what was that, I remember there was an episode addressing dark-skinned vs. light-skinned cultural hierarchy stuff

I can totally picture the lead and can't recall his name. bah!

ah Frank's Place

ha I was going to try Frank's Place next

(frank's place definitely earlier)

i liked frank's place. i want to get the live season of roc on dvd. do you guys remember when they did that?

a t.v. version of the movie crooklyn, that would be good. i dunno, doesn't have to be super nostalgic. just something good. like i said, just so many talented people out there now who could make such a great drama.

huh, i do not remember that hope street show. but if it got cancelled right away that might be why.

you guys probably didn't watch the show Southland but in that show Regina King played a detective and there was lots of home life stuff with her and she was by far the most compelling part of the show. and i sometimes wished that the whole show was about her and her mom and their dating lives. but i'm kind of an old maid....

also really liked abraham from the walking dead on that show as the gay cop. probably the best role he'll ever have.

oh yeah I remember Southland

I also don't know that there's an effective metric for actually measuring that popularity atm.

xps Southland was ace. Such a shame it never really broke through

wow episode 4 (the origin story episode) was *terrible*

man that really stopped things dead, way too many dumbshit cliches w him + the prison psychologist

pvmic

you're welcome :)

There's more to be revealed about the prison psychologist (AKA his ex-wife, as anyone who's watched all of these shows like a TRUEFAN already knows).

oh... great

The writing/directing cliches and often terrible acting in this pretty much killed it for me. Not a patch on Daredevil which, while also riddled with awful acting here and there (I see u, Karen Page actress), was still sufficiently weird and entertaining. And it felt like it didn't take place in a three -block radius throughout the entire damned series. Plus the villains and their ambitions were weak.

So there.

Who were the terrible actors, if you please?

the black ones

Off top of my head: Guy who plays Shades (awful)/ guy who plays Cage's doc/Cottonmouth/...

Not a patch on Daredevil

lolwhut

I think he meant that DD is even worse.

No, I meant I prefer DD over this. Crazy, huh?

yes

Origin ep was my fav out of the ones I've seen.

right!?

I dunno what kind of ingmar bergman shit ppl expect from this show.

we need our own *forget it jake it's ilx* nicholson scabby nose jpegs

God forbid everyone's not on the same page about something lol

nah, its not that. for me its more the "this show is kinda cliche" kinda thing. about a show based on a comic book. that was made for children. i mean the cliches are built in. i see that on ilx a lot. but hey people have high standards!

i see this all the time now when it comes to kid's stuff though. not just here. "that movie that was made for 8 year old children about the cartoon fish just didn't MOVE me like the first one did..."

ingmar bergman shit

lol this is... not what I'm looking for

this show is not for kids, it's basically a blaxploitation/noir homage, as noted upthread. the comic book stuff is more or less window-dressing. cliched writing is never good.

i'd say they were aiming for 14-21. male.

shakey otm. the argument that properties based on comic books don't have to be good holds no water. the entire point of the MCU and the reason for its success is based on the radical notion that filmed entertainment based on comic book properties doesn't have to suck.

i loved loved loved what this show was trying to do. tremendous cast and attention to detail in the production kept me going, and if you pressed me i could even tell you what it was about (vgl guy restores his future by coming to terms with his past), but in the most fundamental sense there was almost nothing by way of story or character. just this happened and then that happened and then oh hey this other thing is happening and now it's over.

that all the screenwriting techniques were present just made it worse bc none of them were put to any use. Commissioner Burrell saying "always forward" every other line doesn't count as plant and payoff; quoting scripture or wearing sunglasses doesn't make a villain interesting; and while all of the four major heavies bore structural relationships with the hero none of them actually served as foils.

tbf none of the netflix joints have really done much for me but this one was more of a downer bc it set its sights so high

i didn't say they didn't have to be good. just that genre stuff plays by different rules.

"I'm going to tell you what the story was and then turn around and say there was no story" is what I'm taking away from your post.

i feel like almost everything is held to the same standard now, and i think there are different standards. that's all.

(though it probably bugged me even more in the old days when people would do that: hey, this is actually pretty good for a horror movie/sci-fi book/metal album/etc!)

With most cultural objects, I feel that it's worthwhile to make a rational consideration of what the likely goals of the creators were and then judge the work on the basis of whether it succeeded in those goals rather than pooh-poohing when the thing fails to clear a bar I've independently set for it but that it was never trying for in the first place. YMMV, of course.

none of them actually served as foils.

