With Luke struggling to deal with the sudden lawsuit, Misty gets a new arm but struggles with memories, and Mariah tries to bring Tilda into her new business. Opening on Benjamin Donovan, we learn Cockroach is suing Luke after the beating he received a few episodes prior. In a meeting with Donovan and Cockroach, Foggy Nelson represents Luke.
Cockroach tells a sob story about always having to fight and how Luke busted in, brutalizing him. Annoyed, Luke counters it all, saying Cockroach beat his girlfriend. Cockroach claims it to be hearsay, like how police have mistreated him, and continues. In a rage, Luke accidentally snaps off a piece of their conference table. After Foggy meets off to the side with Cockroach, Luke says he knows he proved their point, and Foggy says that's why they can't have him in court. Though Luke pushes that Cockroach beat his girlfriend and son, Foggy notes that because of Luke's reputation, this can't be proven. Foggy suggests Luke begin wearing a mask, but the latter says that, given his appearance and powers, this wouldn't work. Foggy explains the only options are pay Cockroach $100,00 within 72 hours or go to court, where despite being exonerated, Luke's prison time will be used to play the jury. We cut to Tilda going to the Family First clinic Mariah is opening. Saying she wanted Tilda to see it first, she gushes about how it's a symbol of black women having always worked hard to succeed. Disgusted, Tilda says she's making it a memorial to Mama Mabel, who exploited women. An angered Mariah says that while the business was built on a whorehouse, so was Jazz, and that the Stokes women were fighting to win back Harlem. She says she wants to focus on what they're made of and look to the future. Exclaiming that everything will be free, she offers Tilda the medical director job. Tilda says she might not want to work with bloody money, and Mariah counters that, because of her investing in Atreus Plastics, she's just giving back to the community. Mariah says she wants to help all of Harlem, and we cut to Rand industries where Misty is trying out her new bionic arm. As she questions its usefulness due to some initial slow movements, a worker calibrating it says it will just take time for it to better receive signals from her nerves. Foggy, meanwhile, gives Luke a call and says he has found a way to get money. Luke jokes that it can't be sexual, and Foggy says it's basically just an appearance. Luke hangs up when he sees Misty enter the shop. He compliments her on the new arm, and she explains that Gideon told her about Bushmaster's hatred for Mariah. The two wonder why Bushmaster, essentially a ghost, would buy guns from the person he hates, and Luke changes the topic to Cockroach. Feeling guilty about Cockroach because of Scarfe, Misty says it's her problem too, and jokingly suggests he go to Danny. Declaring he'll get out of the mess himself, Luke makes some calls. Despite sponsors being all over him during his training, he's now told the video of him is uninspiring and his powers aren't from birth and therefore if he got them, so should players of a team he represents, making it unfair. After a proposed documentary where he'd fight animals, finishing with a shark, he calls up Foggy about the appearance deal. Back at the clinic, Mariah is excited over the arriving press, but a skeptical Tilda irritates her saying that, unlike Mariah, her business was started from the ground up. Nandi and Bailey arrive looking for Higgins, who went missing, but she says she barely talked to him at her event, annoying Tilda. Mariah heads to the club, where Shades worries about his men not finding Bushmaster and Ray Ray not showing. She ushers them out, and an anxious Shades says she needs to get out of town, but she isn't worried about Bushmaster. Noting what she has now accomplished, she says her legacy is clean and that he should think of his. Agreeing, he says that to fully be out, she should sell him Harlem's Paradise, but she declines. He starts to leave for Piranha's party to be sure he doesn't mess up the deal. Though he doesn't trust Piranha, he says he trusts Mariah, prompting her to share the information about the police. He says he doesn't know anything about Higgins and that they don't need to worry. Cutting to Cockroach's, we see he is still abusive and is faking his injuries, pretending again when Misty shows up. She says he needs to drop the suit, and he asks if she'll get another super to do her dirty work if he doesn't. She brings up his past as a snitch and he mocks her about Scarfe and her arm, causing her to hit him with it. He says she's too easily flustered and she leaves, at which point he berates his girlfriend for letting a cop in. Foggy and Luke head to make the deal, at which point Luke learns it's with Piranha, whom he doesn't know yet and who has a shrine of Luke Cage objects in his office. Piranha explains his humble beginnings to where he is now, and Luke notices a picture of him with Mariah on the wall. He explains his nickname as being a predator hiding among great white sharks, and says he's throwing a party for a deal with Atreus Plastics that succeeded. To my surprise, after Luke sees Mariah, he is eager to take the deal. Piranha, willing to offer any price, agrees to $150,000. He tells Foggy, having decided to go along solely to get to Mariah, as he says he isn't anyone's pet. Piranha's assistant comes out with an unseen outfit that Luke is expected to wear, as he is under contract, and he storms out. Back at the club, Shades wonders about Ray Ray potentially being a snitch, though Comanche assures him otherwise, and he tells Comanche to find him. Seeming to doubt his own role as a snitch, Comanche grows more worried after a text from "Mama" comes in. At the police station, Misty notes her improved arm control and goes through case files, stopping at one where Scarfe framed Cockroach with a planted gun. We see even then that Misty was hotheaded, and when Ridenhour questions her looking at the cases, she worries that all the cases she and Scarfe worked on may have been false busts. He tells her they just have to live with it. We go to Luke at the barbershop, seeing the intended outfit for the night is a copy of the hoodie he wore when people initially learned about him. He goes to Harlem's Paradise, where Ghostface Killah is rapping a song about Luke. Piranha welcomes him in, having him put up his hood for people to take pictures. The attention irritates Luke, and he lifts a man who bashed him with a bottle, but drops him once he notices all the people and cameras. Cockroach's girlfriend sits at a hospital where Misty soon arrives, and despite her claim that it was an