Amph Marvel's Luke Cage

Finished it this morning. Great start but it imo it peaks around episode 7 and yikes does it go downhill fast... what a letdown tbh. Reminded me a lot of season 2 of DD which had a great first half but then just fell apart and wound up totally wasting both the actors and their characters on weirdly directed episodes with clunky, cheeseball writing.

 

I liekd it less than Dardevil s1 or Jessica Jones but hoy crap, it doesn't even get close to the mess that was Daredevil s2.

All in all, totally worth your time.

 

Although the show is growing on me, i'm liking the show substantially for the music and fashion more than the writing.

 

just finished episode 3

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could see her partner was dirty from along way away and as soon as chiko met him i knew he was about to get whacked

am i the only one who feels the character suffers from supermanisms

 

Personally I'd go DD, Cage, and then JJ. JJ was alright, but I don't think JJ is as rewatchable as DD and as Luke Cage will be.

The music in Luke Cage was possibly the highlight of the series for me.

 

The use of music from Harlem's Paradise was just a brilliant choice. It definitely elevated some of the scenes. I also finished

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I guess we know how Defenders might work out. Matt represents Luke. Perhaps Jess has to do some PI work for him to get him free going off the file that Bobby found at the end.Claire ties Matt and Luke together and Luke is already tied to Jessica. And we know Jerri Hogarth is in Iron Fist so she likely ties Danny and Jess together since Luke is in jail. As to villains. We can certainly assume Elektra and the Hand. However Fisk, and/or Mariah being in there is definitely a distinct possibility as well. Also are the Seagate backers perhaps in any way related to the people reponsible for Jess and Nuke? We know Seagate is responsible at least partly for Kilgrave given he was on Reva's flash drive.

Really cool how things are tying together though even with the small things like Blake Tower showing up at the hostage crisis, Benjamin Donavan representing Fisk and Stokes, Turk showing up for the arms deals or the larger stuff like the references to Luke, Jess and Matt.

Also glad we learned more about Reva. Makes it more interesting in regards to Jess killing her. In effect, learning that she was lying to Luke the whole time and was complicit in the whole thing sort of makes her death at the mind controlled hands of Jess even a little less awful for Jess. Before it appeared she had killed a more saintly woman. Now we know she's just as flawed as anyone else if not more so.

 

Just finished Suckas Need Bodyguards. I think i've pinpointed my issues with the series (assuming it continues along this consistent path):

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It's pretty simple: the series lacks a mimetic double. For instance, Daredevil had Matt/Fisk, Matt/Punisher, Matt/Elektra, and to an extent, Matt/Foggy. The aforementioned pairings in that show were each a reflection of one another in terms of their idealism and overall means of achieving the ends. For this reason, you had no choice but to question the morality of Matt/Daredevil because that particular duo internalised qualities of the other pairings. In Jessica Jones, the mimesis was by far and large between Jones/Killgrave except their doubling stemmed not from politics or street philosophy but affection. Can you really say that the same dynamic exists for Luke and Cottonmouth? Not so far. Granted, I still have half a season remaining BUT Daredevil and Jessica Jones had a lot of these points underpinned by the halfway point of the series. Luke Cage is certainly the slowest series of the three Marvel-Netflix shows so far, so there's a chance they're working up to it. But they're taking a heck of a long time.

Not there's not really a dynamic clash taking place. I don't feel for either Luke or Cottonmouth because there's barely any plight. Yes, Pops was murdered which gives Luke a fairly straight forward need for revenge. But Cottonmouth is just a smoother Fisk without the gravity of what made D'onofrio's character so damning. That is: the abusive upbringing, the love of his city, the disgust of crime yet the undeniable lust for power. Cottonmouth has little of this (so far).

Can we have a Misty Knight series instead?

 

So far there seems to be more to her character than Luke. Again, Luke is a great supporting character but as a lead...he's gown on me somewhat but i'm still waiting for the moment for him to truly draw me into the screen. In fact, i'm more intrigued about Misty's backstory regarding her investigative senses than I am of Luke's bulletproof skin.

 

Favorite moment so far: Luke looks at a reflection of himself in full 70's Power Man getup. "You look like a damn fool".

Yes Luke, yes you did. Your creators were not kind to you.

 

I finished season 1 last night and I thought season 1 was disappointing. Especially since it didn't really build off Jessica Jones or any references to it other than Claire. I thought there was alot of emotional baggage that could have been used there. I really didn't care for the overall story arc as I thought it was pretty flat and like mentioned in previous posts, the story is slow moving. Perhaps it's because of Luke Cage's power set and the difficulty writing a story around that character in a realistic world. Moreover, Cage is rarely the underdog and therefore it's hard to cheer for Goliath and against David, even though "David" equals criminals. That's probably why I felt the Carl Lucas/Seagate scenes was probably the best of the story telling.