― Larry Elleison (rogermexico.), Tuesday, October 25, 2016 9:25 AM (thirty-one minutes ago)

I think you have a weird definition of "foil"

old lunch otm. was this a pretty good comic book t.v. show? yeah, it was a pretty good comic book t.v. show.

"I lost my phone at the barber shop" smdh

That was really the only thing that irritated me

the music stuff reaaaallly pulls a lot of weight in making this enjoyable for me. I mean, they even used my favorite John Lee Hooker song ("It Serves You Right to Suffer") in a brief bit.

yeah the music is so good all the way through

ok yep that phone was some bullshit

everything else, i loved. crowd cheering luke uiring the fight was v cool

*during

I can't remember if I already posted this upthread but: anybody who doesn't dig Cottonmouth can fuck right off with their terrible opinions

... lol wait, I meant Diamondback. Cottonmouth was the boring villain.

Neither of them was boring?

dan otm

okay I may be overstating the case but Diamondback definitely outshone him... hell even Mariah outshone him IMO. and I saw some comments in this thread about how the series took a turn for the worse after ****SPOILERS**** the brutal death of mister stokes and subsequent refocusing on the other villains ****END SPOILERS**** so I was prepared for it to go down like that, and thus sensitive to the fact that actually, it did not go down like that

I loved Cottonmouth. I especially loved his ability to be genuinely amused by the things going on around him, even when he was angry or otherwise out of sorts.

I also really liked Domingo and his quiet, smug confidence. Literally nothing rattled him until Luke showed up at his gym.

cliched writing is never good.

Disagree. Cliches are neutral, it's all in how they're executed.

http://cbr2.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/mariah4.jpg?auto=format&lossless=1&q=40&w=700&h=1053&fit=crop

http://www.cbr.com/the-bizarre-history-of-luke-cages-black-mariah/
Did wonder if that was supposed to be the same character. She appears once in Hero For Hire #5 which i read a couple of weeks back. All the early stories seem to be pretty self contained apart from the back story since the Doctor behind the transforming experiment is helping to run the local medical facility that Claire Temple works at and Luke is therefore connected to.

I mean, 'same' in the sense that any of the MCU characters are the same ones from the comics. Everyone has been tweaked in their transition to the screen, some obviously more than others.

Cottonmouth was great. idg the "meh" reactions at all

Yeah, I kinda get the Shades shade and I can see if people thought the portrayal of Diamondback was a little too OTT but the rest of the major players were irrefutably good to great. Irrefutable!

DB's motivation was ice thin but I enjoyed him chewing the scenery.

The mix of character portrayals — more naturalistic in some characters, hammy and OTT in others — gave me some dissonance headaches. It wasn't as simple as "the heroes play it understated, the villains chew the scenery, that's one way to tell them apart" because Alfre Woodard's (great) performance was pretty cool (and made her moment of violence in E7 even more powerful). Overall I liked this better than both seasons of DD -- it and J.Jones S1 are more or less tied for first in my mind.

cottonmouth was the least worst of the uninteresting baddies, but it's mahershala ali who brings the greatness. pretty much across the board the cast worked miracles selling exceedingly weak sauce.

Not to much to enjoy in this apart from a likable lead performance and often excellent music. Terrible dialogue, cliched characters. Boring fight scenes, never the sense that Luke is remotely in any danger.

I wish it would embrace Marvel silliness a more. There's a scene in episode two maybe where Cottonmouth is standing over some snitch or something and the music is building up to something terrible, and I was really expecting him to open up his mouth to superhuman proportions and swallow the goon whole like a snake, but no he just beat the guy to death with his fists. Disappointing. Like, what's the point of using Marvel characters if you're just gonna tell a straight forward crime story a lot less competently and interestingly than dozens of other shows.

I've only watched the first four, maybe it improves.

never the sense that Luke is remotely in any danger [...] I've only watched the first four

yeah, keep going cuz things do change on that front

one of the things i liked most about luke's fights with low-level scrubs is the lack of tension, tbh - it's fun to watch a superstrong invincible guy stroll his way through a battle, swatting away opponents with an open hand. and mike colter is so good at projecting invincibility!

