Luke Cage, Season 2, Episode 6: The Basement
This is a bit of an interesting episode, for sure. I'll try to be a bit faster and more succinct with these Netflix episode reviews and not ramble a bit too much because, again, these are meant to be binge-watched, and doesn't really lend itself particularly well to episode-by-episode reviews like this.
We get a couple of characters sort of sequestered from the others, reacting to the huge upset that Bushmaster set into motion at the end of the previous episode. We've got Luke Cage and Piranha just hanging around in some random shack hiding from Bushmaster's gangster cabs, with the two of them talking and discussing pretty interestingly about just how Luke Cage should behave... and don't get me wrong, Piranha Jones is played by the extremely charismatic Chaz Lamar Shepherd and practically every line out of his mouth is gloriously funny, but once more and honestly quite apropos of nothing, the conversation goes to Piranha's dad, and then to Luke's dad... and then Piranha, like Claire, decides that Luke really needs to go to his dad and properly reunite and it's just so bizarrely set up.
After a pretty damn badass action scene against a bunch of Mariah's goons (to quote Piranha, "god damn!") in the middle of the episode, Luke ends the episode stashing Piranha in his father's church, having a brief and civil conversation with Daddy Lucas, before demanding a one-on-one match with Bushmaster. It's a badass Western-side showdown on top of a bridge, and we get a fun action scene... but Bushmaster ends up pulling out some paralytic dust that allows him to beat down Luke.
Meanwhile, Shades and Comanche get a surprisingly neat scene as the two of them sit and stake out Pop's Barbershop, and the two end up talking to each other, with the surprising and genuinely subtle revelation that apparently Shades and Comanche were romantically involved while in the prison -- something that Shades viewed as it being a thing that happened in the prison out of needs, while Comanche is fairly more serious about it. It took me a while to actually "get" what they're talking about, though, because when the conversation went and hinted about the things they did in prison, I legitimately thought they were talking about being Warden Rackham's henchmen in getting other people to fight in the prison's Fight Club. It's a neat reveal that frames a lot of Comanche's interaction with Shades in a new light, for sure, with a decent bit of buildup. No real complaints, other than the honestly pretty vague reveal that I didn't actually catch until after the episode ended.
Comanche's advice about Mariah is finally settling into Shades, though, who ends up confronting Mariah near the end of the episode, telling her that she's basically kinda getting soft? Mariah herself sort of juts lets herself gets tossed from one end to the other as she gets increasingly frayed, from the faceoff with the police commissioner (her high school sweetheart, apparently) to her rant about all her loved ones leaving her, to the final talk with Shades where Shades basically tells her to stop moping and start being a badass. It's an interesting situation for sure, although this episode is mostly just setup for what's to come next.
Misty Knight gets a neat storyline where she finally quits her job. Interestingly, Inspector Douche is actually reasonable about this, allowing Misty's attempt at planting evidence to slide when she admits it, but Misty feels so terrible about it that she resigns anyway because she knows her moral code's been all over the place thanks to that moment of vulnerability. It's neat, I suppose.
Prior to his fight with Luke, Bushmaster certainly has an interesting conversation. When the news of the heads stuck on a pike is televised, Bushmaster's uncle, Anansi, condemns the action as savagery and shameful, knowing full well his nephew is behind it. This leads to a surprisingly emotional confrontation between Bushmaster and Anansi when the shop's closed, with Anansi being absolutely furious -- he doesn't care and even condones that Bushmaster wants to have vengeance against the Stokes family, but he doesn't have to use barbaric savagery to do this. Bushmaster's restraint and clear love for his uncle is also neat here, and I was legitimately worried for a "villain kills a loved one that questions him to show how evil he is" trope to happen here.
Overall, it's... it's an okay episode, I suppose, with some great performances from Comanche, Shades, Bushmaster, Anansi and Piranha, but ultimately this episode ends up feeling disjointed with the plotlines sort of just all over the place without any real focus, and with the power dynamic between Bushmaster and Mariah being rather vague -- so it makes Luke weirdly going back and forth on which villain he has to confront next. Not a bad episode, but not a stellar one either.
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