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Luke Cage: Tired of Buying New Clothes (Spoiler Thread)


Martell Spy

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So I'm done with the series, and completely agree with Helena's rating: this is better than either DD series, if only marginally better than DD series 2, but not so good as Jessica Jones.

I felt it had some interesting things to say, some fantastic performances, some beautiful shots, some good action scenes, but also some weaker elements. Spoilery thoughts below:

Simone Missick as Misty Knight was the best thing in the series, and the writing for her character was great. By the final episode I genuinely wanted to skip the Luke Cage scenes to get to more Misty. This series was at times a stealth-Misty-Knight-pilot in the same way as JJ was a stealth-Luke-Cage-pilot and DD season 2 was a stealth-Punisher-pilot, and that was a good thing. Now, she needs to get her own series. Or a Daughters of the Dragon series with Colleen Wing, maybe.

The only problem was the interview with the psychologist, which, while well written, was perhaps overlong and felt a bit contrived.

Anyone else waiting the whole damn series for Misty to get shot in the arm? :P 

Much as I loved Theo Rossi in Sons of Anarchy, here I felt he was a bit weak. He just didn't click for me, other than maybe one or two scenes. I never got a real handle on his character, and I felt Rossi's delivery relied too much on that weird sort of husky voice he was doing.

Alfre Woodard, on the other hand, did some excellent work (did you not just get furious when she was in the interrogation room after Candace's death?) but as others have said, her character became oddly superfluous after Cottonmouth died. She was left just spinning her wheels for a couple of episodes. I mean, her plan at that point was to manipulate Luke and Diamondback into fighting each other, which was what both of them wanted to do anyway, so why do they need to be manipulated? And in the end, they did fight, and it wasn't due to anything Maria did, so... basically, she just shows up to conveniently get the phone and drop the file. Both of these are things that could have been done some other way.

Loved the music: good music used intelligently to advance the plot. Subtle point: right after Cottonmouth's death, the first musical performance we see is a rehearsal and someone's not playing right. It's the only time we see something like that. That's got to be deliberate.

I'm not 100% sold on the Luke-Clare relationship. It's not a lack of chemistry between the actors, just... it doesn't feel particularly organic to the characters. I think the problem is that both of these characters have already had romantic relationships with lead characters in the Netflix Marvel universe: so it felt to me a bit like the default writing option for both of them is, just have them hook up with someone. Not sure if I'm articulating that well, but it didn't quite work for me.

Diamondback as a character had some problems, but Erik LaRay Harvey did some fine work anyway IMO. Not as good as Mahershala Ali, by any means, but a decent foil.

I'll have more thoughts later, no doubt...

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Someone mentioned Turk upthread, the point of his character is he's that slippery middleman who always gets out. It made total sense he was there. Trying out a new patch what with Hells Kitchen becoming much less criminal friendly.

On 03/10/2016 at 1:38 AM, RumHam said:

No, Chitauri metal from the events of The Avengers.

That's not explicitly stated though is it? It's just 'nothing from earth.' Vibranium isn't from earth, it's localised in Wakanda because it's from a meteor. Then there have been bits of Dark Elf ship scattered around London. So it could be something else, but I think it was probably Chitauri

On 03/10/2016 at 10:10 AM, protar said:

I enjoyed it very much although I do think that it's the weakest of the netflix shows so far.

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Speaking of the ending - I know a lot of people didn't like it ending on a bit of a downer. I personally didn't mind it, however it's kind of unfortunate that due to the Defenders coming before LC season 2, his imprisonment will have to be handwaved pretty quickly.

 

Full Spoilers

Spoiler

 

Luke Cage is a big enough deal that they can have it in the background of the other NY centric shows. I personally want him to team up with Iron Fist in his show.

I'd put it on about the same level as DD2 which had bits I really didn't care for as well as the good stuff. LC was more consistant but never reached quite the same heights. The music though was kick ass throughout.

Killing Cottonmouth was brave and took me totally by surprise. I thought it was Cottonmouth in those set pictures of the armour we saw.

Diamondback didn't fully work for me, I'm a fan of the actor from Boardwalk, where he brought a sense of menace in every scene, not so much here. His plans didn't seem to make that much sense. His suit was poor, but actually worked better than I feared. He also didn't have enough men to be that threatening, when he first appeared I took him as a sort of anti-Punisher with the skills to match, which was threatening, but they then dialled back on it.

Overall I think this could have benefited from a bit of diversification of plot. It was a little too linear, especially when you never really feel Luke is struggling to win.

 

 

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23 minutes ago, The BlackBear said:

That's not explicitly stated though is it? It's just 'nothing from earth.' Vibranium isn't from earth, it's localised in Wakanda because it's from a meteor. Then there have been bits of Dark Elf ship scattered around London. So it could be something else, but I think it was probably Chitauri

 

The line 'nothing from Earth' is immediately followed up by 'The Incident?' 'That's what I hear' which while not explicitly confirming does make it fairly clear it's supposed to be Chitauri.

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31 minutes ago, The BlackBear said:

Oh also a weird continuity error. Obama got a shoutout, is he just a congressman in this universe? Or was there an election we haven't seen?

Heh, I didn't notice that but you're right. I don't think he was famous enough as a senator for that line to really make sense. So I guess we're left to assume in the MCU he lost the 2012 election to Ellis. Presumably aliens attacking the earth shifted people's priorities and he was viewed as stronger on defense. 

