Luke Cage, Season 1, Episode 5: Just To Get A Rep
We finally get to the good stuff, where Luke Cage eschews the secret identity thing, or the hiding-out-of-sight thing that superheroes tend to use. So far, in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, only Iron Man and Captain America can really claim to be truly public figures, with the latter having gone into hiding at the conclusion of Civil War. A lot of the other heroes do play with their secret identities quite traditionally, or are working for secret organizations full-time (the entire cast of SHIELD, Black Widow, Scarlet Witch) that having a more or less public identity is immaterial for them.
But as a very, very extended singing opening scene alternates with Luke Cage lifting giant chunks of concrete to recover the swear jar, not giving any shit about the presence of witnesses, we're shown the true concept of just what makes Luke Cage different. The lack of a secret identity (Carl Lucas notwithstanding), the lack of flashy costumes, still having a day job and walking among the good people of Harlem without hiding his powers... it's a way that melds the superhero and the human side together in a pretty cool way.
In a sense, Cottonmouth himself also gets his bigger-than-life mob boss side and his more human side explored. He might've been able to bazooka Luke's home to rubble, but he's taking stock of his ruined empire after the whole Fort Knox debacle, and he's in a bad shape. It's a bit odd to see our main antagonist be reduced to such a pathetic state, though he definitely tries to establish his control. He shoots one of his mooks that tries to talk about how maybe they should give Luke 'a side of the street' so they can ignore each other. Cottonmouth sends his goons to hit up every shop in the street to squeeze out as much money as possible, but more than that, he wants to discredit Luke Cage in everyone's eyes. Gangsters coming at your door? Blame Luke Cage for taking a shot at the boss.
Shades calls Cottonmouth out for overreacting, and he's definitely got a bit of a king complex going on (the juxtaposition with the poster of a dude with a crown that's prominently displayed in his office is less than subtle). He refuses to sell the club, which he demands is his legacy.
Luke, meanwhile, thinking that the job's done with having struck at Fort Knox and having ensured the legacy of Pops' barbershop will remain, tries to get things together, spending most of his time setting up the shop with Bobby Fish and planning out how the funeral will go. He's confronted by Harlem citizens who has had their things stolen by Cottonmouth's organization, and, well, you really shouldn't piss off a dude that survives a bazooka blast.
Cottonmouth, Misty and all the other characters don't really know that Luke Cage has superpowers just yet, and Misty actually blames Luke like everyone else for stirring up a hornet's nest without a permanent solution, causing so much chaos to the good people of Harlem. Luke goes on a warpath, and turns out that a bunch of punks with guns? Are kind of useless when faced with an angry bulletproof man. Luke gets a lot of the stolen things back before showing up at the club. Stop, or what? Shades did recognize Carl Lucas, though, so Luke's grandstanding might prove detrimental to him after all.
Shades provides Cottonmouth with his solution to Luke Cage, which is Hammer-brand exploding bullets made from alien metal. You shoot someone, it gets embedded in kevlar, and then it explodes. Cottonmouth's laugh ("that's the illest shit I've ever seen!") is like a kid finding a new toy, and it's a bit of a far cry from more... professional villains we've seen in the past. It's definitely easy to draw comparisons with fellow Netflix mob boss Kingpin, who, while having his own share of character quirks, was never quite this... childish, I guess? Cottonmouth's bursts of laughter and anger intercut with his more serious mob boss style kind of betray a bit of insecurity and childish nature that seemed to be overcompensated by his irrational antics like the 'squeeze Harlem' tactic. Unlike Kingpin, who, despite disagreements with his subordinates and advisors, Cottonmouth doesn't quite have the same amount of respect from those around him and he's trying and honestly failing to make sure none of the respect and power he's gathered slip away from his fingers.
And it shows when Shades puts Cottonmouth in his place. The ever-mysterious Diamondback demands that Cottonmouth either pay for the missiles, or let Diamondback handle Luke Cage... but then it's a matter of pride for Cottonmouth, because if Diamondback handles Luke Cage himself, then Harlem's as good as lost to Diamondback, who can handle the dude that defeated Cottonmouth. Very interesting to see our main antagonist be put on the back foot, that's for sure. Cottonmouth decides to deal with Domingo, and use the money to get a loan from Diamondback, then kill Luke.
He calls up Scarfe and demands that Scarfe procure the guns that were stolen all the way back in the first episode from police lockup, but between IA investigating him and all the shit that Scarfe is finding increasingly hard to cover up, Scarfe is not very happy.
