Luke Cage, Season 1, Episode 6: Suckas Need Bodyguards
It's a bit of a shakeup on the normal formula, because Cottonmouth, built up to be the big bad of this season, ends up being, well, taken out this episode, so to speak. It's a bit of a weird step to take, and honestly this episode is the first episode so far that actually felt clunky, least of all because of all the insane coincidences that the show goes through just to get its players in place. I'll refrain from really spoiling or commenting from the second half of the season until we reach there.
We open off quite strongly with a voice-over of Trish Walker, very unexpected, about how the opinion of the Harlem people towards Luke Cage have improved substantially after last episode, and while there are still a lot of naysayers like 'how can super-strong people be unaccountable', Trish (herself a sister of a superstrong woman herself) notes how Luke's critics have never met the dude in person, and every single one who's actually met Luke Cage only has nice things to say about the dude.
We then cut away to... Officer Scarfe, who, while his actor delivered a pretty cool performance switching back and forth from Misty Knight's sarcastic mentor to Cottonmouth's dirty cop accomplice, really hadn't that much screentime. We don't even really learn that he's supposed to be a recurring character until like episode three, and even then he's relegated to just batting random dialogue off Misty Knight. I really wished he actually had a scene to himself other than the kill Chico with a tie plot twist. Especially the fact that we're supposed to buy that Misty would go head over heels to save her partner... it's not like Luke and Pops, who got multiple scenes of them bonding. Misty and Scarfe are shown to be cop buddies and partners, yes, but we never really got a conversation between them that's not discussing Luke Cage or the current state of events.
Anyway, Scarfe tries to blackmail Cottonmouth for the guns, noting that Cottonmouth's money is all in police lockup too, and going all "Luke Cage punked your ass!" It's a reflection on public opinion towards Cottonmouth, too, and Scarfe isn't afraid of the dude anymore. Cottonmouth, well, beats Scarfe up, shoots Scarfe several times before making off with his guns anyway. You kind of don't mess with gangster bosses without a backup plan, really.
Luke, meanwhile, having humbled Cottonmouth, walks up to Mariah giving her "I believe in Harlem" speech and all but threatens to bring her down. He also gets a short scene with Bobby Fish, which, as enjoyable as Bobby Fish's character is, kind of grinds the pacing to a bit of a halt because, really, discussing how they're going to get a barber for Pop's barbershop is the least interesting thing. And repeating the whole "I have powers, I wanna help but I ain't a hero" thing has gotten old. We're six episodes in, Luke. We get it.
The standout character in this episode is easily Mariah, finally returning with a crapton of screens after been out in the sidelines for the last few episodes. After her confident speech to Luke, she confronts Cottonmouth over his stupidity in shooting a cop, and, more importantly, not ensuring his death after shooting him. Mariah is also very practical, noting how the smart move is to sell the club and walk away from the gangster life while he still can, something that Cottonmouth is obviously not going on with it. Mariah, despite talking about how the gangster life is not ethical and all that, also shows to be more savage despite her reluctance, easily listing several ways how to kill a bulletproof man that doesn't involve $20,000 Judas space alien exploding missiles.
That conversation is a small proportion of the episode, though, with the majority focusing on the very dull 'get Scarfe' bit in NYPD, where only Misty Knight really is interesting. There's this other corrupt cop, Perez, who coincidentally ended up being strung together as Misty's partner. Luke Cage, meanwhile, meets Claire Temple because he and Bobby happens to eat in the same cafe where Claire and her mami are discussing about helping superheroes. There's a very awkwardly scripted moment where Luke kind of didn't remember who Claire is... and, y'know, these things happen in real life sometimes, you can remember the face but not the name, but really, now? We get even more "great power gotta be superhero" talk from Claire...
And in one of the silliest coincidences ever, Luke brings Claire along with him to the barbershop, which is where the bleeding Scarfe finds himself in. Very, very convenient, yeah? It's convenient enough that Luke meets Claire before meeting Scarfe, but let's make it even more on the nose and bring the nurse along. Luke confronts Scarfe over the death of Chico, and after a half-assed attempt at lying, Scarfe confesses, and Luke kind of chokes Scarfe nearly to death before realizing that he's not a killer. Luke is very angry because, y'know, Scarfe killed his... friend? The dude that Pops died to save? But the show really likes portraying Scarfe as sympathetic, where dialogue and framing of scenes with Scarfe all portrays him as a dude that made a bit of a bad decision instead of a dirty cop that goes around murdering little kids who want to confess. He's not portrayed as an angel, but they really went all the way to make him sympathetic. Yeah, Msity finds some sob story where Scarfe's kid shot himself because he's stupid enough to leave his gun with its safety off... does that have any bearing to Scarfe's actions? He's still a dick.
Scarfe ends up going all "I'll testify!" to get Luke to help him, which really begs the question to why Scarfe didn't just call it in to the precinct himself if he's willing to give Cottonmouth up. If nothing else, he knows Misty is the cleanest cop out there and definitely less likely to choke him half to death compared to Luke. And, very coincidentally, Misty and Perez decides to not move out of the stakeout on Scarfe's empty apartment just as Luke Cage shows up. Wow.
What else? There's this car chase, which is honestly pretty tame and nothing too special. There's a cool scene where Perez is starting to obstruct Misty's investigation, and Misty does this very cool double-cross and gets an engineered confession out of Perez. "Aw, c'mon, Scarfe can't say that, he's dirtier than me!" There's a bit of a scene where Zip shows a slight disrespect to Cottonmouth, noting that he's the only option and basically promotes himself to fill in the void left behind by Tone.
The car chase is kind of interchanged with Mariah being interviewed by a pretty smart reporter that kind of sneakily shows off the talk about how there are two Harlems -- the rich-in-history and the rich-in-corruption thing, and confronts Mariah about her relations with the old mafiosos Mama Mabel and Pistol Pete, as well as Cottonmouth. There's a confrontation about money found in Mariah's office and all other stuff, but Mariah quickly spins it into how the reporter is just confronting her with unfounded accusations to make a story. Mariah's cool, really, and takes on attacks to her character far more elegantly than her cousin does.
Luke stops a pursuing car by standing in front of it and just wrecking it in a very cool scene, but Scarfe dies anyway and I honestly just didn't really care. But then the episode flash-forwards to Cottonmouth getting arrested, and Mariah panicking and saying 'shit'. It's just episode 6 out of 13, but the supposed main villain, Cottonmouth, is arrested after a pretty underwhelming series of scenes with Scarfe, and Luke is talking all about how his job is done. It's a bit odd to do this instead of hyping up the rest of the season, and honestly other than the Mariah scenes this episode is honestly a bit of a letdown.
Marvel Easter Eggs Corner:
- Trish Talk is Trish Walker's show from Jessica Jones, of course, and while Trish herself doesn't make a physical appearance, that was her voice narrating that particular excerpt of the episode.
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