Marvel's Luke Cage *SPOILER THREAD* |OT| Where WAS His Money, Honey?

Just finished. Really, really enjoyed it and actually made me appreciate Luke Cage as a character more. Cottonmouth dying so early was a serious surprise to me and after that the second half was alot more comicbooky than the first, which is not necessarily a bad thing just the first half had some The Wire influences and I expected the whole show to do that. And I loved all the nods to the comics (Misty almost losing an arm and her costume at the end, Diamondbacks costume being surprisingly comic accurate, Colleen Wing).
 
Finished this morning. Really enjoyed the last episode.

Only real problem for me was killing Cottonmouth. His character was too good to just axe.

Also, the Method Man sequence was...weird.
 
Diamondbacks power suit was lol worthy. That's the best they could do? The suit material had some sort of weird properties that they only hinted at that I wish they would have expanded upon tho.

Looked like he borrowed Johnny Mnemonics gloves and visor from storage.
 
Just finished the series. It was great but unfortunate on how it ended because now I'm not sure if Luke Cage and Iron Fist will meet in IF's show. Probably in Defenders it will happen.

By the way, I might have missed it but was there a scene where he wore a yellow t-shirt on the show? And I don't mean the outfit from when he escaped Jail.


HeySeuss said:
Diamondbacks power suit was lol worthy. That's the best they could do? The suit material had some sort of weird properties that they only hinted at that I wish they would have expanded upon tho.

Looked like he borrowed Johnny Mnemonics gloves and visor from storage.
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Just like Captain America's suit in Avengers and Hawkeye's first suit, I just assume that it is a suit that is supposed to look corny at first but sets the groundwork for someone else updating the suit in the future.
 
The last episode of this show is like Luke Cage beat the game, but he got the ending where he missed too many of the collectibles.
 
Diamondback looked like the school janitor lost his mind, cut a whole in his bucket and put it on his head.

It's too bad because I really like Dunn Purnsley
 
Htown said:
The last episode of this show is like Luke Cage beat the game, but he got the ending where he missed too many of the collectibles.
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CRYINE

Everything ended too convenient, why was he in the back of the Feds car like that, but the police had so much more security?

Am I the only one who caught the guy in the barbershop picking up the folder Mariah didn't give Luke?
 
The white cop is the god damn worst. His fake accent and shallow character is such a blight.

Not reading this thread cause spoilers (only on episode 3), but Jessica Jones was better. No real strong antagonist in this. How could there be? Cage is invincible against these human scrubs.

I miss Tennant

Annnnnd he's a turncoat. Pretty obvious as soon as he took of his tie in the car scene. Doesn't redeem him.
 
I just finished the last episode and liked the show as much as DD and JJ. I can't wait for Iron Fist and Defenders now. Here are some random thoughts:
-The series had absolutely fantastic music throughout. I really liked the Method Man track about Cage, which was surprising to me since I am not a fan of Method Man. The OST was really phenomenal, as well as the performances at Harlem's Paradise. Cornell's piano playing was very moving, along with the scenes that it usually bookended. I really liked the Jidenna song/performance and it was cool to see The Delfonics and Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings. I think my favorite that really sticks out in my mind was Charles Bradley though; I had never heard of him and have now been tuned onto him. I definitely have some new music to listen to.
-While I didn't care for Diamondback as a whole, I did like that costume in the last episode. It was so awful and cheesy that it worked for him. I'm not too familiar with blaxploitation films but it gave off a vibe to me like it could have come from a 70's movie or something, the same era where the yellow disco shirt and tiara that Luke wears could have come from. And the undershirt beneath the jumpsuit had a bit of horizontal ribbing on it that reminded me of a snake's belly. So I give the costume a thumbs up. And Luke had some good ones too, from the throwback tiara and disco suit, to the dark hoodie with yellow interior fabric. He had a very iconic look and it looked a lot better to me than most images I have seen of him in recent comics where he just has like a tight black or yellow T-shirt on.
-I was very happy to see Turk pop up and liked that Claire had a more important role in this series. Fish needed more screen time. I didn't know that Theo Rossi was going to be in this beforehand because I didn't keep tabs on production but I was surprised to see him show up; I'm currently marathoning Sons of Anarchy and am in S6 right now so I am used to seeing Juice. I watched The Wire for the first time recently too, so seeing so many actors and actresses from The Wire like Sonja Sohn was welcome.
-Some of the themes from the show and the way they relate to what is happening in America right now, like with Luke being a Bulletproof Black Man, were pretty powerful. Luke lecturing the mugger with the gun about Crispus Attucks was especially good.
-While I did enjoy the series, I thought the final episode was a miss. The fight scene fell flat for me. I didn't care for Mariah getting away with everything but also just didn't like her dialog or performance for the majority of the episode. I was hoping for more something more from Misty at the end after seeing Candance's body, other than just walking outside the morgue door and stopping. There was more also that I didn't like and I was let down.
-The line about Diamondback looking like a Pimp Stormtrooper made me laugh pretty hard and was my favorite line of the show, followed closely by Luke's corny-ass "I've heard Cuban blends are the most robust" line at the end.

