Luke Cage Review: Ends and Means (Season 2 Episodes 4-6)

Towards the end of Luke Cage Season 2 Episode 3, “Wig Out,” Luke (Mike Colter) and Claire (Rosario Dawson) have a devastating fight that covers race, anger, and what it means to be a hero. Their fight also raises the question of ends versus means and what you become when you cross certain lines.

That question is one of the most interesting themes explored in the next three episodes of the season, Luke Cage Season 2 Episode 4, “I Get Physical,” Luke Cage Season 2 Episode 5, “All Souled Out,” and Luke Cage Season 2 Episode 6, “The Basement.”

This question of ends versus means isn’t a particularly new one. It’s been asked many times in many stories. The most interesting examples, as with Luke Cage, are the ones that don’t give you easy answers.

Luke Cage Season 2 takes on this question through three different characters, Luke himself, Misty Knight (Simone Missick), and Mariah Dillard (Alfre Woodard).

Misty’s story is probably the most familiar of the three — a hero working in either a corrupt institution or constantly hamstrung by rules that the other side doesn’t have to play by.

There is a tension for Misty the entire season as she struggles to re-establish her place as part of the NYPD. Rules that she perhaps believed in before seem arbitrary, even a hindrance as she drifts more and more towards working with Luke.

Most of Misty’s initial choices to sidestep rules seem innocent enough. They’re admirable attempts to cut through bureaucracy and territorial posturing that let monsters slip through her fingers. As a viewer, you don’t even question those choices.

Eventually, though she hits up against that line. The line that isn’t so innocent. Misty not only has to decide who she wants to be, but if it’s even possible for her to be a cop anymore without crossing that line.

Luke faces a similar conflict as Misty, but for Luke, there is the added complication of his power and role as a symbol in Harlem. What added responsibilities does he have as the “Hero of Harlem”? Can he really be a hero if the means to his ends are as brutal as those he’s trying to stop?

Thus far his fight with Claire seems to have pulled him back a bit. He hasn’t come as close to really crossing a moral line as he did in the events leading up to that fight, perhaps because of the fall from it.

But the issue has yet to be resolved and it lingers in the background of every choice Luke makes as Harlem’s hero.

The most interesting exploration of this theme though is Mariah. Mariah is a fascinating character in general, played with nervous hair trigger energy by Woodard. You feel all her rage and resentment being pushed down by a facade of control just waiting to snap.

That energy makes any scene she’s in feel uneasy and volatile, especially when she’s in scenes with her even more unpredictable lover and partner, Shades (Theo Rossi).

It makes her dangerous even when her actions at the moment are not. Ultimately, it’s clear she is a villain but it’s not as simple as good and evil.

At first glance, Mariah appears to be simply driven by her own ambition. If that were all she was she would be a tired, even sexist, cliche but like any great antagonist, she’s more complicated than that.

While a self-centered desire to redeem her own legacy and her family’s is an important motivation for Mariah, she also has a genuine want to build something for her community. She wants to make Harlem better for people, and in particular women, who face the obstacles she did.

There is never a moment where Mariah’s eyes light up more than when she’s talking about her Family First initiative and all the ways it’s going to help women of her community.

She has no qualms about achieving her goals through blackmail, violence, and other less than legal means but there is still something admirable in her motives. There is something understandable in her desire to rise above her roots and make her family name a legitimate source of good in the neighborhood she calls home.

That’s what makes these questions in Luke Cage Season 2 so compelling. Everyone is the hero of their own story and have reasons for doing things that are morally questionable, many even objectively heroic.

There are answers to what’s right and what’s wrong in this season but the process of getting there is messy, ambiguous, and above all an engaging character-driven story. 

What works so wonderfully in Luke Cage is the way these three stories ask the same question from different perspectives and are juxtaposed with each other. Each character serves as a mirror for another and asks the viewer to grapple with what separates hero from villain and who gets to decide.

The show is ultimately not ambivalent about who’s a hero and who’s not. What’s more challenging and more interesting is that even knowing that answer, Luke Cage still asks viewers to reflect on why and refuses to make it easy.

Stray Thoughts:

• I really love the dynamic developing between Luke and Misty. Their genuine respect and growing friendship is one of the most endearing parts of the show.
• Bushmaster is turning out to be one of the best villains in the Defenders’ universe. I’m so intrigued to find out where his grudge against Mariah’s family started.
• I was really surprised by the sensitivity and tenderness of the conversation between Shades and his prison associate, Comanche, regarding their romantic relationship while in prison. It could have easily come off as a cliched negation of their genuine affection but was instead a touching slightly heartbreaking moment even as Shades insisted that “what happened inside, was inside.”
• In addition to a strong second season so far, I was thrilled to see how many women, particularly women of color, and men of color were hired to direct episodes. It’s encouraging to see shows like Luke Cage make intentional choices to elevate different voices.

What did you think of these episodes of Luke Cage? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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Luke Cage is currently streaming on Netflix

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