So, months ago, when Luke Cage dropped on Netflix, I immediately watched the first two episodes with some friends.
And I was SO DISAPPOINTED.
Those two episodes were exposition heavy--and not only that, the exposition itself was super clunky. I was sad, cause I had wanted to love the show madly, and instead I walked away feeling like Netflix had handed the reins to some sub-par show runner and low-balled the iconic black hero. I was so disappointed that it took me until now to finish the series.
Srsly. So much exposition.
But gum grafts have a way of getting me binge watching while I'm floating on a sea of pain killers, and since I knew I would watch it eventually, I figured it might as well be now.
Which is why, a week later, I'm aware that I owe the creative team for Luke Cage a HUGE apology.
Were the first two episodes clunkily expository? Yes. There's no denying it. But once they've finished the info dump, the show becomes something mother-fucking magical. Like, Luke-Cage-Needs-A-Unicorn-Mount-For-Season-Two kinda magical.
Why?
Well... I'm not sure I can really encapsulate it. But I'm gonna try.
Hint: It's not all the damn fine looking people on the show.
Although that didn't hurt.
For one thing, the show isn't really about just one thing. If I had to pick a theme, I'd say it's about accepting who you are, and filling your proper place in the world. That concept plays out in both the heroes and the villains, which is fascinating because normally you only see it for a protagonist. We want our heroes to step into their proper roles, but not our villains. And yet, Mariah's emotional journey is arguably just as satisfying as Luke's--perhaps even more so for someone like me who is a little tired of the "hero shouldering the mantel of responsibility" trope. Not, of course, that Luke's story lacks punch. It is, like the character himself, starkly forthright. But it's darkly delicious to watch the parallel happening on the villain's side. A woman who is struggling to pretend she isn't really part of the seedy underbelly, slowly coming to accept her own vicious nature--that's compelling television right there.
Which brings me up to the second thing I loved. Luke--while not boring--is probably the least complex character on the show, because everyone else is complicated as hell. They all have such dimension, and it's really a glorious thing. It also feels real, in a way these shows sometimes don't. There's a lot more grey area than just "good guys" and "bad guys". When Luke needs to find Turk, Bobby is the one who reaches out with an offer. And yet, Bobby is a good guy, right? I'd say yes, but it's a different kind of morality than we find in the spandex and underoos crowd. He can be a good guy and still have the occasional load of stolen sneakers to offload. Turk can be a bad guy, and still say the right thing to Zip. Misty can be a great cop but lose her temper and rough up a civilian. We can sort of hate the inspector and still know she's right when she calls Misty to task on her high handed attitude towards the system. Shades can be a cold-hearted snake and yet we know he doesn't deserve getting strangled in an elevator. And Cottonmouth? Damn, his story about broke my heart.
Third, I'm fascinated to see how the whole Luke/Misty/Claire dynamic plays out. I am not blind to the fact that, in a way, this all started with Papa Lucas, and the fact that two women loved him. Maybe the show won't go there. Maybe they'll chicken out, and the thing with Misty will just end up being a one night stand, but I really hope they have the chutzpah to see it through. Daredevil totally shit the bed when they tried to give their hero a complicated love life. I'm betting Luke Cage can do better.
Those are all great reasons to love the show, but they don't really get to the heart of why I loved Luke Cage.
In the end, I don't think that the show was really written for me. I can't say for sure, because I only have an outsiders perspective, but I think it was probably written for the black community. There were moments, watching it, when it was like being with two friends who are telling a private joke. You don't get it, but you know it's happening.
And yet, it didn't really feel exclusionary. They weren't trying to hide the point. The moral in the story wasn't coyly disguised as a dragon eating a maiden or something. No, it was right there, spoken in turn by various characters, all summed up at the end by Luke. And the moral--that was why I really loved the show. Because while it might have been originally written with the black community in mind, over the past month it's come to feel extremely relevant to all of us.
This burden is bigger than you. Or me. People are scared. But they can't be paralyzed by that fear. You have to fight for what's right, every single day, bulletproof skin or not. You can't just not snitch, or turn away, or take money under the table because life has turned you sour. When did people stop caring? Harlem is supposed to represent our hopes and dreams. It's the pinnacle of black art. Politics. Innovation. It's supposed to be a shining light to the world. It's our responsibility to push forward, so that the next generation will be further along than us.
So, yeah. I'm so sorry, Luke Cage. I should have binge watched the whole thing right away. And yet, I'm not sad that I got to hear that speech for the first time this week. You may not have written it for me, but it still did me a world of good to hear it, and I'm grateful.