I'm not sure where to slot in in regards to DD S1 and 2 and JJ but all in all, I loved it. Netflix is batting 100% with their Marvel shows in my book. Luke Cage is a hero that I didn't have much familiarity with at all; I never read much Defenders, never read any solo stuff or H4H teamups, and never read any Avengers comics with him on the team. It was really good though. Now I really look forward to Iron Fist, who I am also not that familiar with (I recently bought Volume 1 of the Fraction/Aja Immortal Iron Fist because of my love of their Hawkeye run, but I have had trouble getting through it). Very good though and I cannot wait to rewatch it in a couple months when I rewatch DD and JJ for the third time.
 
kurahador said:
I'm gonna miss Cottonmouth laugh.
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And Cottonmouth, in general.

I like Erik LaRay Harvey, as he's a good actor. But Diamondback was a lame antagonist that lacked presence, and I would've loved to see either Cottonmouth or Shades fill the power-void and take control over Harlem. Alfre Woodard was also solid, but I don't know how to feel with Mariah being subtly manipulated by Shades. I get the impression that she knows that she is, but is going along with it, due to lack of experience in business in crime.

Speaking of which, exactly how the hell does that broad get out of the prison sentence so easily?
 
Blues1990 said:
And Cottonmouth, in general.

I like Erik LaRay Harvey, as he's a good actor. But Diamondback was a lame antagonist that lacked presence, and I would've loved to see either Cottonmouth or Shades fill the power-void and take control over Harlem. Alfre Woodard was also solid, but I don't know how to feel with Mariah being subtly manipulated by Shades. I get the impression that she knows that she is, but is going along with it, due to lack of experience in business in crime.

Speaking of which, exactly how the hell does that broad get out of the prison sentence so easily?
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All they had on her was an eye-witness and she got murdered. Without the eye-witness, they have nothing on Mariah.
 
The entire show took a turn when Cottonmouth died, to the point where I thought they switched writers or something.

-Claire intrusion which brought about classified superhero files and tech
-Luke started using catchphrases more heavily.
-The bad guys started becoming more maniacal and goofy with their plans except Shades who tried to remain as cool headed as possible.
-The police started becoming more goofy, especially the new head of the department who seemed like she had something against her own detective, Misty Knight, the entire time.
-Police ignoring clear evidence, camera footage, and multiple witness statements that Diamondback was behind most of the crazy things happening and them just going the irrational way of 'grumble grumble must arrest luke cage'
-Diamondback being a guy who stayed in the shadows and was calculated, to being a guy who was unhinged and didn't think his plans through all the way. He was very sloppy with everything he did, and it's like seeing Luke Cage in person just put him in an irrational rage mode where he was no longer a mastermind and just crazy some guy with a vendetta issue.
-The focus was taken off of the dynamic between a big bad and Luke Cage, and more emphasis was put on Luke Cage vs The Public Opinion/Police. However it feels contrived because of what I listed above.
-Diamondback's past with Luke felt less believable than Cottonmouth's slow descent into crime.

There's more I can't recall at this time but not all of these are complaints, however they were definitely odd changes I noticed halfway through. I just assumed they wanted to separate themselves from Daredevil as much as possible since they also humanized Wilson Fisk to make him more relatable, which is what they were starting to do more and more with Cornell(Cottonmouth) but then the twist came.

There was a lot they could have done with the dynamic of Fisk missing which creates a hole in who runs NY. Then you shift it to all of the other mob bosses of their own gangs vs Cornell and then have that spiral into affecting the city, which in turn involves Luke Cage needing to step up. If they still felt it necessary to kill Cornell, they should have moved to Shades being the next, more calculated, bad guy instead of the unhinged over the top villain that Diamondback was. Fleshing out the other characters and saving Diamondback for season 2 would have been the better call. A reveal near the final few episodes that Diamondback personally knows Luke would have been a good way of keeping the viewer hyped for season 2. Instead it felt like a big reset button was pushed but this time different bosses were spawned.

