The latest Netflix/Marvel collaboration, featuring the super-strong, bullet-proof 'Hero for Hire' Luke Cage, isn't up to the quality of either Daredevil seasons, or Jessica Jones. In fact, it's poor. No, worse than that, it's dull, shambling, messy, inconsistent, and just plain bad.
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| A dull, shambling, mess - see what I did there? |
The Luke Cage character had already been introduced in last year's excellent Jessica Jones. This show takes place after that one, and Luke
has moved on from Hell's Kitchen to Harlem. Holding down two jobs (as a sweeper in friendly, wise, old-man, Pops' barber shop; and as kitchen dish-washer in the Harlem Night's nightclub, owned by "don't-call-me-Cottonmouth" Cottonmouth ... a local hood, with the veneer of respectability).
The story (such as it is) covers familiar ground. Cottonmouth, the nightclub owner, and arms dealer to the local gangs, is cousin to ambitious amoral councillor Mariah Callard. An early arms deal goes south, and the fall-out causes the death of 'Pops' and Luke emerges from anonymity to take on the bad guys. The bad guys eventually including Luke's half-brother, the villain behind the piece, Diamondback, who faces Luke in the season's climactic fight sequence.
The first two episodes are even, if a little ponderous and cliched. The night-club owner - yes, he's also a baddie; the ambitious politician, who will sell her soul for personal power; the bent cop; the female cop who's out to expose Cottonmouth, and inevitably hops into bed with Luke. So samey, and a little tired, but nothing dreadfully annoying. Just not that good. The music (the theme music is the best part of the show) is a highlight and used to punctuate or orchestrate the action early on, and these parts are okay.
However, the issues with this season are many.
Firstly, the dialogue is achingly poor. When people aren't talking in cliches, they're speaking as a single voice. The writer(s) too often appear to be offering us a monologue spoken by various characters. There's no surprise or counter-play between characters of the same 'side'. The characters, outside of the line of this single plot, have no history. If Misty has been in Harlem all her life (she has - her initials in the basketball court; she knows Pops) then what's she doing undercover? Why do none of the local youths know or recognise her? Why is she 'proving' herself as though she's new to the area? She's not ... just new from the script's point of view.
Secondly, although this isn't a 'police procedural' what we see of police procedure needs to look a little bit accurate. But none of it. There are many examples: Scarfe's notebook is key to potentially exposing Cottonmouth, yet rather than being checked into the evidence room, it's left lying around on Misty's desk; no 'crime scene' set-up at Harlem Nights post-murder (later on the same day as a body is found there, the club is open, the very room being used, with no sign of police tape); Misty refers to Claire Temple as "Claire" in front of her boss ... as though this person they've only just met, is already a friend; sometimes lawyers are present at interview, other times, not; people are arrested and released with little or no reason, ...
There's an issue with timing mid-season. The murder at the nightclub, the immediate police investigation, interviews, arrests and releasing of suspects, all appears to take place while Luke and Claire are stumbling around Harlem trying to find a safe hideout. These two sequences can't happen with the same time span, yet they are shown this way.
The episode where Claire tries to treat Luke with the doctor from Seagate, has to be one of the most excruciatingly poor I've seen ever. The doctor who 'created' Luke seems to know less than Claire. Claire, for no reason whatsoever, says they must turn the temperature of the acid up as high as it will go - no, "let's try a little bit and see what happens" - just 'to the max' so it can be shouted. The electric shock to revive Luke blows all of the electrics; next scene, everything is working again. There's no indication of how they are looking at the shrapnel inside Luke; the shrapnel is only three, large pieces; they don't remove *any* from the shoulder wound. Just about everything in this episode is garbage.
More aggravating, is that characters know things they shouldn't. Things we (as the viewer) know, but things they can't; the sort of things a writer, script editor, or producer, should have spotted. Were they all comatose? So many instances of this - when Luke and Misty are hiding beneath the kitchen (don't get me started on "search every inch of this place" - apart from that obvious grate in the floor), Misty says that Diamondback will want to pin this "hostage situation" on him. But she doesn't know there is a hostage situation up above. Her last view was from behind the bar, being shot at, until Luke carried her out - before any hostages were taken. Later, in the same episode Claire warns Luke "what if he has one of those special bullets" - moments after we've seen Diamondback say he only has one Judas bullet left. Surely Claire would have said "what about those special bullets?" or "what if he has any of those bullets?"; her only mentioning one bullet is because the writer knows there's only one left. But Claire shouldn't know. After Diamondback punches the politician in the chest to kill him, and leaves the body outside, the ESU guy immediately says that he's dead from having his chest caved in. He says this without any examination, at the scene, when he couldn't know cause of death that quickly.
There's just too many people, doing too many preposterous things just because they need to, for the sake of the story. There's a laughable moment when Claire shows up at the final showdown. She's standing behind the police line at the front of the crowd. Misty says to her, "come here, you've got to stay back" gesturing as she speaks for Claire to come through the police line and stand next to her. From then on, Claire's always out in the open ahead of the cops. No-one pulls her back? It's incredibly clunky dialogue to get her to do the opposite of what is said.
But in the same minute the ESU commander tells his troops, "as soon as you have a clear shot - take it". Of course, they never do. It's ridiculous.
And earlier on, Misty's broken phone is no good for calling her boss. She doesn't bother trying to text. That would ruin things.
The show starts off okay, if dull, and ends up being one of those series that you need two or three goes to get through each tiresome, poorly scripted, badly thought-out, repetitive, episode.
The biggest hole is Diamondback's motive, and actions. If he was content that he'd ruined Luke's life by getting him jailed, then why didn't he just tip the police off to Luke's real identity? In fact, howcum Luke - former marine, cop, and prisoner - wasn't recognised by anyone else when he was shown on TV? When his 'Wanted' poster was plastered around Harlem? No former cops? No former colleagues? No friends? Did Diamondback only know it was Carl later on? I have to guess 'yes' as if he'd been tracking him from Seagate, he could have just contacted the police then, not wait years. Although it's suggested that Willis has been behind it all, so that contradicts him not knowing. The whole motive is inconsistent with how he acts. Just shoot the guy again, after he's shot once and on the ground. Jeez.
Luke's motivation is just as sketchy. He'd only known Pops for 5 months, but his death was enough to get him to go public. Yet Reva's death - nah, I'll stay hidden.
I can handle things not being entirely logical to make a comic-book world 'work' (how doesn't Diamondback pop his shoulder whenever he uses those gloves; how does super-strength help you halt a moving vehicle; why doesn't anyone shoot or punch Diamondback in the mouth?) but when this is matched with dreadful dialogue, illogical actions, incomprehensible character knowledge, and shoddy continuity, it makes for an unwatchable show.
Luke Cage was awful. I've no idea why professional reviewers are giving it good write-ups; they can't have watched it.
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