accident, Misty presses that Cockroach will keep doing it until he kills her or her son, and that she needs to press charges. Explaining that it haunts her how many bodies she has seen from this kind of situation, Misty asks if anything illegal is in the apartment. Upset, the girlfriend says that didn't work when he was framed, and she believes he just can't be stopped. Piranha, meanwhile, makes up stories about him and Luke fighting crime together to charm girls, only to have to resort to talking about a new vineyard. He heads upstairs with the girls and has Luke stand outside as a bodyguard. As Luke scans the crowd, someone watches him. At Harlem's Paradise, Tilda says she is leaving because she knows Mariah lied to her and the cops. She demands to know everything or she will leave forever. Mariah openly admits to blackmailing Higgins for being in her way, resulting in him approving the merger they needed and them making money from selling the guns. Though Tilda is disgusted that their money came from guns, Mariah says that Mabel was a ghetto philanthropist, Cornell paid for campaigns, and now she's legitimate. Tilda accuses her of being a liar and crook, so Mariah replies that she'll do anything for Harlem and asks if Tilda's never accepting any help from crooked pharmaceuticals. Tilda denies this, and Mariah says a bit of crooked is needed to really make a difference. She again offers the position, and says she truthfully hasn't seen Higgins since his night at the club. Saying all the bad was planting seeds and she is now clean of dirt, Mariah asks Tilda to help, but her daughter leaves without a word. Luke, still at Piranha's, agrees to a picture with a girl before noticing the man watching him and takes off as another girl tries to get a picture. At the station, Misty becomes frustrated when she realizes a file she needs is in Nandi's desk, at which point she discovers Scarfe's old stash of alcohol. We see them in the past discussing a man, Haverland, who was scamming people for Social Security. Scarfe suggests planting drugs, only to laugh at her incredulity. She says they have to do it legally and he approves, leaving to be with his son. Back in the present, Misty sneaks into the evidence room and slips something into a bag before leaving. Comanche meets with Ridenhour, saying they'e too late to get Mariah, and is shocked to learn the cops don't have Ray Ray. Mariah, meanwhile, breaks into Cockroach's apartment to plant evidence, and she flashes back to when Scarfe, overcome with grief, said his son's death is god punishing him for his wrongs. Deciding she can't plant the evidence, Misty goes to leave but notices a trail of blood on the floor that leads to a surprise on the couch. As the episode winds down, Mariah's complex opening doesn't go as expected and Luke has a surprise confrontation that works in his favor, though the party hits a snag. Luke's struggle with Cockroach is frustrating to see, given he was in the right for his initial actions but took things too far. At the same time, it presents an issues that doesn't always get touched on with superheroes: money. The typical superhero is meant to be infallible and refuse all kinds of money offer, as they do what they do because it's right. With a hero like Luke, however, things get messy, especially since his identity is known to everyone. There are heroes in the superhero world, like Batman, Superman, Spiderman, and Daredevil, who balance their normal and superhero lives, and go to work for support. Luke doesn't get that option. It seems like people don't want to bother hiring him for normal things, and his actions have caused people to push him into being a hero. If that's all he's able to do then it becomes more difficult for him to just survive because he isn't making any money. The idea of doing something wrong for a good aftereffect, as this is viewed, can be seen throughout the whole episode. Similar to Luke, Misty has begun to struggle with her limits as a police officer as it becomes clearer that they are often not able to step in if they don't have everything they need, leading to her almost planting evidence like Scarfe did. The show presents the moral ambiguity of this in that what she is doing is wrong, and Cockroach would be falsely arrested, but her reason for doing so is that he is abusing his girlfriend and son, and knows that he will kill them if not stopped. Much like the Punisher, the show is hitting on questions of what one should do if they know someone ends to go down, yet the system clearly can't stop them. Also mirrored is Mariah's clinic, which she claims to be legitimate. While she has been making more and more dirty decisions since killing Cornell, it was obvious from the start she was wanting to get out of the life and create a legacy. It in no way makes what she has done okay, but the end result of her actions is a clinic that is supposed to help the people of Harlem. Mariah herself asks Tilda a big question when confronted, wondering if her daughter ever dealt with dirty pharmaceuticals. While not always obvious, the business world is full of people willing to scam others or otherwise offer deals that aren't fully reliable. Seeing Foggy show up put a smile on my face, and his suggestion that Luke wear a mask was definitely entertaining given everyone knows who he's thinking of. We never see Bushmaster in this episode, but his handiword does appear and shows him to be even more dangerous than he's been before. Another character that hasn't appeared for a while is Luke's father, whom he has yet to reach out to. Taking a look at the Marvel Wiki page of Reg E. Cathey, who played James Lucas, the character appears in multiple episodes after this one. Cathey was also honored in the season finale, as he died on February 9, 2018. It may have been episodes ago, but Lucas's reaction to realizing he and Claire were talking about Luke still gets to me. It wasn't overly emotional, but one wonders what kind of future the two will have if, after each angry interaction the two had, he was so calm and gave good advice upon meeting his son's girlfriend. With him and Bushmaster both set to return soon, they'll be brought back in a world of fear and confusion given this episode's ending, and I'm waiting to see it.
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AuthorI love the entertainment side of things. Video games, tv shows, superheroes and movies are my passion and I'd love to get the news out for things I enjoy. My contact page has links to my social media, so if you enjoy what I have to say, likes, shares, comments, and follows are always greatly appreciated! Archives
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