Aside from all of this, I still really enjoyed it overall and I'm curious to see how quickly they get Luke Cage out of jail before or during defenders.
 
I think a few small changes to Diamonback's suit would have improved it visually. For example his original look kind of had a scaled look to it, much like a snake. I think if they'd gone for something like that even if it was a different texture for the material but the same design it would have looked a lot better. That and improving the helmet to look less like something I could buy at party city or would get in a special edition of a videogame. Make it slightly like a snake or something. That suit was just lazy even if there is some kind of reasoning behind it, they could have made it look so much better than what we got. I don't even think the line "pimp storm trooper" makes sense as he looks neither like a pimp or a storm trooper.
 
They really shouldn't have casted Mahershala Ali as Cottonmouth if they're going to replace him mid-season with the silly comic book goofiness of Diamondback.

He was so damn good in that role.
 
Kabuki Quantum Lover said:
They really shouldn't have casted Mahershala Ali as Cottonmouth if they're going to replace him mid-season with the silly comic book goofiness of Diamondback.

He was so damn good in that role.
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I'm of the opinion Marvel really has trouble with the smaller elements of their long form stories. They have all the building blocks but they never use them quite as well as they should. For example I think Cottonmouth should have lasted the entire season and his death should have been near the end of the first season or even in season 2. Much the same I would have preferred the whole brother relationship to be given to us through out the show instead of Diamondback just blurting it out of nowhere. Hell I would have made Diamondback some mercenary or something that Cottonmouth hires to take on Luke and he had the suit from the start. Just a lot of weird decisions made in the second half of the show that weren't very well supported by the first half.
 
It would be cool if Shades could go one scene without doing the stupid thing where he takes off his glasses and flashes his obnoxious grin. Seriously, I got so tired of seeing that even fairly early on because of how often he did that. It doesn't really help that he doesn't do all that much for the majority of the show either.
 
I loved Diamondback, but the entire conflict in the final episode was completely devoid of emotion or interesting fight action. I'm fine with how he was introduced to the series, but the finale was definitely the worst episode.
 
Just finished the show, it definitely went downhill after Cottonmouth and the last episode was the worst of the Netflix shows.

For me, the best parts were the musical performances at the club that complemented scenes. I thought that was really cool.

For season 2, I definitely want more Shades, Mariah, and best assistant Alex.
 
Vermillion said:
It's like... On one hand, great - you showed us it's (relatively) unpredictable who dies. On the other, you replaced him with an objectively worse villain.
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Like someone else said he should of been around a bit longer and had Diamondback build the whole brother twist up. He was a very weak replacement that needed a bit more growth before being made into the main villain.
 
Man, I can't believe how much I disagree with most people on this show. I wasn't really feeling Cottonmouth until his flashbacks in episode 7, and then he died. I also pretty much loved Diamondback, he was just so fucking crazy. To me he felt like the jolt of comic book zaniness the show needed. Though I have to admit, the way his character acts when he shows up and the way his character was talked about BEFORE he shows up is completely insane. Like there is no way they are the same guy. I think seeing Luke Cage literally made his mind snap. With the route they went, they also should have gotten rid of Cottonmouth by like episode 5, the secret brother storyline could have used that time to be set up a bit better. Granted, I watched this show over the course of 2 days and most of it on the second day so a lot of it just kind of pooled together for me. As I've had more time to think about the show, there are way more plot points that just seem dumb. But, for me, I didn't start to really enjoy the show until episode 7.
 
Holy shit! The ending of episode 3!!

Edit: LOL at the conversation in episode 4 about the Lisa Bonet Rolling Stone cover.
 
Garlador said:
This was a problem with Jessica Jones too. You can't have a MAJORITY of your series be "we shouldn't kill him" and then just decide "nevermind, let's kill him" in the final two episodes. It's not an arc. It's just a circle reaffirming her desires from the first appearance.

I really think the Netflix deal for 12-13 episodes is hurting them, because almost none of the shows thus far earn those episodes and would've been better written and have better arcs at half the length.
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I don't really agree with this at all. The arc for all of these shows has been that the main characters don't want to kill anyone, but a frequently put into situations where they'll be forced to. And unlike The Last Airbender
punking out at the last minute with a bullshit deus ex machina
, these series actually force them to do it most of the time. Luke is the only one who doesn't end up killing his foe (DD made it without killing Fisk, but he ends up throwing Nobu off the roof so that brings him into the "Kill Somebody Who Forced You To" club with Jessica).

