Luke Cage S02E03 Review: Usain Bolt

Luke Cage, Season 2, Episode 3: Wig Out

The third episode of Luke Cage's second season is another episode that feels more like a "things happen, things escalate", and I don't think it's quite as good as the first two episode... right up until the final scene. Sure, it's kind of a hackneyed trope in a superhero story to have a superhero and their love interest go into a shouting match and then noncommittally walk away from each other while being sad to form a cliffhanger. But the way that this was set up, and the history we have for Claire Temple that significantly elevates her beyond a mere civilian love interest makes that sequence very powerful. I'm not sure if I honestly buy into the whole "Claire really wants Luke to talk to his dad" thing, but the whole conversation about how Claire wants Luke to not brutalize people, while Luke wants Claire to accept him for who he is... that's a gloriously scripted conversation that makes both Luke and Claire's points really well-showcased to us.

Luke wants to grow as a human, he wants to find a place where he's comfortable with himself... but how much of it is him finding himself, and how much of it is him buying into the hype he's built around himself? After all, as Reverend James Lucas is happy to remind us, Luke Cage is merely just a man. Meanwhile, Claire does have a fair bit of points going on -- as much as Luke's arguments make sense, they did come partially from a place of selfishness and machismo, and she does have a point about brutalizing someone in front of their kid. Throw in some neat race/gender commentary into the whole deal very organically, and honestly that final scene made for easily one of the stronger moments in Netflix's superhero shows. And when Luke finally does snap (and while Claire have a point, maybe don't pull the "you'll be like your dad" card) the deafening sequence of punches Luke leaves in Claire's wall is pretty damn horrifying. Great job on this scene.

The rest of the episode... is a bit more unstable, but by and by the strong moments of this episode really end up overshadowing the weaker parts. Plus, y'know, that pretty great Luke/Claire scene. 

I'm not quite as enamoured with Mariah's storyline in this episode. Afre Woodard is as entertaining as ever, but even then this episode honestly felt rather haphazard as it bounces around showing Mariah bullshitting people with a speech, trying to reconnect to her daughter, having some weird friction with Shades who's jealous that Mariah's daughter is getting all of her attention... it's a bit weirdly paced, I think. Her intimidation scene with Mark Higgins is pretty neat, and the sycophantic devil-may-care Piranha is just fun. Shades is also just kinda there, lurking in the shadows and basically got all his problem solved when he walked up to the Yardies and found Bushmaster ready to deal and give him the money owed to Mariah. I dunno. The actors were absolutely fine, but the pacing just felt off, like they felt the need to burn through all these scenes as quickly as possible.

Bushmaster is pretty fun, though, finally meeting Shades in this episode -- albeit as a business partner, so we don't get any real connection between the two. Luke Cage, on the other hand, goes through some investigation of his own to try and find the mysterious new leader of the Yardies, and in the process the Jamaican community gives Luke shit for "disrespecting Usain Bolt", something that I'm definitely okay if they're using this as a running gag. That scene in the Jamaican restaurant is also a great way at differentiating Luke's community and Bushmaster's community, and plays into the people's hero title that Bushmaster seems keen on ripping from Luke.

Luke challenging Bushmaster in his own yard, and basically no-selling his jumping martial artists, machienguns and grenades is pretty neat, but at the same time I felt that the scene was paced weirdly with it ending in Luke just... walking away? That honestly made a lot of the cat-and-mouse game Luke did with the random goon kind of pointless, yeah? Bushmaster gets to monologue a fair bit about taking over Harlem, but as great as Shakir's performance is, it's also a bit jumbled just what he's trying to do beyond vaguely playing all sides and whacking Luke Cage in the head as the second cliffhanger of this episode. At the very least, we know Bushmaster's buddy has sent Stephanie-no-Billie to infiltrate Mariah's organization to train as a honey-trap information gatherer, which is a neat plot twist... although not an un-obvious one considering Stephanie-no-Billie gets a fair bit of weirdly standalone scenes that's clearly there to make her stnad out.

This episode, though, gives us a Misty/Colleen team-up, where Colleen Wing helps Misty through her confusion and anger through a session in a boxing ring, which is just glorious! Simone Missick and Jessica Henwick are really fun actresses and they play off each other so well. Misty beating up a creep in a bar while Colleen just sits back and enjoys the proverbial fireworks is just pretty dang fun, and at the end of the day the two of them walk away as buddies, with Misty's confidence restored. It's a great way to make use of a guest star, and Colleen is easily the best character from Iron Fist (though admittedly the bar isn't high), so seeing her back here without the horrible script of that particular series is a godsend. Misty isn't a slouch either as she works through the emotions when she was told point-blank that, yes, the other cops straight-up wish she wasn't around and as far as Commissioner Douchebag is concerned the only reason she is still a cop is thanks to the PR backlash that could come from firing a heroic one-handed cop.

Overall, there are some weaker parts of the episode in the whole Luke-Cage-plays-detective storyline, and doesn't quite make the gangster-drama bits work quite as well... but the episode more than makes up for it with its very strong character moments.