Red Stewart reviews the fifth episode of Marvel’s Cloak & Dagger…
In the past, I’ve often used the phrase “a lot happens but a lot doesn’t happen” to describe episodes of television (or even movies) where many events are shown before your eyes, but the overarching plot doesn’t progress much. It’s a phenomenon that tends to affect series with long season counts, but even lower-run shows like Iron Fist and Black Lightning have suffered from it.
I’m not going to give that diagnosis to Marvel’s Cloak & Dagger just yet, but the fifth episode “Princeton Offense” didn’t give me much hope for the future. We are at the halfway point of the first season and there are still plenty of characters and situations, from the antagonists to the chemical spill to Detective O’Reilly, that need to be developed further in order to give the finale a stronger storyline to capitalize on. I know I should be more lenient given that we still have five more episodes to go, but if my experiences with Black Lightning earlier this year taught me anything, it is that you cannot trust the writers to recognize inherent flaws in their scripts during production. After all, it is not like every episode is screened to a test audience or a group of critics: these things take months to shoot and edit, and so you need a solid game plan from the get-go.
I am optimistic that Cloak & Dagger can give us that satisfactory ending, but until then I have to talk about the disappointments that came from “Princeton Offense.” While not a bad episode persay, it definitely failed to build upon last week’s “Call/Response,” which not only moved the plot further in multiple ways, but also gave us fresh insights into preexisting relationships. It was a lot to juggle, but the writers succeeded. With “Princeton Offense,” it really seemed like there was only one goal in mind, and that was to make Tyrone more comfortable with his powers. And though that is necessary for turning Tyrone (and Tandy) into their superhero counterparts, it becomes a problem when it gets in the way of the other, more-intriguing, thriller aspects.
Having mostly mastered her powers following last week’s suicide attempt, Tandy is focused on going on the offensive against Roxxon. As we all know, Greg was surprisingly killed after presumably getting too close to the past, but his files on the case (kept in a secret compartment) are discovered by Tandy, who uses them to begin her own investigation. Tyrone, on the other hand, is busy preparing for the basketball championship.
It is with these two scenarios that I go back to my initial train of thought. Presented with both of these premises, which sounds like the more interesting one to explore? If you (like me) answered the Roxxon one, then you (like me) will be disconcerted by “Princeton Offense.” As the title confirms, Tyrone is the focus this time around, and so preparing for the eponymous basketball game takes priority. To make this plot thread drag out even more, though, the writers decided to upscale the romantic relationship between Tyrone and Evita, which was barely developed beforehand and comes across as awkward and forced this time around. Their scenes really do feel out of place.
Things aren’t clear-cut for Tyrone though. Feelings of longing for his brother (who prompted his initial interest in basketball as a kid), combined with Tandy using her abilities to find information, triggers his own powers, which have interesting consequences when he’s teleported to a childhood friend who may hold darker secrets than he lets on.
While this is going on, Detective O’Reilly and Liam reappear in the series. O’Reilly, after hearing Tyrone’s story, is interested in bringing down Connors, and sees a good opportunity to do so through infiltrating his corrupt vice unit. Though Liam’s only purpose in this episode is to provide O’Reilly with a method of obtaining high quality cocaine, it is clear that he harbors a lot of anger towards Tandy for what she did, and I hope the writers build upon it in the future.
Speaking of Tandy, she spends most of her screen time trying to find a mysterious Roxxon executive, who was not only at the center of Greg’s probe, but is also shown to be despised by most of the high-level employees at Roxxon through Tandy’s visions. I have to admit, the depiction of her powers has grown on me. Though I think they still lack the nice cinematographic feel of Johnny Smith’s reveries from The Dead Zone, they’re still fun to watch.
The thematic connecting tissue between Tyrone and Tandy’s plots is, theoretically, the ethics of using these invasive powers to gain information about a person. I say theoretically because, unfortunately, the writers don’t really do much in the way of actually exploring this issue. To be honest, it wasn’t really something I felt had to be delved into this season, but if the creative team was insistent on doing so, they had an obligation to do more than just give us one heated conversation between Tandy and Tyrone before the two go on to use their powers (the latter doing it admittedly unintentionally, but still).
This results in two climactic events: Tandy discovering the identity of the mystery man, and Tyrone throwing the game after realizing that many of the opposing team’s players will suffer harsh consequences if they don’t make it in basketball. While Tandy’s breakthrough sets the stage for the episodes to come, I did find Tyrone’s actions here to be more interesting, namely because it reminded me a lot of the subway scene from Unbreakable where Bruce Willis is receiving flashbacks of all the crimes that various random people have committed. Not only that, but Tyrone’s choice to falter in the game will definitely have consequences on his personal life, from both his teammates and parents.
Overall, “Princeton Offense” came off as more of an obligatory season-count episode than a well thought-out chapter in the Cloak & Dagger saga. It had several good moments, but the space between them was too sparse. PG-level sex scenes (yes, you read that right) are thrown in to evidently spice things up, but their pathetic execution fails to enliven anything. Here’s hoping next week’s episode is a return to form.
Notes:
-Was a little let down to see that the basis for triggering and controlling the Cloak and Dagger powers was tied to feelings of impending death. Say what you want about Smallville, but at least it diversified the origin of Clark’s many superpowers!
Rating: 6/10
Red Stewart