Luke Cage S02E01 Review: The Rock

Luke Cage, Season 2, Episode 1: Soul Brother #1

Well, we're back with the second season of Luke Cage! The first season of Luke Cage was certainly entertaining, but it was plagued with a fair amount of pacing and storytelling problems, in particular swapping out villains around halfway through. And we'll see if season two of Luke Cage ends up being better, yeah? If Jessica Jones and Daredevil sophomore seasons of these Netflix shows tend to have a slight dip in pacing and storytelling quality.

And this first episode of the second season is a neat little re-affirmation of the setting as we move back to Harlem after Luke's little crossover stint in Defenders. Everything's all good for Luke Cage. He's going around beating up drug dealers in a very fun first scene, he's still in a relationship with Claire Temple, Misty Knight's one arm short but making her way back into the police department, and we even get the return of Bobby Fish! Most interestingly, though, is that Luke Cage has reclaimed his status as a folk hero, and everyone is just totally in love with Luke Cage as this local celebrity that everyone takes selfies with and posts on social media. There's even a "Harlem Hero App" that helps fans to look for where Luke Cage is. And a good portion of this episode has Luke and Bobby discuss about just what Luke should do, especially since all this vigilante stuff isn't paying the bills. (And I know Heroes for Hire is a thing in the comics, so)

And there's a definite sense of Luke Cage settling into his role as Harlem's local hero, because he exudes this confident-yet-humble swagger throughout his scenes with anyone that's not in his immediate circle of close confidants. He's enjoying the popularity without basking in the glory like, say, Tony Stark, without shying away from it like Steve Rogers. Hell, Pop's Barbershop has been turned into a funky little gift shop, even, and there's a neat little bit with Luke wearing charity-sponsored T-Shirts when he goes and busts some goons. 

And he's just riding a high throughout this episode. Hell, even last season's big threat, the Judas Bullet, ends up actually doing absolutely jack shit to Luke and apparently his super-invulnerability has grown even stronger. His badass walk into the police department to just drop the head of a drug operation, and then walk straight into Mariah Dillard's office and threaten her to her face that "if you so much as speak Claire Temple's name" that no force in the world can stop Luke from killing her. Bad. Ass. 

Honestly, the only thing that gets under Luke's invulnerable skin in this episode is the return of Reverend James Lucas, Luke's shitty excuse of a dad, who we briefly glimpse in the first season as the indirect cause between the whole Luke Cage/Willis Striker deal. Played by the excellent Reg E. Cathey (who unfortunately passed away earlier this year), James Lucas's monologue opens the episode excellently as he talks smack about how one man cannot change everything in a community, but later on reaches out to Luke. Luke points out that James is a shitty father who refuses to even visit him in Seagate Prison and returned all his letters, but now that Luke's a famous superhero he thinks he can just walk in and 'cash in' on Luke's popularity? On the other hand, as horrible as James's attitude towards Luke is, it's interesting to see just how much James Lucas's attempt to reach out to Luke is out of genuine love and the man's just too accustomed to being an uber-controlling patriarchal figure to get past it, or if it's motivated by guilt or a desire for fame. I dunno. Maybe I'm superimposing Trish's mom from Jessica Jones here. 

Misty isn't faring so well, and that's not just because she's an arm short. We get to learn that she's been accepted back into the police department, but thanks to Scarfe being a corrupt cop in the first season, a lot of his old arrests have bounced -- including one who taunts Misty in front of her own apartment. There's a neat running theme in this episode where Misty ends up being sort of treated as this object of pity by everyone around her, even her own commanding officer (who I think is a new character?) and basically everyone other than Luke. 

Meanwhile, the villains that were quite literally handwaved aside in Defenders have returned, with Mariah Stokes-Dillard and Shades returning to town after being 'in the wind' between the first season of Luke Cage and Defenders. And while she's still clearly in a position of power, Mariah is also apparently trying to go legit. Oh, and their romantic relationship is definitely in full display here, as much as the age gap might disturb or catch waiters and other characters off-guard. It's... interesting, to say the least, to see this relationship between a younger man and an older woman. And their relationship's pretty positive, too, it seems!

There's also a fair bit of new players that this episode sort of intro-dumps onto us, although I would say that it's an actually great introdump. The episode's focus is definitely on showing how Luke, Claire, Misty, Mariah and Shades are after the brief time-skip, and having some neat character moments, and the new gangsters and baddies are worked in pretty seamlessly. Among the new players we get to hear being mentioned include Arturo "El Tescero" Rey III, who's apparently successor to season one minor antagonist Domingo Colon, who's the mastermind behind the whole drug sales on the street and gets quickly taken down by Luke. The other big player, it seems, is the hilarious "Cockroach" Hamilton, the dude that was freed from jail after the whole Scarfe deal and gets some of the best lines in this episode. We also get to briefly meet a dude called "Piranha" Jones, a business partner and possible criminal that Mariah wants to deal with. Oh, and we get a brief scene where Shades meets up with his old prison buddy Comanche (who we very briefly see in the prison flashback episode from Luke Cage), and there's a neat bit of bro-ing out between the two.

Basically, Cockroach, Arturo and some dude called Nigel are trying to sort of buy into Mariah's organization. But Nigel, head of a mainly-Jamaican organization, ends up being supplanted by a literal new-comer, who seems to be shaping up as the main antagonist for the season. Bushmaster, played by Mustafa Shakir, is introduced as a brand-new player who seems to be very keen on reclaiming Harlem because it's his "birthright", and speaks in a very glorious Jamaican accent. Bushmaster confronts Nigel, and after a brief talk about Luke Cage, shows off some badass martial arts moves, kills Nigel and a couple of his bodyguards before showing off that he, too, is impervious to bullets -- although they are lodged in his skin instead of bounce off. It's interesting, and while slightly basic, is a badass introduction to this season's big threat to topple Luke's newfound confidence.

Speaking of which, because I can't find anywhere to fit this little detail in, I liked the return of Sugar and his scene with Luke, as well as the little subversion of Luke's folk hero status when Sugar ends up actually luring him into a trap. Overall, definitely a fun return to these characters, a very welcome new villain in Bushmaster and a pretty well-done season premiere!