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Luke Cage (Netflix) Sept 30, 2016 (1 Viewer)

Nigel P

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Creator: Cheo Hadari Coker

Starring:
Luke Cage: Mike Colter
Cornell Stokes: Mahershala Ali
Pop: Frankie Faison
Misty Knight: Simone Missick
Mariah Dillard: Alfre Woodard
 

Sam Favate

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That's the best looking trailer for a TV show I've seen all year. Huge faith in Netflix, Marvel and the cast to make this a great one.
 

Adam Lenhardt

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Misty Knight and Claire Temple posters:
LukeCage_S02_077.jpg LukeCage_S02_078.jpg

Visually "Daredevil" had a definite push toward the greens and reds, "Jessica Jones" had a definite push toward the purples and now "Luke Cage" has a definite push towards the yellows. It'll be interesting to see how the "Defenders" miniseries negotiates that.
 

Sam Favate

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I don't think it's necessary to have seen any of the other shows.
 

DavidJ

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I would say no. If you haven't already, you'll want to watch "Jessica Jones" S1, though, since Luke Cage was a major supporting character in that.

I had the same question. I'm about 2/3 of the way through Jessica Jones. I'll be finishing it up before moving on to either season two of Daredevil or Luke Cage.
 

Josh Dial

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Two episodes in and really enjoying Luke Cage. The music is fantastic, as is the lighting (the day time colour is pushed just enough to give it a yellow, 70s-esque "Sesame Street" look). Some of the shots and framing are quite nice--shades of the BBC Sherlock (which makes sense given the director).
 

Adam Lenhardt

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Just finished the first episode. I'd put it behind the series premieres of both "Daredevil" and "Jessica Jones", but there was a lot to like.

My biggest complaint so far is the dialogue: it felt "written" in a way that "Daredevil" and "Jessica Jones" seldom did. And it didn't trust the audience enough; exposition wasn't disguised very well, and key pieces of information were shown to the audience, then told to the audience, and then told to the audience again. I was reminded a bit of network procedurals in that aspect.

On the other hand, the show has a wonderful sense of place. "Daredevil" was set in Hell's Kitchen, fed off of the ambience of Hell's Kitchen, but was squarely focused on the dueling narratives of Matt Murdock and Wilson Fisk. With "Jessica Jones", the noir of Hell's Kitchen was punched up even further, and there was some novelty in seeing locales from "Daredevil" through a different context. But if "Luke Cage" has been a third Hell's Kitchen series, the world of the Netflix Marvel superheroes would have started to feel very small. The show's Harlem instead makes the Netflix corner of the Marvel Cinematic Universe feel twice as large. The production design, the cinematography, the sound design and the music all combine to create an acute reality to this world. And more so than with with Matt Murdock or Jessica Jones, Luke Cage's story is his community's story: everybody knows everybody in this world, and their fates are all interconnected. There's a cohesive wholeness to the environment.

Some of the supporting performances were a bit underwhelming, but all of the key players shine: Mike Colter continues to completely own the role of Luke Cage. Frankie Faison seems to be playing a variation of his character from "Banshee", an ally and sympathetic ear for the protagonist. But he always felt like an outsider on that show, whereas here he is M.C. and host. Simone Messick made every scene better than it should have been; even when she was stuck with flirtatious dialog that wasn't quite as clever as the writer seemed to think it was, she made it work. Even when she had to be cop stating the obvious for the benefit of the audience, her performance conveying particularities of Misty Knight's perspective. Mahershala Ali is incredibly good as Cornell "Cottonmouth" Stokes, completely different than every other performance I've seen from him and with body language and facial acting that instantly tells you what kind of man this guy is. Alfre Woodard is the big name among this cast, and she does a great job balancing her loyalty to her family with her disdain and contempt for the criminality that underpins her political ambitions. One of the most effective beats in the episode is when she works her way through the crowd, demonstrating her deep knowledge of the people of her neighborhood and then going for the Purell to decontaminate her hands of the unwashed masses as soon as she was out of camera range.