The episode stops with Pops' funeral, and throughout the episode there's a subplot where one of the items stolen by Cottonmouth's goons is a ring belonging to random Harlem inhabitant Aisha. Her father was a wash-out athlete who wants to sell his old championship ring, and Aisha keeps it to herself to have something to remember her father's legacy by. The talk about black legacy, Pops' legacy and what Harlem represents come up a lot, and it's definitely a running theme in this episode in particular. There's an interesting bit where Cottonmouth is so damned bullheaded at wanting to keep the legacy of his club alive, but he refuses to listen to the mook he killed when he speaks about the legacy of hip hop and the history of the wars, or to Mariah several episodes back and dismisses her talk about restoring Harlem to the glory it deserves.
It comes to a head to Cottonmouth and Luke giving speeches at Pops' funeral, where they make thinly veiled threats at each other while still giving very passionate speeches to honour Pops. It's actually quite well-written for both sides, and while definitely a bit preachy and on-the-nose, Luke Cage is never the most subtle. It really seems that Cottonmouth's attack on the people on Harlem causes Luke to realize that, yeah, while he originally just wants to clear his name, he ends up seeing his power and responsibility as something that he could honour Pops' legacy with, putting a nice tie to the 'legacy' theme and shaping Luke, gradually, into a hero of the masses.
The people of Harlem witness that, yeah, between the thugs beating people up and Luke Cage's name being a common street name now, there are two sides to the battle, and the players are very, very clear. But both Misty and Cottonmouth note that, yeah, Luke Cage is bulletproof and indestructible. He's basically shown that he can take down everyone in Cottonmouth's organization, space bullets notwithstanding... but Harlem is not bulletproof. And if the previous episode is any indication, going after the more vulnerable people in Luke's life is a veritable tactic that his enemies have used successfully in the past. It's a nice dynamic where the hero and the villain basically know where each other lives, unlike the games of subterfuge that is evident in the Daredevil/Kingpin, Daredevil/Hand and definitely Jessica/Killgrave dynamics. Of course Luke doesn't quite have that much proof to get Cottonmouth processed through the system otherwise cops like Misty Knight would've done it ages ago, so it's a standoff.
Oh, and Claire Temple gets a short bit of a return after showing up in Jessica Jones and two seasons of Daredevil, the true definition of a recurring character. She has a brief altercation with a thief, and talks to her mother about finding her calling... helping people with abilities. Through an honestly sub-par, very introdump-y dialogue. It's a bit of a random entrance, to be honest, but I guess there are other worse ways of getting a character from a different show pop up in yours. I never found Claire Temple to be 'ZOMG Best Character Ever Deserves Own Movie And Series' the way that other reviewers wax lyrical about her, but she's fun when she's not being overtly ultra-preachy, so I'm happy to see her on-board. And her talk with her mother really seem to set her up as the common ground between Daredevil, Luke Cage and Jessica Jones that'll probably be the catalyst to bring the Defenders together. There's a nice callback to how the Hand's assault on her hospital in Daredevil's second season still haunts her, but she's strong and she wants to help.
Misty gets kind of pushed aside by the focus on Cottonmouth and Luke, plus the new Claire scenes, but she did get several short scenes bouncing dialogue off of Luke, and defending his (actually corrupt) partner Scarfe, who the unnamed police chief is investigating due to inconsistencies of his timeline surrounding Chico's disappearance.
So it's another rather embarrassing defeat for Cottonmouth, and while the mobster might still have some decorum of power, the fact that he's lost a lot of his resources and lost the confidence of his allies -- Shades and Diamondback are all but saying 'get your shit together or get out'; Mariah has been questioning Cottonmouth since day one; Scarfe is very unhappy -- it's a bit of a nice angle to bring our main villain to. Whether this is just setting Cottonmouth to take a fall in the midway point of the episode for Diamondback and/or Shades to take over as the Big Bad, or something else, I don't know. Cottonmouth is definitely a very intriguing and fun character to have on-screen, but he's been nothing short of ineffective as an actual antagonist that can challenge Luke Cage. I mean, the promise of the Judas bullets and Shades' knowledge of the ever-mysterious Carl Lucas past means that Cottonmouth has a couple more cards to play, but he'll be playing them not from a position of power that the likes of Kingpin, Killgrave or Nobu enjoys.
Marvel Easter Eggs Corner:
- More references to Justin Hammer and the Avengers are scattered in the episode. It's a bit surprising considering how nearly detached from the non-Netflix world Daredevil and Jessica Jones were, with probably five lines of references to other superheroes between them.
- Claire Temple debuted in Daredevil's first season and has put in roles in both Daredevil's second season and Jessica Jones, where she was involved in doing a gross eyeball operation on Luke. She mentions the events of Daredevil's second season and the whole Hand assault as having taken place prior to this episode, so it puts the events of Daredevil's second season running relatively concurrently with the first five episodes if we take Turk's appearances in the first two episodes here as happening prior to Daredevil's second season. But back to Claire Temple, it's a nice circular thing considering Claire was first introduced as part of Luke Cage's supporting cast in the comics.
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