Let’s actually take a minute to talk about Diamondback, supposedly the season’s true villain. Let’s hold off on discussing the nonsensical back story and just look at him as a whole. He shows up halfway through the season after the death of Cottonmouth and quite simply just continues the role but just with a new face. He adds no new depth and, quite frankly, repeats a lot of the same lines that Cottonmouth did. He supposedly has followed Luke Cage his whole life and knows everything about him, but still insists on shooting him every time he sees him for some reason. He also has built a criminal empire and played the long game for his revenge on Cage to such a degree that even the guy from Oldboy would be impressed. But once he’s in the show, he starts shooting people in the streets, taking hostages in clubs, shooting grenades off in closed spaces. The kind of actions that you would find from someone like, say, Cottonmouth, a man who is trying to make a name for himself. Not the actions of the criminal lord of Harlem whose very name makes people quake in fear.
Which brings us to his back story. Cottonmouth and Diamondback used to run the streets together with Pop when they were kids, supposedly. But Pop, at the shows start, is easily twice the age of both of these characters. Also, according to the back half of the show, Diamondback lived in Georgia for most of his life… which offers up some glaring continuity errors. Also, in case you were wondering, Cage alternates from knowing and worrying about Diamondback to asking for information on his identity, sometimes from scene to scene. Because, as I said above, Diamondback and Cage grew up together in Georgia. We know this because Cage walks through an old church at one point, has a couple of out context flashbacks AND KNOWS FOR CERTAIN that Diamondback is actually his brother. FOR CERTAIN. No more questions, no evidence needed. Just had to make a quick pit stop to jog some of those memories to know WITHOUT A DOUBT whether or not he has a brother.
I’m making a big deal about that because it’s ultimately the biggest problem with the show. There’s continuity error after continuity error, there’s plot hole after plot hole and what’s by far the most egregious error, there’s so much explaining. I couldn’t even tell you how many times Mariah gave a speech and then explained where she got this information to an aide or one of the other villains. Instead of, you know, showing what happened, the show simply has someone make a grand speech, have that character explain things to someone else and uses this nonsense as a plot device. Instead of actually making plot points that drives the plot forward, the show instead has Luke Cage get shot every 15 minutes in the same recycled scene over and over and over again while having their characters give speeches to fill in the story gaps – one of the most vile crimes against storytelling you can commit.
So, while story gets relayed to us via explanation soliloquies and speeches, the action scenes, which are commonly used as an adrenaline dump between plot points, are poorly done and extremely repetitive. It’s like they spent all the money on the incredible sequences in Daredevil or making Jessica Jones look believable and forget to hire a choreographer for Luke Cage. That and Mike Colter has the fighting prowess of a child throwing a tantrum, which is always good when Cage is supposed to be a seasoned street fighter, an ex-sheriff, ex-Ghost Recon special forces and an ex-boxer. So, it’s very believable that he can’t throw a punch to save his life. To top it all off, they offer no explanation as to how Diamondback acquires his super suit that he uses to fight Luke Cage and then they have a street fight while a crowd watches to show who the real hero of Harlem is. You know, like the plot to Rocky V. Sorry, not like the plot – it is the plot to Rocky V.
Honestly, I could go on and on and on and on and on about the problems with this show. Like how Cage gets out of literally hundreds of charges against him by sitting in the police station and saying ‘I didn’t do it’. Or how when Cage is on his deathbed, they just simply redo the procedure that gave him his powers and make him invulnerable again. But there’s neither the time nor the space to make a point about every problem this show has. Quite frankly, the show is a debacle. As I said above, it seems like Coker was looking to make his own The Wire but forgot that there was also supposed to be a comic book show too so he just kept having Cage get shot and make the ‘I’m getting tired of needing new clothes’ joke every time. Weirdly, it hits all the right notes in tone, setting, and the world it builds as well as having one of the best soundtracks you’re going to find out there. But when it comes down to the stuff that actually makes a show work, (characters, plot, action, mystery, romance), Luke Cage fails on every single level and fails spectacularly.
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“Honestly, I could go on and on and on and on and on about the problems with this show.”
I had been very excited about the upcoming season of Iron Fist, the final piece to The Defenders. But now… now I’m worried. If they can make Luke Cage such a disaster, can they deftly handle the far more complicated Iron Fist? I still hold out hope that it will come out okay, but there’s more than a hint of trepidation when I watch the trailer now.
The only silver lining to be gained out the first season of Luke Cage is two-fold. One, when we see Cage again in The Defenders, there’s going to be three other heroes on screen to draw the attention away from him. Two, since the Punisher was so well done in Daredevil, he got his own season now which guarantees that the second season of Cage is pretty far down the line. Hopefully they can fix this mess by then.