Exactly. DD has already given us the extended fight sequences where our hero gets his spleen kicked out through his butthole. It's cool that we get a counterpoint to that, as well.

rip DD's spleen

yeah i find most of the fights kinda comedic & enjoyable, it's fun seeing yr hero effortlessly CREAM the badguys

Cage rules everything around me.

I think the idea of power and black indestructibility that Luke Cage represents in this series is a desperately-needed media image, personally.

It has been a long time since Steve Urkel.

yeah the humorously-indestructible-during-fight-scenes things doesn't bother me a bit, I find the endless iterations of Marvel superhero fight scenes where the hero *is* technically vulnerable but the viewer knows nothing is really at stake way more irritating.

imo the near complete lack of reaction when shot is less humorous than it is symbolic. he doesn't even shrug off bullets, they're not a concern. the people shooting are denied the satisfaction of even a flinch

Luke's invulnerability in the early episodes sets up an effective contrast with his suffering in the prison flashbacks.

Boring fight scenes, never the sense that Luke is remotely in any danger.

Uh, isn't it known from episode 1 that he escaped from prison and is wanted by the authorities and could get sent back to South Carolina Supermax, or whatever the name of the institution is? He also doesn't have money or a stable place to live, after his building burns down. He might not be "in danger" while fighting, but the repercussions of those fights are definitely dangerous for him.

^^

finished this last night.
it looked and sounded gorgeous.
enjoyed the attempt at mixing social drama, and full on old school goodies vs baddies beat'em up.

at the end, of the two bad guys, i definitely preferred cottonmouth to diamondback.
cottonmouth had a more interesting back story.
his love of music, and keyboard skills that were put a brutal stop to.
the dilemma of 'what could have been', whereas diamondback it was just 'daddy loved you more than me .. '.

did chuckle at the anti-Cage rally in the club though.
at the back of the crowd, someone was holding up a sign : "the only superfreak we love is rick james"

lollll I missed that!

cottonmouth is a way better villain than db, yeah

Mariah is the best villain in the show

otm

oooh totally re mariah ..

i was specifically on about the guys

and did everyone spot the stan lee cameo ?

was not his usual type of appearance ..

yeah mariah is the fkn business

Mahershala Ali is fantastic and his scenes with Alfre Woodard are incredibly compelling. The rest of the show could have been garbage and I'd still think that: the rest of the show was not even close to garbage. I forgive a show that gets so much right when it overreaches occasionally (some of the "insert inspiring speech here" moments worked despite the actual words in the script, the weird tonal change after Cottonmouth's death was offputting as hell), 'cause it's better than the alternative, God knows.

I never actually finished this, I stopped on the episode where Diamondback shows up and shoots Luke and just kinda forgot about it.

dude srsly

ok I went back to this. a few things:

- lol @ "lemonade was a popular drink" ref
- generally this show has way more exposition than I find generally acceptable. Just tons of scenes w characters melodramatically restating their motivations and current role in the plot. exposition /= character building
- the bit w Method Man was awesome, so perfect
- I have one episode to go, finally the epic fight scene sheesh

I do think the actors generally elevate the material, and so many of the little details are right that the show's world feels lived in and compelling

Second season trailer is here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FU4Xn__5Qjg

I've been kinda wondering over the past couple of weeks if Marvel is now kicking themselves in the seat for relegating Luke Cage to Netflix.

Something to note, building on the Jessica Jones second season

http://www.blackfilm.com/read/2018/04/neema-barnette-millicent-shelton-kasi-lemmons-steph-green-and-salli-richardson-whitfield-among-luke-cage-season-2-directors/

Also, Coker's been quoted as saying a Heroes for Hire combination could be interesting.

New trailer!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sB1in0KkoG4

(And because the non-Netflix shows don't seem to rate their own threads, here's a reminder that Cloak and Dagger is also starting a couple weeks after Luke Cage season 2 drops.)

Two eps in to the new season. Highlights: Reg E. Cathey's inimitable drawl, Jamaicans. Lowlights: bluesy rock, explication and pacing, Shades & Mariah's tepid cuddling.

probably not going to watch s2, but I found fans' seemingly earnest affection for Shades completely baffling

Much more so than last season, if you don't know the inside references or the backstory from other shows or who the characters popping up are supposed to be, some of these scenes are pretty opaque.

Like, is it an inside joke that everybody keeps shooting at him even though he's famously impervious to bullets?

