Marvel's Cloak and Dagger S02E05-06 Review: Dream Multi-Layer

Marvel's Cloak and Dagger, Season 2, Episode 5: Alignment Chart; Episode 6: B-Sides

Some episodes in TV shows are just sort of obvious "get from point A to point B" sequences, and the fifth episode of this season of Cloak and Dagger, "Alignment Chart", is one of those. Sure, it's got a fun gimmick of Tandy narrating the parable of the Farmer and the Viper, in what's perhaps the show's more interesting choices. The narration of the parable takes up a significant part of the episode's runtime, but it does work in making you really wonder if Connors is actually trying to redeem himself. Because, on one hand, he was trapped in a hellish, shadowy dimension and the actor's performance does seem genuine, but on the other hand... it's Connors. And he did admittedly run away after escaping Tyrone's cloak dimension, if ostensibly to try and make it right by digging up the offending gun that he used to kill Tyrone's brother.

I'm not quite sure just why Tyrone and Tandy ended up splitting up after the whole revelation other than just to inject drama, and in these sort of partner-up shows it's a tired obligation for the two partners to split up at some point in each season. But it does allow both Tyrone and Tandy to sort of develop on their own over the episode, which is... neat? Tyrone, with the aid of his father and uncle, ends up believing Connors and I do like how Tyrone explicitly tells us that he's bringing Connors to his family because he's not convinced that he'll be able to restrain all the ugly impulses telling him to chuck Connors off the roof of the church. All of this is neat, showing a neat maturity in Connors' side of things.

I'm... I'm just not convinced how this ended up translating to an honestly pretty long sequence of Tyrone going around and trying to steal even more evidence from Connors' super-rich-illuminati-man uncle with the aid of explosive distraction courtesy of Brigid. The evidence turns out to not be there, and Tyrone... nearly kills Connors in rage, but then decides to bring the man to his mother? I dunno, the whole bit seems confused, which I guess fits with Tyrone's mindset at this point.

Meanwhile, Tandy continues on her one-woman quest to find out and take down the woman trafficking ring, ending up befriending Lia, the leader of the abuse support group. And... in an attempt to trick Lia into thinking they have a common ground, Tandy sort of manipulates Ty into meeting her in a public place to make it seem like he's her abusive boyfriend. And... and for some reason Tandy doesn't actually tell Ty this part of the plan until it's underway, which is... kinda dumb, and Tyrone walks off in a huff because of the whole "so you picked me because I'm your black friend" bit. And also because Tandy didn't answer his calls when he went to get Connors earlier in the episode. I dunno, it's sort of convoluted, and not a conflict I particularly care about.

Tandy ends up befriending Lia herself, and we get an action scene where Tandy uses her Dagger powers to attack Lia's ex-boyfriend to try and get information on the human trafficking ring... but after beating them up and being all "yeah, we're cool" bit with Lia, turns out Lia's working with the main villain all along and zaps Tandy with a taser. Turns out the Viper in Tandy's story isn't Connors, and the Farmer isn't Tyrone. It's Lia and Tandy, respectively. There is a bit of a weird fake-out where hallucination-Tandy seems to be giving an eulogy for Tyrone, which I felt wasn't done particularly effectively.

And Tandy's lack of backup -- no Tyrone, no Brigid -- ends up with Tandy being taken inside an ambulance, which is where she's hallucinating (or is it just her hope-granting powers or whatever?) her giving a long, long speech... and not as an eulogy, but because their two families are all alive and they're celebrating Tyrone being accepted as a police officer.

Episode 6 ends up being in another hallucination/dream sequence that lasts through what's mostly the entire episode, with the twist that Andre Deschaine, who got a very, very long introduction sequence earlier in the season, is actually a supervillain with mind-manipulation powers called Despair! Or, well, D'Spayre, because this is a character conceived of in the 80's. I know him from old issues of Uncanny X-Men! Considering Mayhem has basically been all but forgotten by the cast since the Darkforce dimension episode, it's neat to have an unambiguously evil Big Bad Villain like D'Spayre, who's enhanced by the same explosion that created Cloak and Dagger, and seems to feed on bad emotion and, well, drive people to despair in the exact opposite that Tandy and Tyrone do. He gets a big bad villain monologue, including a hilarious bit where D'Spayre notes that it's not too long ago that Tandy goes around abusing her power to feed off people's hopes.

"B-Sides" itself is a fun, interesting episode, and it's neat to watch these once-off episodes of putting the characters in this weird, imaginary and clearly wrong world. It's always something that in my opinion works a lot better on television than on page, and I do like how it's a neat exploration of Tandy's psyche. The first 'level' of the hallucination is Tandy in this super-ideal world where neither Tyrone's brother is alive, Tandy's dad is alive and not abusive, Tyrone is accepted as a police officer, and Tandy herself is a super-genius ballerina. And through this super-duper idealistic world... Tandy is driven to despair (or, well, d'spayre) sort of when they get attacked by a bunch of racist rednecks and Tyrone gets shot.

And then the second 'level' of the hallucination is a neat callback to the first season's own hallucination of the oil rig exploding, except this time around Tandy is like an inspector working for Scarborough or something, Mina shows up as an irate rig manager, and Tyrone... is still there, having inherited the position from his brother, and the only person on the rig that respects Tandy as someone that's more than just "Bowen's daughter". The third 'level' of the hallucination is Tandy being a con artist (featuring a neat cameo from Tandy's ex-squeeze Liam, who's dating Mikayla in this hallucination), and while escaping, ends up meeting a car-jacking Tyrone.

I guess the whole point of this sequence really is to showcase just how much Tyrone is a constant rock in Tandy's life or something? And as Tandy starts realizing that this is all just a hallucination (inter-cut with D'Spayre dicking around that weird records store in the Darkforce dimension) we get a sequence where Tandy seems to have broken free from all these dreams and hallucinations, and Tandy ends up recruiting and apologizing to Tyrone and go full-on superhero to confront D'Spayre... only for Tyrone to get shot to death in the process. This ends up being the straw that broke the camel's back, completely breaking Tandy and turning her comatose.

The final shot of the episode is a chilling bit where D'Spayre coldly notes how "she's ready", as the unconscious Tandy ends up being wheeled from the ambulance to one of the seedy motels where the woman kidnapping/trafficking ring is going on. Obviously the show's not going to go that dark, and that she'll escape before anything too horrible happens to her, but it's an interesting showcase of D'Spayre's ability.

The episode does sort of cut away the entire cast, technically, other than Tandy and D'spayre, since everyone else is just a hallucination, but I think the episode would be far, far too muddled and confusing without this bottle episode focus on them. It's still not a particularly huge fan of the episode, I think, but it's a neat enough, if indulgent, revelation of the main villain's true power.