The extent of the references to real world (and fairly contemporary) figures was a bit jarring, though less so than on "Supergirl" (where none of the cities are even real). One moment stood out to me as on-the-nose in the best way: The camera is static on a blown up canvas print of the iconic photo of Notorious B.I.G. wearing a crown from the April 1997 Rap Pages. Then Cottonmouth steps into the frame in front of the print, so it looks like Biggie's crown is on his head. The message is clear: he's the top dog. But it's also a reminder than the subject of the photograph was dead three days after it was taken. Cottonmouth's kind of power can be fleeting.
 

Sam Favate

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I liked the first episode a lot. It had a slow build to it, and that can be frustrating for some viewers, but it really worked here. When Luke decides to help the people at the end, it's very powerful.

Cheers to Marvel's casting people, who have once again picked a great group of actors. Mike Coulter is great, and the rest were too. It's a joy to see quality television made like this.

I usually take my time with the full season; it usually takes me 3-4 weeks to finish 13 episodes. Like reading a good book, I like to go slow and appreciate it.
 

Sean Bryan

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Kind of a slow burn start to the show, but it definitely builds momentum.

I just finished episode 7 and I'm really enjoying it.
 

Sam Favate

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Watched episode 3 last night (how the hell are people finished with the series already?!?) and I love the pace of the show. It feels just right.
 

Sean Bryan

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Watched episode 3 last night (how the hell are people finished with the series already?!?) and I love the pace of the show. It feels just right.

I've only done six so far, but I really like how it continues to build momentum.

When thinking of the first six episodes, the word "escalation" comes to mind.
 

Adam Lenhardt

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I finished it tonight. A strong wrap up to the season. It had the same problem "Jessica Jones" Season One had, with a prolonged stretch of the protagonist getting figuratively kneed in the balls over and over again to drag things out to 13 episodes. "Luke Cage" handled it better, though; whereas Jessica Jones was getting shat on from all sides during the equivalent run of episodes, Luke here at least had support from the streets.

Just about every character ended up in the right place, given what had come before, though I'm really getting tired of:
these Netflix Marvel shows introducing a vulnerable young woman to kill off later in service of one of the primary characters's journeys. As soon as Shades got Misty's phone, I knew Candace was done for.

The music was top notch from beginning to end. The performances in Harlem's Paradise were great; getting to see legends like Charles Bradley and later The Delfonics do their thing within the episode along with great revivalist acts like Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings was a real treat. And for my money, the score by Adrian Younge and Ali Shaheed Muhammad was the best yet for any Marvel series. One moment it's a hip-hop beat, a few minutes later it's blaxploitation-era funk, and a few minutes after that it's Elmer Bernstein circa the early sixties with full orchestra. But somehow it all comes together as a cohesive whole that ties the entire series together.

I would still rank this third behind "Daredevil" (which did a full on straight-up Marvel superhero series, and did it exceptionally well) and "Jessica Jones" (which hooked me emotionally with the first episode and never let me put any emotional distance between me and the title character though to the end of the final episode), but the streak of excellent premium Marvel series on Netflix definitely remains unbroken. I look forward to seeing what "Iron Fist" brings to the table.
 

Sam Favate

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I watched episode 7 last night, which ended on quite a cliffhanger. Momentous episode all around.

Loving this show. The performances are top-notch, particularly Mike Coulter. (I saw a review that criticized his acting, and I thought "Wow, rarely does a review get something like that so wrong.")

It was hard to make myself wait til tonight to see Episode 8, but that's what I'm doing.
 

Charlie Campisi

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I am very conflicted about this series. I really like most of the characters, especially Luke and the plot theme was also not bad, but the execution was not good. No twists, death of Cottonmouth undermined the first half of the season setting him up as a villain and generally not well paced or compelling. I really liked the characters though. I'll watch a season 2, but it needs the show runners or writers from DD or JJ to have some input. They weren't the same, were they?
 

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