It's not even an inside joke. Several of the dudes who've shot at him have made reference to the futility of their gesture.

This has been solid thus far. Lots of good character-based stuff. Finn Jones hasn't shown up yet, though, so take that with a grain of salt.

Simon, I don't know who you've seen repping for Shades but no. He's a weak link. Agreed on Shades and Mariah's canoodling being off-putting.

Also of note: once again, a Marvel Netflix show brings a scene of ott brutality (Bushmaster's first kill) that probably tops those that came before. Like I don't think I've even seen shit like that in a horror movie.

watched the first episode. already deeply bored and unlikely to continue.

Thanks for sharing your journey with us.

I look forward to enjoying the actor who plays Shades when he's an old character actor some day.

The Shades/Comanche plotline was good, I'll give him that much at least.

Oh, I'm glad Comanche's going to have a plotline. Thus far in my viewing he's just a guy who is around.

I’m only halfway in and love the cheesy jokes
“I’m 6’3”, black, and bulletproof. You think if I put on a mask people won’t know who I am?”
“There are still people who think Shock G and Humpty Hump are different guys”

Finished last night. Minor quibbles:

-Maybe reel it in a little with the songs that directly reference the plot and characters, guys. I counted no fewer than three (two within the last two eps alone).
-Also maybe curb the Netflix ultraviolence already. Not entirely sure a 15-second unbroken shot of someone burning to death (let alone the two subsequent flashbacks to that particular moment) was, y'know, entirely necessary.
-Danny Rand: still kind of the worst, at least whenever words are coming out of his face. Thankfully restricted to a single episode.
-Ending the season with a scene that directly photocopies the final scene of a classic movie is maaaaybe a little too DO U SEE????

Otherwise, this was one of the more successful Netflix seasons, imo. I appreciate how things wrapped up, as it opens some interesting and unforeseen avenues (to the extent that these shows continue to loosely overlap).

I fast forwarded through so much of S1 idk if I have the patience for a second. I feel like this is one of those things that I'm glad exists and is p great for what it is, but it also happens to be a thing that doesn't really hold my attention (ie, a police procedural)

It's pretty sweet that Shades is about the only non-black face you see through most of its runtime. Again, I have to wonder how hard Marvel is kicking themselves post-Black Panther for not taking a shot on a Luke Cage film.

otoh that Shades actor is really fucking annoying, p much hated every second he was onscreen

Also of note: once again, a Marvel Netflix show brings a scene of ott brutality (Bushmaster's first kill) that probably tops those that came before. Like I don't think I've even seen shit like that in a horror movie.

Have seen, but yeah, it was on some kinda giallo, grand guignol tip. I guess I should've said it was more extreme than the average kills one would see in a relatively mainstream horror movie.

watched the first ep and it was about what I expected - some enjoyable stuff (the corny jokes, the music, a couple speeches) and then a bunch of *meh* stuff (loads of exposition, that Shades guy trying to look like a badass).

it's crazy how padded these eps feel, like there really isn't enough going on to merit stretching every episode out to an hour

kudos on them making Bushmaster twice as interesting as Diamondback was in season one, though

I like the Jamaican angle.

I tapped out of S1 when Diamondback came in, totally boring

If they removed all the intense pointless conversations between pairs of characters, they'd have a pretty good 4-episode season.

lol exactly

yup - another season of Marvel’s Two People Talking (In A Mostly Empty New York)

Netflix Marvel is just sad

Wow, this season's narrative unravels really quickly.

Yeah gets a bit clunky in places.
Cameo from Iron Fist if you stay with it that far.
But did have some bits i enjoyed.

Phew. Made it through this one. Once I saw the post about Two Characters Talking Intensely I couldn't get it out of my head, so thanks for that! Seriously they need to make these 8 episode seasons, at most. I feel like most of the Netflix Marvel shows have some good stuff in them (ok, not Iron Fist, and Punisher was too violent for me to even make it through one episode), but so much damn filler...

Is there any financial reason Netflix seem committed to these 13 episode seasons?

Their revenue comes from subscriptions so can't see how an 8 or 10 episode season would impact on things. Is it just viewer expectation?

Would have thought that a viewer expectation could always be redrawn if the prototype for the change was successful.
Is there a history of shows long enough for there to be a tradition yet.
13 weeks = 1/4 of a year but these things are simultaneously released so that doesn't hold much water.