For me, it's Jessica Jones, Daredevil Season 2 (the Punisher), Daredevil Season 1 and Luke Cage as the order of my favorite Netflix series.

On a side note, I was surprised there wasn't any references to the Hulk v. Abomination battle that took place in Harlem. There were references to the "incident" and "Hell's Kitchen" but nothing about the Abomination brawl.

 

Join us Wednesday (today) at 3pm PT/6pm ET for a Facebook Live Q&A with Luke Cage's Mike Colter and special guests.


https://www.facebook.com/MarvelsLukeCage/

 

LUKE CAGE All Easter Eggs, Cameos & References

SPOILERS and NSFW (language)

 

is this show available in the UK ?

 

Yes, if you have Netflix.

 

Finally got around to start watching this, and I'm four episodes in. Luke Cage is so damn cool in 3. The first couple of episodes were okay, but 3 and 4 were excellent. And loved seeing him

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In the old costume, it was a great way to show it

 

finished the season enjoyed it but not as good as daredevil. haven't watched jessica jones so can't compare. season went downhill after

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they killed off cottonmouth

 

I am...so underwhelmed by Diamondback's power suit.

At least it's not in the direction of the power rangers?

 

I'm most of the way through episode 1 and the show is so racist. No whites!

It's intolerable that in this day and age, a story could exist that makes people feel excluded from the narrative based on skin choice...

...

lol, idiots. The show is great so far, I've just had time working against me to watch it.

 

Solid show, but the big showdown at the end is a disappointment.

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Diamondback's motivation is also incredibly lame. Like, sure, make him the resentful half-brother, but he has no plans beyond embarrassing and then killing Luke? Jeez.

Another few criticisms:

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Reva is terrible. It's just stony, dull, uninspired delivery of lines. Plus...her little subplot is dumb. It's just an excuse plot to explore Luke's origins and it doesn't really add much to the overall story.

Claire's arrival is fine, but man, they keep giving her crap to say that probably should've been given a second pass in the writer's room. There are times when she seems to exist to give everyone the ego boost they need, and it's really frustrating that they use her as this mouthpiece to hammer home the idea that the Defenders are gonna be a thing.

This is especially frustrating because having Luke listen to Trish Talk is a much more direct way of referencing the fact these characters share a world. Turk saying Harlem's too intense and he's going back to Hell's Kitchen because it's safer is a great reference (although how Turk moves around so fast after getting his leg messed up in DD season 2 is beyond me). But Claire obliquely referencing Matt? Rough. Even when she talks about Jessica, its painfully "as you know" and feels awkward. Maybe it's just me but the fact she's been in every series has become a little too repetitive.

Also, this show really shows off the weird pacing issues Marvel's Netflix shows have. It's great until they decide to start contemplating their navels or realize that they still have four episodes to go but have already put the pieces in place for the finale and don't know what to do.

 

Yeah, those last few episodes...yeesh. They were a pain to get through.Almost enough to mar what had otherwise been a great looking - and sounding - first season.

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Diamondback was just awful. And that goddamn suit. Ye gods. The way the series ended and it's oh so in the nose setup for the assembly of the Defenders was just a bit too much. I mean, Claire mentioned no less than three times she knew a good lawyer to refer to Luke. Yeah, Claire, we got it. Loud and clear, ffs. And if we do get another season, we're gonna have...what? A jacked-up Diamondback being more insufferable than before (if that's even possible). Alfre Woodard being this annoying pain in Luke's butt that somehow he just can't squash?

I mean, we get it. With these guys, the stakes can't be that high because of their nature as street level warriors and, of course, budget constraints. But the stakes in this first season were so abysmally low that I can't believe it went past ten episodes. I figure the Defenders will probably need a bigger bad to keep us interested. And there isn't anyone bigger and badder than Wilson Fisk doing his thing even behind bars, with some high-caliber enforcers making things tough for the heroes. I dunno, something much better than what we got with Luke Cage's endgame would be a massive improvement.

 

Finished, and I liked it overall. I do like Luke as a character. I'm also glad that the MCU and DCU are seperate, because I'd have to put my foot through the TV if Diamondback and Fish Mooney ever had a scene together.

 

I still have 3-4 episodes left, very much like it so far, though certainly not without its faults.