Origin stories abound as desperate times make for odd bedfellows.
Luke Cage – “The Creator”, Season 2, Episode 11
Airdate: June 22nd, 2018
Director: Stephen Surjik
Writer: Nicole Mirante-Matthews
Based on Marvel Comics Characters by: Roy Thomas, Archie Goodwin, and John Romita Sr.
What You’ll Find Out:
In the wake of the massacre at Gwen’s, allegiances begin to shift dramatically in this episode. With Anansi’s wife surviving the brutal battleground, all eyes shift to Misty and the Harlem PD to restore the “peace” as New York City is turned slowly into a war zone.
Mariah slowly descends into a madness, not unlike her cousin, Cornell, and even those most trusted in her cadre, Shades chief among them, begin to see that there is no escape from her cyclical violence. Shades fail to kill the witness Ingrid and return to Paradise to reject Mariah one final time before turning himself into Misty.
As Tilda heals Bushmaster, she sparks a series of flashbacks occurring throughout the episode that flesh out his backstory, including the fact that he was the survivor of a “vaccine” that seems to be the source of his power. “Nightshade doesn’t heal. It only reveals” is the coda of the episode, illustrating Bushmaster’s unique traits. We watch as the Stokes family betrays the McIvers and, like a den of starving serpents, repeatedly turns on itself. The weight of the legacy, the creation of Mariah Stokes, wears heavy on Mariah’s psyche, but not heavy enough to pull her from her roost to the ground.
Luke and Bushmaster come face to face as Luke brings Ingrid to Anansi’s body to mourn. The two appear like a funhouse mirror—so similar in their pain and abilities, yet each a twisted visage of the other. A final confrontation looms just beyond the horizon.
What Just Happened?
The episode, named “The Creator” is indeed about just that. We watch repeatedly as pain is used as a catalyst, a forging fire, for characters over and over. Mariah’s rape, Gwen’s murder, Johnny’s shooting, Shade’s loss, Misty’s arm, Luke’s imprisonment—each of these moments can be seen as a creator for something new.
Of note on the cultural front, a young Mariah is seen in the first flashback basking by a pool in Jamaica in the 1980s, reading. The book in her hands? Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, my favorite among the incredible canon of one of the most brilliant authors of the 20th century and beyond. The novel follows the life of young black American named Pecola who, as a reaction to the way she is treated for her darkness and mannerism, wishes for nothing more than blue eyes, but treads through the rough waters of child molestation, incest, and rape, making it yet another in a long line of expertly positioned cultural artifacts given Mariah’s own origins.
Rating: 9/10
Final Thought: Despite the overused ploy of Marvel Netflix characters talking to dead characters, an excellent episode that beautifully sets up a “calm before the storm”.
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