I wasn't a huge fan of the first season of Luke Cage so I went into the second with low expectations and they still somehow managed to limbo underneath them! Forcing myself through this was an extremely taxing experience but I suffer so that you don't have to! Honestly though, it's not worth it, it's not worth the time I put into these things and I won't be watching the third season, there's nothing redeemable about this show at all, it's terribly written, lazily directed and poorly performed, I'm actually in shock at how bad it was, and I'm angry!
First of all these are all weak, one dimensional characters and there's nothing in the way of interesting character development or fullfilling character arcs and any attempt at it is done with excrutiating exposition delivered through cringe worthy dialogue. There's nothing to be invested in and ultimately no one to root for, character motives are questionable and Luke Cage himself should be a secondary character at best, there's nothing interesting or magnetic about him and being indestructible leaves very little room for anything to be at stake.
I'm not expecting gritty realism from anything Marvel related but there's definitely a sense of the show not respecting the realms of it's own sense of reality and as such offers nothing in the way of tension or emotional impact. It's not intriguing, it's not interesting and it's not witty or funny either, the closest thing to humour is it's series of Family Guy-esque pop culture or specifically black culture references because remember 2Pac? Remember Beyonce? Rakim actually turns up to perform a song about Luke Cage while looking straight at the camera!
Character aren't even established properly, it's a sloppily thrown together show and everything felt very forced and completely misguided in some of their choices, for example, the character Misty is sold to us as this cool, sassy, rebellious detective but she's just a self-righteous, arrogant, rude, pretty, judgemental hypocrit, there's nothing likeable about her at all but the show thinks she's awesome! I hated her and that little 'I'm better than you' smirk as well, seriously though she was fucking awful and she was completely miss-sold as a character!
The performances are all somewhere between substandard and poor, Theo Rossi was very wooden, he's trying so hard to look cool that it actually looks like he's trying to act in slow motion, there's absolutely no chemistry between him and Alfre Woodard either, their characters are supposedly lovers but there so awkward together it's like watching a mother and son playing the roles! Gabrielle Dennis delivers the worst performance by far though and it's cringe worthy, she's completely wooden and couldn't be less charismatic.
The best character is without a doubt ''Bushmaster'' played by Mustafa Shakir who delivers a great performance, he was charismatic, he was magnetic and he was the only Jamaican character I believed was actually Jamaican! There's a sense of internal conflict with him and he actually had something to do, he had a character arc and room for development, unlike all the other characters. Unfortunately he's never quite utilised to his full potential because this is Luke Cage's show and it has to be about him which means it has to be boring!
Speaking of this being Luke Cage's show and that sense of reality I mentioned earlier, there's literally a scene where Luke Cage says ''this is my show'', I was shocked, do they want us to be invested in this world or is it just an excuse to get rappers from the 90's to perform a song? There's also a scene with a character, out of nowhere, singing a fully mastered piano ballad about her struggles within the Luke Cage narrative and it's one of the worst things I've ever seen, I'm still questioning whether or not it actually happened!
Scenes aren't filmed well either, they don't flow and it's all very poorly edited together, certain scenes should have just been trimmed a little but they're not which often leaves characters standing awkwardly or just looking out of place. Nothing's realistically executed and visually I just wasn't sold on what was physically happening in certain scenes, it's irritating! It's all just very halfheartedly thrown together and certain plot points felt like something out of a bad soap opera, don't worry though here's a performance from KRS One.
Every time Luke Cage says ''sweet christmas'' I want to gouge my fucking eyes out and shove knives in my ears, I wouldn't recommend this show to anyone, not the first season and certainly not this second offering! It was a gruelling experience forcing myself through this and I'm glad it's over, I'm gonna give the second season of Luke Cage 4.3/10 and wipe my hands of it forever! Watch the first season of Daredevil instead and maybe The Punisher, everything else in The Defenders universe is a write off!
What did you think of Luke Cage?