I really want the Punisher to really hammer this in when they all end up on screen together. When they're all giving him shit for killing bad guys, he can just namedrop Nobu and Kilgrave (and maybe somebody Luke might have to kill) and push them.
 
AntraxSuicide said:
I don't really agree with this at all. The arc for all of these shows has been that the main characters don't want to kill anyone, but a frequently put into situations where they'll be forced to. And unlike The Last Airbender
punking out at the last minute with a bullshit deus ex machina
, these series actually force them to do it most of the time. Luke is the only one who doesn't end up killing his foe (DD made it without killing Fisk, but he ends up throwing Nobu off the roof so that brings him into the "Kill Somebody Who Forced You To" club with Jessica).

I really want the Punisher to really hammer this in when they all end up on screen together. When they're all giving him shit for killing bad guys, he can just namedrop Nobu and Kilgrave (and maybe somebody Luke might have to kill) and push them.
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Technically Nobu didn't die from falling, so Matt's conscience is clear. :p
 
AntraxSuicide said:
I don't really agree with this at all. The arc for all of these shows has been that the main characters don't want to kill anyone, but a frequently put into situations where they'll be forced to. And unlike The Last Airbender
punking out at the last minute with a bullshit deus ex machina
, these series actually force them to do it most of the time. Luke is the only one who doesn't end up killing his foe (DD made it without killing Fisk, but he ends up throwing Nobu off the roof so that brings him into the "Kill Somebody Who Forced You To" club with Jessica).

I really want the Punisher to really hammer this in when they all end up on screen together. When they're all giving him shit for killing bad guys, he can just namedrop Nobu and Kilgrave (and maybe somebody Luke might have to kill) and push them.
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Daredevil didn't kill Nobu, though. Jessica Jones probably doesn't care much for the no kill rule herself.

Punisher is a prick no matter which way you cut it, though. I'll never understand the love for him.
 
Toa TAK said:
Daredevil didn't kill Nobu, though. Jessica Jones probably doesn't care much for the no kill rule herself.

Punisher is a prick no matter which way you cut it, though. I'll never understand the love for him.
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Uh her dealing with it is a pretty big arc in the show if I remember correctly. Going to great lengths to attempt to reform/capture Kilgrave rather than just... do what she done did.
 
darklin0 said:
They took him away from us too soon.
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Although, I really did enjoy and appreciate the storytelling device used to kill him off.

Basically killed off by a nobody inbetween episodes, and then we don't even know really how it happened until the last episode.

Say what you will about Marvel, sometimes they allow their people to take incredible risks.
 
Finished this last night. My favorite Netflix show from marvel. I really like that it was less violent then DD Season 2 as well. The show was incredibly well acted. Paced for a full season which was nice to see. I really liked diamondback until the awful costume. An interesting crazy after Cottonmouth's realistic gangster. All the support cast was great. Loved everyone at the barbershop. I want to see Mariah and Kingping on screen together. I'm glad Shades lived. He was the smartest villain on the show, I want to see him with power in season two.
 
peanutbutterlatte said:
Uh her dealing with it is a pretty big arc in the show if I remember correctly. Going to great lengths to attempt to reform/capture Kilgrave rather than just... do what she done did.
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Jessica would have been fine with ripping out his rib cage if it wasn't for the innocent people like Hope that needed him alive to prove their innocence.
 
Just finished it. It's probably ranked at the bottom of Marvel Netflix for me, MAYBE a nitch above DD2. That said, the highs in this show are fucking HIGH. Cottonmouth, Shades, Mariah and Misty all had great arcs. It's just unfortunate that the lows had to drag this show down so much. Luke was boring and Claire was just sort of there. Anything with Diamondback was straight up garbage. I had to pause and laugh for a solid minute at the part where he just walks around in a hoodie screaming "I'M LUKE CAGE!!!"

I am excited for season 2, hopefully now that they know to downplay Diamondback's cartoonishness. Can't wait to see what's to come for Mariah and Shades, who will undoubtedly end up turning on each other.
 
I thought this was the best Marvel show yet. Writing, music, acting, characters, all good to great. Even diamondback, as corny as he was, wasn't unbearable. He had his moments like the Obama lite line.
 
