Luke Cage is so frustrating to review this season. On one hand, “Wig Out” features what may be the best scene not only in this show’s run, but in any Marvel show (give or take the hallway fight scene from Daredevil‘s first season); on the other hand, the show seems to have moved into table-setting a mere quarter of the way through its season, implying that the rest of the season will be seriously packed…or the show is already spinning its wheels. It’s not an unsuccessful episode, because it focuses on Luke Cage‘s secret weapon: the women of the show.
Don’t get me wrong, things happen in “Wig Out” – they just take a while to transpire. But I appreciate the morally ambiguous note on which the episode begins. We pick up right where “Straighten It Out” ended, in the aftermath of Luke’s brutal beating of Cockroach. There he lies, beaten, bloodied, and concussed, the visceral result of someone with Luke’s power losing control. Misty won’t arrest Luke, and later, detectives Tyler and Bailey get mad at her for this, and what makes this throughline work is that the show doesn’t come down on either side of the issue. Yes, Cockroach is a criminal and an abuser, but Luke is a nearly unhinged vigilante with no apparent accountability. Luke Cage doesn’t tell us how to feel about this, but it clearly wants us to think about it, and it dovetails nicely with a later scene.
Where the show seems to be stuck is with Bushmaster, which is doubly frustrating, considering how intriguing I find him. Three episodes in, and he’s largely just talk. Everything out of his mouth is about wanting to take out Mariah and Luke Cage, and he only starts that process now. Three hours into a season, the villain shouldn’t just be getting started. His plan is to get the money that Mariah needs from Nigel the Jamaican, and go into business with her himself, before ultimately taking her out (“I want her nice and fat when I kill her,” he sneers). So far so good, right?
Where the show misses the mark is in the execution of Bushmaster’s plan. In one scene, he’s articulating it, and when we see him next, he’s finished it. Granted, sometimes it’s more impactful to just imagine what a person did, but I gladly would have sacrificed yet another scene of Luke and Claire bickering if it meant we got to see Bushmaster in action. In any case, he’s now in business with Shades and Mariah, which just raises further questions, the most pertinent of which is: wouldn’t they do their due diligence? Or be a little more circumspect about this strange man who beheaded someone they knew, and announced himself as their new business partner? It seems shockingly short-sighted on their part, which may or may not be intentional.
It is, however, fun to see Mariah in wheeler-dealer mode. She has a great public persona, trotting out Tilda for her adoring public while blackmailing someone at the same time. It’s in these scenes that Alfre Woodard really gets to shine, because it’s not just a facade for Mariah – she really does want to help Harlem, but what’s the harm in helping herself as well? Mariah doesn’t conform to a good/bad binary, which is what makes her so nicely nuanced. She’s not outwardly villainous, the way Shades and Bushmaster are, but nor is the truly altruistic.
Colleen Wing shows back up, training Misty in the art of one-armed boxing. Colleen is always a welcome presence, and was far and away the best part of Iron Fist. She and Misty have a fun dynamic, but when they get into a bar fight with a few guys, it feels listless and low-energy where it should be thrilling. The dialogue scenes between them work better, because we don’t need to see either of these women kicking ass in order to be impressed by them (don’t get me wrong, though, the kicking ass is a cool bonus). I hope Colleen continues to pop up, and I hope the show figures out exactly how to utilize her.
The coolest scene of the episode – not the best, which we’ll get to shortly – is Luke’s confrontation with Bushmaster and his requisite cadre of thugs. Luke can’t be beaten, but Bushmaster knows this, and uses the fight as a way to study him, like a specimen. But it’s by far the coolest Luke has looked so far, and it shows that the time he spent alongside Matt Murdoch and Danny Rand has paid off – he’s a fighter now, not a brawler, smarter and more tactical. Plus, it’s in line with Luke Cage‘s kung fu-movie origins, as we watch a lone warrior fight a local crime boss.
“Wig Out” belongs to Claire Temple, though – and Rosario Dawson. The centerpiece of the episode is an explosively emotional fight between her and Luke, and I want to say that I think the show came to it too quickly (it seems better suited for episode five or six), but that matters little and less because the scene is an absolute barn-burner. Beyond being a showcase for the best acting that Dawson and Mike Colter have shown all season, it grounds the consequences of Luke’s actions, and deteriorating mental state, in real-life emotions. Luke is in possession of a power, which he is gradually losing control over. The scene draws a direct parallel between him and Cockroach, retroactively making “Wig Out”‘s first scene even more powerful. When Luke cries “Enough!” and punches three holes in Claire’s wall, it’s genuinely frightening. Director Marc Jobst (a veteran of Dardevil and The Punisher) uses silence extraordinarly well, shooting Luke and Claire’s fight like a short playlet in the middle of an impressively well-acted episode. Jobst doesn’t shy away from close-ups, and frames his characters in the center of the shot, his camera both studious and accusatory. There is no escape for anyone in “Wig Out,” and that startling sense of intimacy is the best result of Jobst’s work. As uneven as Luke Cage has been this season, if we get scenes that even approximate this one in quality and intensity, it will be worth it.
A Few Thoughts
- Luke’s sojourn to Brooklyn was fun, because it really helped humanize him. He’s not good at tailing people, and he’s garbage at investigation. And it was a hoot watching him taken apart by the Jamaican old-timers who couldn’t care less about who he is.
- I liked the scene between Claire and Rev. James, but, even though it was funny, it bugged me that this complaint about the door in Titanic keeps popping up 21 years after the movie came out. They wouldn’t have both fit on the door! It’s physics!
- Bushmaster is garbage at hiding a grudge. Any time someone says “Mariah Dillard,” he responds, “Stokes.” It’s damn near Pavlovian.
- Honestly, I think this is a 3.5 star episode, but the scene between Luke and Claire was an easy 5. So I’m scoring somewhere in the middle.
4/5
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