Luke Cage 1x13 Review: Forward, Always

“You Know My Steez”
Written by Aida Mashaka Croal and Cheo Hodari Coker
Directed by Clark Johnson
 
The Story
Young Luke (sorry, it’s hard to call him Carl) and Willis flashbacks! Willis is helping Carl train in boxing. In the present, they’re fighting. Willis punches Luke across the room. Shades and Mariah are evilly regrouping. Claire is at her mom’s flat with Candace. They watch the fight play out on the news, and Claire goes to help Luke. Who gets thrown through the second floor by Stryker. All the street spectators are rooting for Luke. Mariah tries to use the press to spin this so the damage doesn’t fall on her. Luke wants to stop fighting. Willis refuses to let go of his anger. And the police refuse to help. They just coldly watch Willis pummel the noncombative Luke. The crowd cheers for Luke, and he rallies and knocks Willis across the block. Misty gets the other cops to stand down and arrests Mariah. Claire and Luke almost have a romantic moment but there are too many people interrupting. Luke, Misty, Claire, and Bobby contemplate Pop’s shop.
 
Candace and Claire’s mom are still at the apartment, watching the news. Aisha is telling the reporter how good Luke is. Candace gets a text from “Misty” (Shades with Misty’s phone). The reporters ask Luke if he’s single, and the camera cuts to Claire. (HEY. Still a Luke/Jessica shipper over here!) Luke goes with Misty to the precinct, and Claire super has his back. Mariah is going nuts in the interrogation room by herself. Luke explains what he’s done and where he was when Stryker killed that cop. He gives a passionate speech about what Harlem is supposed to be and how they all need to contribute to that by caring and doing their best. Mariah is telling Priscilla a tearful, extremely fabricated version of her story, in which Diamondback forced her and Candace to lie and say Luke killed Cornell (and that he was twisting Cornell’s arm to run guns). Misty joins the interrogation with a lot of info about how Cornell died. She pulls out Candace’s recorded testimony. One of the cops pulls Misty out of the interrogation to tell her Candace is dead. They have to let Mariah go.
 
Priscilla is not happy with Misty’s outburst at Mariah over Candace. Misty blames the broken system for Mariah’s ability to slip through the cracks, and Priscilla blames Misty’s lack of trust in her and the system. Luke and Claire are having Chinese takeout somewhere in the precinct. Before they can flirt too hard, Luke spots Mariah heading out. She denies knowledge of his file. Misty fills them in on what happened to Candace. Some Georgia suits show up to arrest Carl Lucas. Luke goes with them. But Claire runs up for a goodbye kiss first. Mariah gets in a car with Shades and assistant Matthew. Off Luke goes to Georgia, but at least the cops in the car with him seem nice. Let’s close out with some music in Harlem’s Paradise. Misty is not taking Candace’s death lying down. Claire takes a number off a martial arts training thing that is definitely a link to Iron Fist. Bobby starts cleaning up Pop’s again, and he finds Luke’s file! Mariah swaps out the artwork in Cornell’s office. And snogs Shades! Dude! Misty is back to watching the inhabitants of that office from down in the club. Willis’s doctor...is the experimentation doctor.
 
*pout* It’s over. And with Netflix’s schedule, who knows how long it’ll be before we get another season. This is a fantastic show. I don’t think I can rank the Marvel Netflix shows, because they’re all so different from each other, but like Daredevil and Jessica Jones, Luke Cage is easily the best of its class. I already want to rewatch it. We got some great setups for S2. Stryker isn’t gone for good, and there’s some scary crap that could happen now that the experimentation doctor has him. Shades and Mariah are the king and queen of Harlem’s crime now.
 
Things I Liked

• The kid who sells superhero footage is all over Luke and Stryker’s fight
• “Take his tired, broken, false-preachin’ ass outta here.”
• Claire’s reaction to Luke’s ridiculous Cuban-blend coffee pick-up line
  

• Forehead kiss is okay
• ...Yeah, fine, the goodbye kiss was okay too.
• YES. PLEASE GET MATT AND/OR FOGGY ON THIS.
• Holy crap I just got my villain ship. I didn’t think that would actually happen.
• The Jesus metaphor is complete! Luke wants Harlem to be an example, for its citizens to be good and kind and not look the other way when they know bad stuff is happening. And then he allows himself to be arrested without a fight.

 
Things I Didn’t

• Aww, this one’s the length of a normal episode, not extra long
• Claire saying “Always” in Spanish. She just did a corny Luke quote.
• Ah, of course, the reason Stryker’s suit looks lame is because it’s Hammertech.
• Scary police strike team
• LUKE FREAKING TURNED DOWN GETTING FOGGY OR MATT AS AN ATTORNEY
• Candace!
• That smug little grin Mariah shoots Luke before he gets taken away

 
The Characters
It almost seems like Mariah and Shades are a genderswapped Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. Shades performs the Lady Macbeth role of encouraging Mariah to become more and more ruthless in her pursuit of power, while Mariah is hesitant to embrace her dark side but gradually comes to revel in it like Macbeth. That’s awesome.
 
Dangit, Luke and Claire! What am I supposed to do with this? I’m not a multishipper, but you two are actually really good together. I pride myself on my clearheadedness when it comes to analyzing my ships, so I can’t just sweep all that chemistry and mutual happiness under the rug. But, dangit, how are Luke and Jessica going to end up married with a daughter now?!
 
It’s really cool that Misty and Claire ended up on such good terms. A lot of lesser shows would’ve made them catty rivals and tried to pull some love triangle nonsense with it. None of that, please.
 
Overall Rating
5,000,000/5