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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mel O&#039;Drama" data-source="post: 328446" data-attributes="member: 23">Luke Cage The Main Ingredient / The Creator / Can’t Front On Me Compared with the previous episode, the first two of these episodes feel more workaday. They have their moments, but feel as though they undo - or at least move away from - the great work done in For Pete’s Sake. There’s a Luke Cage/Danny Rand team-up of sorts, and D.W. - who’s moved from selling bootleg DVDs of The Incident to pushing Luke Cage/Power Man apparel from Pop’s Barber Shop - actually uses the phrase “Power Man and Iron Fist” when thinking of marketing for the two, which is exciting for this viewer who always associates the two. There’s a fight or two, and Danny is tolerable enough, but he’s never going to be a big draw. Incidentally, I thought Finn Jones’s American accent sounded a little more fake here than in previous appearances, with more emphasis than needed on the rhotic R sounds (which is a British cliche whenever I’ve heard someone attempt a North American accent, even though many US accents - particularly on the East Coast - aren’t defined by this). Certainly he’s got noticeably more rhoticity than Mike Colter. Once noticed, it became a bit distracting. But all things considered, perhaps the distraction is welcome.Meanwhile, Mariah seems determined to live up to Tilda’s “monster” description by exacting violent revenge on friends and acquaintances of Bushmaster. While it’s kind of fascinating to see Mariah sabotage herself and push everyone away by going completely OTT, I feel one of the Netflix Series’ weaknesses is the “horror sequel” mistake of attempting to deliver a big shock or to horrify the audience. Some of these series’ more salacious and violent moments in particular have noticeably felt more about trying to be edgy than they have good storytelling. The scene in which she burns Anansi alive is a key example of this. Good storytelling, for me, is about tell, don’t show, and this scene reinforces why. Apart from being something I absolutely don’t care to see (though the powers that be evidently think we do, since it’s been shown in flashback in both the following episodes), there’s the small matter of not being able to do so effectively. The CG used for this scene looked particularly cheap. Distractingly so. And the charred body would have been more shocking had it been used more sparingly instead of plonked right out in the open. This series has much to be proud of, but this turn of events isn’t it, and actually ended up feeling cheap and a little cartoony.Speaking of cartoony, Shades was back in the latest couple of episodes with more screen-time than ever. The story is interesting enough, but the performance continues to grate. Because of the hammy performance and irritating staccato delivery with its emphasis and pauses in all the wrong places, Shades comes across as slightly dimwitted, which makes me feel very sceptical that he has the intelligence to pull off these coups and comebacks. I see him as an opportunist chancer who’ll sleep with anyone, kill anyone or push anyone under the bus if there’s something in it for him, but a crime master he isn’t. For me, the character had served his purpose by midway through Season One and I’d have been a happy camper had he been killed in the lift during the botched attempt on his life. I don’t feel he’s added anything to the series. At all.After almost a whole season of finding Bushmaster less-than-scintillating, my stomach sank when I realised we were about to get an “origin” episode, with flashbacks to his beginnings in Kingston. Turns out they were very watchable and I enjoyed the way they tied the backgrounds of Bushmaster’s family and the Stokes family, creating a connection that made Bushmaster himself feel more relatable. Along the way, it also became clear that part of the reason Bushmaster hasn’t rung true with me is because of perception. In much the same way that it’s taken a long time to learn who James Lucas is, so it’s finally dawned on me that Bushmaster - while an antagonist for Luke - isn’t a villain. It’s a lot more complex and grey that this. Now that I understand where he’s coming from, I get it. It’s another example of the nuance this series excels at when it’s working well.</blockquote>

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