The epic conclusion to Season 2 brings major shifts in power to Harlem. Who will control Harlem’s fate and at what personal cost?
Luke Cage – “They Reminisce Over You”, Season 2, Episode 13
Airdate: June 22nd, 2018
Director: Alex Garcia Lopez
Writer: Cheo Hodari Coker
Based on Marvel Comics Characters by: Roy Thomas, Archie Goodwin, and John Romita Sr.
What You’ll Find Out:
With Mariah behind bars, Harlem descends into chaos as the Italians begin to move in on the now-unprotected territory. Mariah weaves a Hurricane Katrina metaphor of how the Stokes family has maintained a wall around Harlem, built out of love, to protect Harlem from other unsavory elements, and positions herself as the only hope of maintaining the wall, prompting Luke to abandon his previously held beliefs and broker with criminals and mob bosses to reestablish a lockbox around Harlem, sidling into a position as King of Harlem.
As Luke goes about business, so too does Mariah. Despite being imprisoned, Mariah extends her long arm into the community, initiating a “clean-up” project, eliminating anybody else with information on her operations, leaving numerous bodies for Misty to clean up and cementing her place as a gangster. These efforts, unfortunately for Ms. Stokes, raise attention from a number of undesirable sources, and bring about jailhouse meetings with her last remaining frenemies: Shades, Tilda, and Luke.
Shades unceremoniously reminds Mariah that she is currently laying in a bed of her own making and abandons her once and for all. Tilda similarly informs her mother that, in pushing everybody away, Mariah is left standing alone. Tilda seals the conversation with a kiss and it is with that kiss that Mariah’s fate is thusly sealed. As Luke finally arrives seeking closure, the poison passed from Tilda’s lips to Mariah’s takes hold, and Mariah dies painfully in Luke’s arms.
With Mariah’s death, Shades’ deal becomes invalid and he is arrested on numerous charges. Donovan calls Luke and Tilda together to read the final will and testament of Mariah Stokes, which grants Tilda Cornell’s keyboard and Luke Harlem’s paradise. In a voiceover, we learn that Mariah believes control of Paradise has the potential to corrupt Luke’s already impaired ethical code and destroy her enemy even from beyond the grave.
The final sequence sees Misty questioning Luke’s moral stance from the roost of Paradise, while the new King of Harlem negotiates meetings between crime bosses and pushes those close to him further away, continuing the cyclical violence and corruption begun by the Stokes family all those years ago. With Bushmaster wounded and returned to Jamaica to recover, the only threat to Luke’s new empire seems to appear in the form of the newly rebranded Tilda Johnson, a take on the Marvel Comics villain known as Nightshade.
What Just Happened?
Paraphrased from Luke and Sugar, “nobody cares how you got the power. It’s about how you use it.” The conscious diversion of the “money, power, respect” model as seen in Luke Cage lies at the center of the Season 2 narrative by placing the initiating catalyst as power rather than money. In a mirroring characterization that extends three ways to Luke, Marian, and Bushmaster, power is the first gift/curse bestowed on each character, which leads each eventually to garner respect and later, finally, money. With the fall of both Mariah and Bushmaster, and the inevitable fall of Luke, questions are raised regarding the corruptibility of power. As we watch Luke reject Claire’s return in the final moments, instructing Sugar to tell her to “go home”, we see the beginnings of a once noble hero’s turn from “sheriff” to “dictator”.
Although numerous characters question Luke’s new methodology for protecting Harlem, none do so more concretely than young DW Griffen, who ejects Luke from Pop’s Barbershop, citing that Pop’s is to remain Switzerland, and that Luke’s actions jeopardize that as Luke has now become a crime boss rather than a hero. Luke’s journey towards his eventual destination as a Hero for Hire necessitates a number of hard lessons, but none more crucial than the crushing of his newly inflated ego as he now looks down on Harlem from above.
Rating: 10/10
Final Thought: As we bid farewell to the latest Netflix installment of the MCU and prepare for the second season of Iron Fist, a new thematic seems to be cementing in the form of a divided New York City and the questionable morality associated with vigilante justice. Certainly, while we continue to build towards the return of Daredevil (dead at the end of The Defenders although his return is teased), the dichotomy between Iron Fist and Power Man will likely become the driving force behind the battle for the soul of New York.
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