Marvel's Cloak and Dagger, Season 1, Episode 8: Ghost Stories
We're in the home stretch now and I am genuinely astounded at how little we've really progressed. The past seven episodes really should've been compressed into, like, three episodes at most, and that's accounting for the fact that episode 7 probably needed to be an episode of its own. I dunno... this episode helps to amp up the tension again, and things finally happen, but that doesn't really excuse the utter blandness of the first half of this series.
Anyway, in this episode, we finally get our two characters go through with their plans to bring down their respective nemeses, with Tandy going after Scarborough, and Tyrone working with officers O'Reilly and Fuchs to take down Connors. Pretty obvious Fuchs is going to die, by the way, considering how he barely had screentime before but suddenly gets a whole lot in this episode. And I'm not going to lie -- it's equal parts hilarious and awesome to see Tyrone use his Cloak powers and the finished Billy-Cloak to pose as Billy's ghost and scare the balls out of Connors by teleporting around and pretending to be a ghost. And the fear powers are there, too, but mostly just teleporting around and being a ghost and demanding a confession almost laughably.
It's hideously silly, of course, like something out of Scooby Dooby Doo, but you know what? I actually do like it. It's portrayed pretty straight, and I just kinda wished we had just a wee bit more foreshadowing as to Connors being tormented or being superstitious or something. It's a pretty neat little sequence, and I'm definitely a big fan to see that. It's pretty emotional, too, and a pretty damn cathartic and emotional scene that played out.
Meanwhile, Tandy going after Scarborough isn't quite as interesting, due to how relatively silent the scene was. There was a degree of her lying and being a thief again, this time stealing Tyrone's mom's Roxxon pass or something to get into the building, but her going assassin's creed and easily slicing through the building electricity cables and then holding her light dagger to Scarborough's neck... it's impressive, sure, but it lacks the huge emotional punch that Tyrone posing as Billy to torment Connors has. And while Tandy doesn't quite get the same utter victory and a confession the way Tyrone did, she did at least scare the shit out of Scarborough, slicing up the building's foundations and making him think that he's going to die in that collapsing building.
The other theme of this episode, other than going after their respective marks, is that they're celebrating the anniversary of their respective loved ones' death, and it's interesting to see the broken, dysfunctional family of Tandy and her mom actually gathering and letting go of a lantern to mourn Nathan, whereas the seemingly-functional Johnson family clearly doesn't know how to mourn and acts very awkwardly around each other. Tyrone's mom is distant, Tyrone himself is aching for action and vengeance, while Tyrone's dad just wants to be around friends.
This seems to lead to a pretty beautiful scene as Tyrone joins Tandy and her mom in the lantern-lighting ritual... only for them holding hands ended up revealing Melissa's simultaneous hopes and fears, which reveals that apparently Nathan Bowen was a pretty abusive husband. And for someone like Tandy who has been putting his father up as this pedestal of ultimate goodness and the perfect man, this utterly shattered her. Pretty effective usage of the fake theater-of-the-mind thing, too, as well as the black and white images of Tandy and Tyrone walking into the abuse memories.
Of course, I don't really buy that Tandy would instantly renege and take Scarborough's money thanks to it, but both Tandy and Tyrone have been shown to be as emotionally stable as any hormone-addled teenager out there, so I guess it's a believable plot twist?
Meanwhile, while I haven't really cared much for O'Reilly and the fact that Fuchs was involved in all this and had increased screentime, especially of the 'oh ho, we'll totally live happily ever after' but ultimately was pretty forgettable, it's no surprise that Fuchs ends up being killed... in a pretty grisly way, too, falling into the "fridged love interest" trope. Literally!
Ultimately, though, it's still a pretty competently shot and scripted episode, even if some of the plot and story progressions might be questionable. I am a huge fan of the scenes in Melissa's mind with that theater setup and the blinking projector lights, as well as Cloak's takedown of Fuchs. I'd take this sort of unstable episode over the dull humdrum of the first six episodes any day, though
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