Marvel's Cloak and Dagger S01E10 Review: Underwhelming

Marvel's Cloak and Dagger, Season 1, Episode 10: Colony Collapse

I don't think I've ever been quite as underwhelmed by a Marvel TV series' season finale as much as I was with this one. Well, I mean, Inhumans exists, I suppose. But other than that... this finale accomplishes the rather impressive job of feeling like it rushes through plot points without giving them time to breathe while at the same time also feeling like nothing significant is happening. Perhaps Cloak and Dagger's biggest problem is that it wants to bring together several major plot points into one cohesive whole -- the ongoing struggle against Officer Connors; the whole Roxxon/Terrors conspiracy and the whole vague voodoo "Divine Pairing" backstory.

The problem is, nothing about the Divine Pairing stuff even really feels relevant at all to Tandy Bowen and Tyrone Johnson as characters. Evita has been vaguely learning about this mysterious reincarnated pair throughout the history of New Orleans, but it's all given in such bland, tepid vagueness throughout the past nine episodes, and its attempt to suddenly introduce a huge backstory with random cutaways to how the Divine Pairing had saved New Orleans in the past is honestly laughable. And other than giving Tandy and Tyrone an injection of tired "if one of us must die, it should be me" drama. Hell, Evita just quite literally shows up with no explanation, delivers some exposition, and walks of. Tandy makes a crack about how great Tyrone and Evita are together... but honestly, Evita's more of an exposition tool than an actual character. And not even good exposition either.

Likewise, the resolution of Connors really feels abrupt and sudden, with the buildup in this episode to a confrontation with Connors... and then nothing. Makes me really wish Connors was just out of the story in that Scooby Dooby Doo episode, because all he is in this episode is just a distraction, and then he shoots O'Reilly in a scene that genuinely feels like it's added last-minute with minimal effort due to how abrupt it is, and then Tyrone scares him a little... and then his Cloak powers eats Connors. What? Tyrone's speech to the one good cop (a great scene that has absolutely no payoff beyond establishing what a nice guy Tyrone is) feels more of an epic climax-worthy moment than this genuinely bland one. 

Tandy's confrontation with her own big bad, Scarborough, feels a bit more satisfying. After saving her mother from the assassin and recruiting Mina Hess (where's Ivan?) to go to Roxxon, she ends up in a face-to-face with Scarborough, gets to deck him in the face, and apparently trap him in the same nightmare Ivan was trapped in. Hopefully she goes back and fixes all of the dreams of the people  she 'stole' them from, though.

Still, the vague and utterly unexplained "I want to control power" conspiracy from Scarborough is also as under-developed as the voodoo reincarnation storyline, and I'm genuinely not sure why they felt like the need to have a zombie outbreak with the Terrors when it genuinely doesn't tie in any sort of  meaningful way to the whole Divine Pairing stuff. I had let it slide in the past because I thought that these ominous foreshadowing of vagueness throughout the season will maybe build up into something more, but nope -- the Terror-zombies are just a random magical threat. Or if they're supposed to be connected to the reincarnation of the Pairing or to the source of the Cloak'n'Dagger powers, the show doesn't really explain it much. 

Oh, and we get scant little explanation to what the Terrors turned people into, yeah? I mean, some of them get killed, and we know O'Reilly goes all Solomon Grundy when she falls into the swamp presumably to be a cheap Winter Soldier knockoff villain in the next season, but what about Mina? 

The only real things that save this episode from utterly bombing is the genuinely great scenes that Tyrone and Tandy takes place in. Tyrone's speech to the policeman, his talk with O'Reilly about being the one good cop, Tandy's brief moment with her mom in the beginning, Tandy shaking Tyrone out of his flunk, the jacket moment and the two refusing to abandon each other to save the day... the chemistry between the two actors are strong enough that I'm genuinely entertained anytime they show up, even if quite literally the rest of the story told in this season is a gigantic mess. 

The way the episode ends feels more like checking off a box of things they have to do. Show a zombie apocalypse, yep, show a vague mystical origin, yep, Scarborough encounter, yep, Connors encounter, yep, set up a tragic villain, yep, vague threat of one of them dying, yep, hold hands and have vague all yours powers combined moment, yep. 

Yeah, this is a pretty weak season, honestly. I'm at least a fan of the pretty strong performances delivered by the actors, but the utterly confused storytelling and pretty horrid pacing in the first half of the season honestly makes me feel like this is easily one of my least favourite entries in Marvel TV.