Liam Hoofe reviews the ninth of Luke Cage season 2…
There are plenty of twists and turns in Harlem in the most emotionally charged episode of Luke Cage season 2.
After contacting Danny Rand at the end of the last episode, Luke, Mariah, Misty, Tilda and Luke’s father are all holed up in a safe house in the middle of the city, while Luke tries to work out how he can stop Bushmaster.
The opening half an hour of this episode almost felt like a bottle episode, with several key revelations coming out as the characters were finally forced to confront one another. Was it a little heavy-handed? At times, yes. Mariah’s revelation to her daughter about her father’s identity was well executed for the most part but some of the dialogue was toe-curlingly bad.
The exchanges between Misty and Mariah ranged from being great to feeling like a good cop/bad cop comedy, though, it’s always nice to see Mariah weaseling her way out of a situation. The group being ratted out by Misty’s colleague felt predictable but I guess it had to happen, otherwise, they would have just spent the next few episodes locked away arguing.
One character who is slowly winning me over is Luke’s father. Reg E Cathy brings an awful lot of charisma and emotional punch to the role and his interactions with both Luke and Mariah over the last few episodes have provided us with some of the show’s better scenes. The themes of inter-generational sins impacted the next generation have been well handled so far, and there is bound to be some sort of big emotional payoff with Luke and his father come the end of the season.
The episode ends with Bushmaster and his Stylers showing up at the safe-house and causing all-out war. Luke and Bushmaster clash once again, while Mariah goes on a rampage inside the building. It’s all good fun and it ends with Luke finally getting the better of Bushmaster, leading to his arrest.
As the episode ends, we see Bushmaster escape from the police and go to Tilda for help. Will she work with him against her Mother? Or will she try and outsmart him and poison him? She seems like she is going to have a pivotal role to play in the final episodes of the season. As for Mariah, she is reunited with Shades at the end of the episode and it looks as though they are going to up the anty to reclaim Harlem in the next few episodes.
‘For Pete’s Sake’ was another solid episode of Luke Cage. Some of the moments throughout the episode were a little on the nose, and Luke does seem like a side character in his show at this point but nine episodes in, it’s still making for entertaining enough viewing.
Liam Hoofe