I am in the process of rewatching Daredevil season 2 right now after finishing Luke Cage. I'm surprised by how much more engaged I am with it (even the second time around) than I was with a lot of what happens in Luke Cage. It just feels so insubstantial and lacking gravitas in the larger context of the Marvel Netflix Universe. Luke Cage really felt lacking in any connection to it aside from Claire and the occasional mention of vigilantism. It sets up its own microcosm of characters though.. and does and decent job of that.

The establishment of the world is well done and the characters fit very well into it... but it's just not a world that I found that interesting. Gang leaders wanting to control their slice of the pie in a different part of New York just feels like plot I've seen done before and better with Fisk in DD1. The action falls into the same hammy awkwardness that Jessica Jones did because super strength is real hard to show in a grounded, real world context. DD2 has a little too much of people getting acrobatically punched, but the super strength fights are just never that interesting or tense.

There's a thematic center to both JJ and DD that drives tension in those series. Kilgrave is the perfect antagonist and Punisher and Elektra provide excellent counterpoints to DD's internal conflict. I repeatedly found myself asking "why doesn't he just punch him out and bring him in" whenever Luke was in the same room as Cottonmouth. Every twist of the plot felt weirdly contrived and hammy compared to the no-nonsense "just kill them" of the Punisher or the strategy of "beat up the obvious bad guys" from DD.

I think it was trying to convey internal conflict on Luke's part, I just don't think it did a very good job of it. The conflict never felt real to me. It all felt like it could have and should have been over very quickly without any question of who was guilty or who was the bad guy. The villains felt unrealistically slippery and covered in plot armor throughout the season (Kilgrave had a similar problem, but his power is tailor-made for that kind of feeling). It's not bad... it just felt like it could have been much better.

KeyBladerXIII said:
For me, the best parts were the musical performances at the club that complemented scenes. I thought that was really cool.
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I'll agree with this. The atmosphere is set really well, and they help with the overall feel of the show.
 
I kept thinking Shades was going to to get killed for talking too much sense to his bosses. Seriously he was the smartest bad guy. I liked the character and glad he lived, but I couldn't shake the feeling that the guy who played him was transported straight from a 80s Troma movie. Is acting was fine, he just had that "look".

Good series. Marvel is unstoppable.

Bring on Doctor Strange, Iron Fist, and The Punisher!
 
dd s1 > luke cage > dd s2 > jj

seriously, jessica jones is basically 'wasted potential: the tv show'

i'd say that all except daredevil season 1 have the same issue of running too long. unlike dd s2 and jj, i really enjoyed most of the characters. as the series went downhill it was kind of refreshing to see shades as a really careful antagonist, and mariah as a bit clumsy in her descent into crime.

the cottonmouth conflict was a lot more interesting and reminiscent of wilson fisk than the diamondback stuff in the back half. i think marvel needs to be okay with ending their shows a lot earlier because it felt like more of a logical conclusion to the overarching story... with a much more uneven 'season 2' immediately following.
 
Sulik2 said:
Um do they just forget that Luke was shot in the stomach and not just the shoulder?
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Haha yeah I noticed that too. It seemed as if all they did was repair the shoulder wound.

It does seriously bother me that his whole power set is super strength with invulnerability and yet they already have police with these weapons hunting him down by seasons end. Kinda undoes the whole invulnerability power if he's vulnerable to normal people.
 
I've been enjoying LC so far, not as much as DD Season 1 or Jessica Jones, but I like the cast and characters enough. Great soundtrack too.

I do think that Marvel and Netflix need to cut the next season short, to say 10 episodes season. After the cottonmouth stuff is wrapped up, the series just seems to run aimlessly without any good plot or direction.
 
“What type of Jean Paul Gaultier shit is this? What are you, a pimp stormtrooper?”
313m3x4.gif
 
i just finished it *___*

omg i really enjoyed that

i cant really formulate my thoughts coherently yet, and i would like to finally read back this thread now that i've finished watching it (cuz i've been avoiding it) but i really, really enjoyed that ^____^

love the cast. love the music. the ambience is great, the dialog was cute. the pace was measured and slow but i really got into it once it got going. luke, admittedly, wasn't one of the stronger pieces, but he was serviceable and he kept the whole thing going.

i love claire. and misty. and mariah. and priscilla. the women in this series is incredible. just incredible. they dont need super powers to matter in the story, and they matter. a lot. love it.

i think i can go on and on and on about stuff, but i'll stop now to see some of your impressions before i embarrass myself further :>

*squeals quietly away*
 
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