Marvel's Luke Cage

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