 

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1 minute ago, RumHam said:

Heh, I didn't notice that but you're right. I don't think he was famous enough as a senator for that line to really make sense. So I guess we're left to assume in the MCU he lost the 2012 election to Ellis. Presumably aliens attacking the earth shifted people's priorities and he was viewed as stronger on defense. 

 

Is it confirmed in the films that Obama isn't president, or is it just Agents of SHIELD?

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7 minutes ago, DaveSumm said:

Is it confirmed in the films that Obama isn't president, or is it just Agents of SHIELD?

Yes, Ellis first appeared in Iron Man 3 when the Mandarin attacked Air Force One.

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2 hours ago, The BlackBear said:

Someone mentioned Turk upthread, the point of his character is he's that slippery middleman who always gets out. It made total sense he was there. Trying out a new patch what with Hells Kitchen becoming much less criminal friendly.

 

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Luke Cage is a big enough deal that they can have it in the background of the other NY centric shows. I personally want him to team up with Iron Fist in his show.

I'd put it on about the same level as DD2 which had bits I really didn't care for as well as the good stuff. LC was more consistant but never reached quite the same heights. The music though was kick ass throughout.

Killing Cottonmouth was brave and took me totally by surprise. I thought it was Cottonmouth in those set pictures of the armour we saw.

Diamondback didn't fully work for me, I'm a fan of the actor from Boardwalk, where he brought a sense of menace in every scene, not so much here. His plans didn't seem to make that much sense. His suit was poor, but actually worked better than I feared. He also didn't have enough men to be that threatening, when he first appeared I took him as a sort of anti-Punisher with the skills to match, which was threatening, but they then dialled back on it.

Overall I think this could have benefited from a bit of diversification of plot. It was a little too linear, especially when you never really feel Luke is struggling to win.

 

 

The mention of Turk being there was about the timeline of Luke Cage in relation to DD.

I'm through episode 5 of LC and 4 of JJ. One annoying aspect of Luke Cage is his complete outclassing the villains in his series. He never seems in any danger. I love Ali as Cottonmouth, but the villains are not threatening in any way.  Kilgrave is a real threat to Jessica Jones. It's making JJ more interesting at this point. Hopefully the technology introduced this last episode of LC makes things interesting.

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Heh, I didn't notice that but you're right. I don't think he was famous enough as a senator for that line to really make sense. So I guess we're left to assume in the MCU he lost the 2012 election to Ellis. Presumably aliens attacking the earth shifted people's priorities and he was viewed as stronger on defense. 

spoiler for ep 10 to 13 (forget exact ep, so I'm playing it safe)

Spoiler

Yeah it looks like Obama lost to Ellis in 2012, unless there is some pretty major MCU continuity mistakes made here. We were discussing Obama earlier in the thread. Someone saw a mention of him early in the series and I missed it. However, I noticed not one, but two mentions of him later. There's the Obama Light line Diamondback used during the hostage situation and I think he was mentioned in a live performance, as well.

 

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2 hours ago, Astromech said:

The mention of Turk being there was about the timeline of Luke Cage in relation to DD.

Oh ok, my bad.

2 hours ago, Martell Spy said:

spoiler for ep 10 to 13 (forget exact ep, so I'm playing it safe)

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Yeah it looks like Obama lost to Ellis in 2012, unless there is some pretty major MCU continuity mistakes made here. We were discussing Obama earlier in the thread. Someone saw a mention of him early in the series and I missed it. However, I noticed not one, but two mentions of him later. There's the Obama Light line Diamondback used during the hostage situation and I think he was mentioned in a live performance, as well.

The one I noticed was about Obama singing Al Green.

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I'm seven episodes in, and while enjoying the show, I can't help but cringe at some of the dialogue. So much nonsensical and cliched rubbish. And I don't know whether this is down to the actors, director, or half-baked script, but Luke Cage has some of the worst acting ever seen in the Marvel Universe. 

 

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hrmmm

https://theringer.com/luke-cage-black-conservative-f5be622daf67#.l7nf4u5pm

But it’d be a mistake to deduce that Luke Cage necessarily represents this generation’s advancements in the way of activism and the language of identity politics. Cage dates himself with stale concerns: if black people should say “nigga,” whether or not tailored clothing is the measure of a man’s self-respect, and so on. Which explains, perhaps, why Luke Cage feels less like Jessica Jones or Daredevil and more like Shaft — but with none of the humor or charm that Richard Roundtree brought to that role in the 1970s. On his own, Cage is a reclusive killjoy who is astoundingly slow to solve or discover anything. He’s a big, buff, invincible disappointment. Any other uptown native might’ve been quicker to discover that Harlem’s greater, untouchable menace is the NYPD. But what, Luke Cage wonders, about black-on-black crime?

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1 hour ago, Commodore said:

I don't think this guy quite watched the same show as everyone else. But my perspective may be skewed by my lack of direct experience with Harlem and at large black community. So what do I know?

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I keep meaning to post about this show (a-fucking-mazing) but haven't had a chance to gather my thoughts.  The one thing I knew was that Commodore was going to find a way to bash anything to do with the black experience.  Never fails to deliver. 

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22 minutes ago, Spockydog said:

The acting was awful.

 

I could see how one might have issues with the rest of the stuff you listed, even though I wouldn't go anywhere near awful on any of them except the unimpressive Diamondback, but I'll fight you over this one. :box:

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Yeah, if you can watch Simone Missick, Alfre Woodard and Mahershala Ali and say 'that was awful' you need to recalibrate your idea of what acting is.

Ron Cephas Jones is due some credit too. Really enjoyed him as Bobby Fish.

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