Luke Cage, Season 1, Episode 4: Step Into the Arena
So, a good majority of this episode took place as a flashback episode, which isn't a thing I terribly minded. Luke's backstory that was briefly given to us in Jessica Jones was noncommittal, but 'being a science experiment freak' is like something that could be applied to easily more than half of the superheroes out there. It is still a very intriguing flashback and a story, though, so we step back from the present day crisis after Cottonmouth bazookas Connie's restaurant to spend the majority of the episode looking at Luke Cage's past and seeing just what made him Luke Cage.
The present day scenes basically alternate between short scenes of Luke being trapped under the rubble of the explosion and ending up showing off his powers to a very surprised Connie (her "holy shit!" was hilarious). Meanwhile we also see Misty Knight and her corrupt partner Scarfe do their police thing, with the latter trying to cover up for his psychotic employer. There's really not that much substance to the present-day scenes, just a 'get from point A to point B' of them surviving from the bazooka. There's a bit of a cool moment where Luke escaping from the prison in the past is juxtaposed to him escaping from the rubble in the present, though.
But flashback episodes have always been a given to happen relatively early in all the Netflix Marvel shows, and have generally been good ones. It's a very good strategy, spending an entire episode almost devoted to flashbacks or events that take place in the past, which is a nice little breather episode and a stopgap in the format of 'binge watch this show in a consecutive run' that Netflix meant this to be.
We find out how Luke Cage became Luke Cage... and, in fact, he wasn't always called that. He was actually Carl Lucas, who is also a former cop -- a detail that I'm 99.9% sure we didn't know until this episode. He's thrown into jail for a crime that he claims he was innocent for, but he's serving time for some mysterious reasons that we didn't quite really know about. It's a pretty sad, brutal story, where Luke is just trying to survive in Seagate Prison, which is run by Rackham, who takes all the tropes of a nasty prison warden and dials it up to eleven. Luke... er, Lucas's mantra in prison was that he didn't do it, and all he's trying to do is to survive. He's very anti-social and we get hints that his imprisonment was caused by a betrayal by someone close to him, leading to him not trusting a single damn person.
Of course, it turns out that Reva is the prison psychologist, and while Luke just shuts her out like everyone else, a combination of a confrontation regarding trust in their therapy sessions, as well as this random prisoner dude Squabbles just latching on to Luke and being a nice buddy to him (despite Luke not wanting a thing to do with him) causes him to start to open up. It's definitely nice to turn Reva from this accessory, the wife that died, into an actual character. She's an assertive psychologist that has some backstory herself, talking about how her greatest regret in her life is leaving her brother to die in prison because she's too focused on her career.
Of course, Rackham uses Luke's humanity against him as quickly as he has developed them. After siccing Shades and another prisoner to rough Luke up and see if he can defend himself, Luke gets scouted to fight in some weird gladiator ring which Rackham runs. It's something that Luke likens to slavery and absolutely refuses to do, up until Squabbles was framed for murder and beaten half to death by the guards as Luke watches, and forced to go through with the gladitorial combat.
And, well, apparently Squabbles is also a boxing expert, which is pretty fucking convenient but okay. Luke fights in the underground gladiatorial rings for a decent amount of time being more and more aggressive which is a stark contrast to his present-day fighting style that is far more defensive. Throughout all of this, there are hints of experiments going on in Seagate Prison, a way to get sentences reduced, which Reva staunchly denies the existence of. Very, very staunchly.
Speaking of which, Reva shows up to confront Luke because he has disappeared from therapy for months. Luke gains Reva's confidence and tells her to get the fuck out before she's used by Rackham as leverage against him, telling Reva to contact Luke's lawyer and lay low. But things and Luke's attempt to expose the corrupt prison warden fall apart. Shades and his goon confront Luke after they realize that Luke's trying to get out of the fighting games, and tells him that they beat the information out of Squabbles, who died off-screen. Luke gets beaten half to death himself, and he wakes up in the infirmary next to Reva and one dr. Burnstein.
What follows is, well, some experiment shit that felt more procedural than anything. Reva begs Burnstein to put Luke into a big experimental healing tube machine thing that wouldn't look out of place in the set of the Wolverine, and he's injected with some kind of magic sci-fi fluid. Rackham shows up and fights Burnstein, with him threatening the doctor with a gun because, y'know, he's making a crapton of money selling videos of prisoners fighting in a ring (to who?) and the resulting squabble cause the machine to explode, killing Rackham, possibly killing Burnstein and giving Luke Cage superpowers. "Sweet Christmas" indeed, Luke.
Luke shows up and meets Reva, and apparently Reva knew of the experiments, kind of? She claims she'll explain it all later, but we don't know if this is the case. The USB from Jessica Jones makes a brief appearance at the end of the episode, so it's implied that the Luke Cagification process is related, somewhat, to the experiments that created Killgrave? Interesting. We get a short mention of Luke's preacher father, and apparently 'Luke' came from the gospel name, not from an adaptation of 'Lucas'? Okay. It's a nice bit of change because one of his mantras in prison was "remember who you are, Carl Lucas", and the episode ends with him walking away from hell with bulletproof skin, a clean-shaven face and a love interest.
It's an episode that gives us much-needed focus to Luke Cage himself, taking a break from secondary characters like Cornell, Mariah and Misty to finally frame our hero in a proper story and understand just what makes Luke Cage tick. Good job.
(At this point in time I've already binge-watched the entire series, but the reviews will still be coming slightly slower than that, written as if I've just finished that particular episode based on the notes and reactions I have at the end of each episode.)
Marvel Easter Eggs Corner:
- "Sweet Christmas" is Luke Cage's iconic catchphrase from the comics, of course.
- Seagate Prison has appeared in the Marvel One-Shot "Hail to the King", where Iron Man antagonists Trevor Slattery (fake Mandarin) and Justin Hammer are shown to be imprisoned there.
- After breaking free from the prison, a combination of the afro, the metal tiara, metal braeelets, chain and the random super-V-necked long-sleeved yellow shirt that Luke Cage wears is basically his early comic-book appearances.
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