Luke Cage briefly heads in the wrong direction
Welcome to The A.V. Club’s Luke Cage binge-watch. From Friday, September 30 through Sunday, October 2, A.V. Club contributor Caroline Siede will be watching and reviewing every episode of the Marvel series’ first season.You can follow along and comment on the whole season on the binge-watching hub page or chime in on the individual episode reviews. For those watching at a more moderate pace, reviews by Ali Barthwell will run every other day beginning Monday, October 3.
I praised the previous episode for transforming what could’ve been filler into a thoughtful character study. “Suckas Need Bodyguards,” however, isn’t quite so successful. This is the first episode of the season that felt noticeably clunky and it doesn’t help that it centers largely on one of the show’s least developed characters, Detective Rafael Scarfe.
Frank Whaley turns in a fine, idiosyncratic performance, but the attempt to transform Scarfe into a sympathetic figure who is carrying around guilt over his son’s death is too little too late. And because he’s kept away from Misty for most of the episode, there’s no chance for the show to deepen their relationship so that we really feel for her when her partner dies. Sure their tofu and basketball banter from a few episodes ago was cute, but that’s not enough to sell me on the deep, deep friendship they supposedly have.
Now don’t get me wrong, even a so-so episode of Luke Cage is better than the vast majority of television. And there are plenty of individual moments that work here. But there’s also an inelegance to this episode’s plotting that relies too much on coincidence to get the pieces in place. For instance, it’s a little convenient that not long after Luke decides he wants to take down Cottonmouth for good, a dirty cop with the ability to do just that shows up injured and vulnerable in his barbershop.
And it’s even more convenient that Luke stumbles upon a wounded Scarfe while he happens to be hanging out with the most chill nurse in New York. It would’ve made sense if Scarfe’s injuries were what inspired Luke to seek out Claire Temple, who helped him back in Jessica Jones. But here it’s just a massive coincidence that he happens to be eating at Claire’s mom’s restaurant just moments before he’s in need of a discreet medical professional.
The non Scarfe-centric parts of this episode center mostly on Mariah and her increasing inability to separate herself from her cousin’s illegal activity. And while I will never get tired of watching Alfre Woodard switch from Mariah’s pleasing public persona to her more blunt real-life personality (“You wanna watch me whip and nae nae, Thembi?”), I do feel like I’m still struggling to get a grasp on her as a character. There’s no doubt Mariah’s desire to help Harlem is genuine, but how much of what she’s selling does she actually believe?