Luke Cage S02E13 Review: Luke Corleone

Luke Cage, Season 2, Episode 13: They Reminisce Over You

The final episode of Luke Cage's second season is meant to be an extended coda, but it's not a coda that works particularly well. A lot of the plot threads explored in this episode is only introduced in the previous episode, and you'll forgive me for not remembering the names of gang lords Rosalie Carbone, Eric Hong and Anibal Izqueda. The whole fact that apparently all of these other gangsters were trying to shoehorn their territory into Harlem and that Mariah's solid leadership was what was keeping them out is also sort of news to me. And so with Mariah on trial and Bushmaster suffering the side-effects of concentrated nightshade (or whatever magic plant they decide to call a nightshade, anyway) Luke spends this part of the episode just running around trying to make amends and basically replace Mariah and Bushmaster as Harlem's gang lord. He views himself as a sheriff, but neither Misty nor DW are particularly pleased with this whole "Luke Corleone" gig. 

And after the season gave characters so much grief for compromising their moral identity, I really wished that the season actually gave Luke a fair bit more characterization to make his transformation into the "good" crime boss actually make sense. Because other than brief hints from Sugar that Luke would make a good replacement, the show's really light on this side of Luke and if anything it seemed to be building Luke up into a mercenary-esque Hero for Hire more than anything. I appreciate them trying to shake up the status quo, but this transformation on Luke's part really felt jarring and not quite earned by the show. He's basically  accepted his ruthlessness, I think? And decides to make a deal with Italian mob boss Rosaline Carbone? I dunno. It feels kinda weird seeing heroic, unyielding Luke throughout the entire season who barely tolerates working with Mariah and Bushmaster -- and even then only to save lives -- and then he ends up shaking hands with a gangster?  

Mike Colter, thankfully, manages to at least sell that after all the personal conflict that he's been through in this season, he's finally carving a path that he's choosing by himself. There's a neat hint of Mariah trying to manipulate Luke and corrupt him with power, and when Luke takes over Harlem's Paradise instead of burning it down there's a neat show of Luke being framed against the crown that both Cottonmouth and Mariah have often been shot against... only for Luke to replace the painting with a different one. Neat. 

He does tell Claire in her return to leave, though, truly embracing his mob boss mentality. I don't think I really care about this scene at all, if we're being honest. 

Throw in a huge, huge misstep in how the show gets rid of Bushmaster, and it doesn't do any favours to how I feel about this episode. Bushmaster's great buildup and charismatic personality might not have been handled ideally in the past two episodes, but he's still a pretty strong presence in this season. The fact that he basically just loses his mind, without even a monologue about either Anansi, the nightshade, Luke Cage or whatever? I don't care that he loses his mind -- it's pretty logical considering the nightshade abuse, and being forced to return back to Jamaica with his aunt Ingrid and presumably his buddy Sheldon is a neat enough karmic move that still manages to spare him while punish him at the same time. What the show does absolutely wrong, though, is to let this scene happen off-screen. And considering how memory and history had been such a theme in Bushmaster's story, it's the perfect karmic ending yet it's not even shown to us.

Do you know what gets shown to us? A long scene of DW ranting about how Luke Cage is selling out. Oh, and a whole scene of Tilda crushing herbs. Oh, and Mariah killing a bunch of random prisoners. 

Mariah, meanwhile... she tries to go out in a blaze of glory as she's being put on trial, talking about how she's the safeguard of Harlem (tying in to the Don Luke bit), while at the same time her assassins (how does she still have men listening to her?) kill a bunch of minor characters, like her secretary Alex and Korean mob boss Eric Hong... which is neat, but, again, not quite necessary. We also get the aforementioned extended scene of her fighting and killing a bunch of people in jail. Basically we get to see everyone leave Mariah, with both Shades and Tilda showing up as a final "fuck you" before going away, but Tilda is so convinced that Mariah is evil that she kisses Mariah with some poison lipstick, which causes Mariah to die halfway through her talk with Luke, who condemns her and wishes her a painful death, but keeps her company all the same. It's... I dunno. I guess it's a suitable death for Mariah, and I will definitely miss her. 

My problem really is with Tilda, honestly. What an inconsistent character, flip-flopping between a terrified civilian and the sort of hard-ass mother-killer that will use poison lipstick to kill her own mother after her original plan of siccing Bushmaster to kill her fails. I dunno. Tilda's just such a bland and inconsistently-written character and I can't like her at all, really. She apparently changes her last name to Johnson, revealing her as a pre-existing Marvel villain called Nightshade? I, for one, am not excited to see her again should she prove to be a recurring character. 

Also, as one last fuck-you to the treacherous Shades -- and, mind you, he did end up implicating Mariah, but Shades is arguably far worse than Mariah as a human being -- Mariah's death ends up nullifying Shades's deal and he gets captured and sent to jail. Also, speaking of minor characters... good old Sugar, who I haven't been talking a lot about but really loved, was the only character that Mariah spares from the purge because of how he got Mariah clothes when she was on the run. Nice bit, there, and Sugar eulogizes Mariah a bit at the end.

Anyway... it's a neat ending, for sure, despite my complaints. Mariah's dead, Bushmaster's gone, Luke's the Godfather. Despite many missteps this season takes, I actually enjoyed this season of Luke Cage, and it might be perhaps the first second-season Marvel Netflix show to actually improve upon the first. Good season, weird ending.

Speaking of which, thank you for anyone who's been reading through Luke Cage's second season with me. I realize that I don't churn these Netflix reviews fast enough -- everyone tended to have finished watching the season in the first week as they get released, while it takes me some time to get through watching and subsequently reviewing these episodes. After Luke Cage is over... we're still some months off from getting the general seasonal DC/CW shows back up, and I'm about to run out of Young Justice: Invasion episodes, so let this be an announcement of my project next month: I'm finally reviewing a Marvel comics cartoon, starting with the much-requested Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes! See you next month for that, and maybe, if I find the time and energy, another cartoon show!