The first time I watched this episode of Luke Cage, I thought I must just have been distracted by whatever else I was doing because it didn’t stay with me at all. So I watched it again before writing this recap, and you know what? It wasn’t me. I think this is just another serviceable episode.
One of this episode’s few highlights for me was that the opening sequence of Luke running all over the city is overlaid with Trish Talk, Jessica Jones’s best friend Trish’s (Rachael Taylor) radio show. Trish is talking to callers about Luke Cage and whether he’s a hero or vigilante. I like the cross-over elements of the Marvel universe.
The major events in episode six hinge around Detective Scarfe trying to shake Cottonmouth down for $100K before turning over the guns he got out of the evidence locker. Maybe this is Scarfe’s way of committing suicide-by-baddie, because he shows up without a kevlar vest, then mocks Cottonmouth while telling him where the guns are (in a warehouse 50 feet from where they’re standing). So OF COURSE Cottonmouth shoots him. He doesn’t die right away, so we’ve got the rest of the episode for Cottonmouth to squirm about what the fallout will be while Scarfe bleeds out.
In a scene I hope holds a lot of foreshadowing, Mariah scolds cottonmouth for shooting Scarfe, tells him to sell his nightclub and be the respected man who spoke at Pop’s memorial and gets right up in his biz to tell him to take Luke out. While basically leaning into his body and face, she wisely recommends alternatives to shooting Luke (like drowning, burning or poisoning him or tempting him with a woman), but Cottonmouth is hell-bent on his exploding alien bullet method of killing Luke and says Mariah sounds like Mama Mabel, which doesn’t seem like a compliment. They do not make out, although again– that Game of Thrones Jamie/Cersei vibe is STRONG.
Elsewhere, Claire’s mami has lured Claire down to her diner because Luke is eating there with Eddie Fish. When she approaches him, we are reminded that their overlap in Jessica Jones was kind of brief and chaotic because he doesn’t know who she is and she has to remind him. Leaving them to get reacquainted, Eddie tells her not to apologize for interrupting them because, “Claire, you are far too beautiful to ever apologize for anything. You remember that.” Ick.
Then Claire and Luke talk about their previous encounter, and he’s all weird about his abilities. She asks what he’s going to do with them. Then he runs away, and she follows a moment later while wedding bells ring in mami’s head.
Back at the precinct, Misty’s Captain says the cops should suspend judgement about what happened with Scarfe until they have evidence and asks them to close ranks. She puts Misty and Dirty Perez together to find him because they’re the best she has, which is a shame.
Luke and Claire go to the barbershop, where he finds the door unlocked and a trail of blood. Scarfe is hiding and dying in the back room. Begging for help, Scarfe says “No cops – not even Misty” and that he won’t go to hospital because they’ll kill him like “they” did with Chico. Claire instructs Luke to put Scarfe in a barber chair and she begins tending to his wounds.
At Scarfe’s apartment, Misty is doing her “imagining” trick to envision Scarfe in the space. Perez calls her weird and says folks talk about her like she sees things. Blah blah blah… Perez sees a pic of Scarfe’s kid and Misty tells him it’s his son Earl who is dead as a result of an accidental self-inflicted gunshot wound with Scarfe’s gun. She points out that although Scarfe cracks a lot of jokes, he rarely smiles. Then she decides they should stake out the building.
Cut to a brief and confusing moment where Mariah is telling a photo of Mama Mabel to “shut it” and calling her a dusty old bitch. Is this because Mama Mabel is figuratively still in Mariah’s head, or is it because Mariah is hearing voices for reals?
Back at the barbershop, Luke questions Scarfe while Claire performs makeshift surgery. Scarfe confesses that he’s been working for Cottonmouth, that he got Cottonmouth’s guns out of lockup, that Cottonmouth shot him and, with some pressing not to lie, that he’s the one who killed Chico. Luke kind of strangles him for a while, but Claire talks him out of being a killer. Luke wants to abandon Scarfe, but Scarfe stops him by saying that despite being a despicable human being, he also has all the evidence needed to put Cottonmouth behind bars – including detailed notes about covered-up murder investigations, the use of Spurlock’s mortuary to dispose of bodies and a list of cops on Cottonmouth’s payroll. He tells Luke where the notes are in his apartment, and off Luke goes.
Luke sneaks into Scarfe’s apartment while Misty and Perez are distracted from their stakeout and finds everything he was promised under some floorboards. In the stakeout car, Misty shares some backstory on her relationship with Scarfe that makes him seem more sympathetic and less lame, and although a ton of time has passed since Luke went inside, Misty sees the apartment building door wiggle and knows someone is inside. She and Perez get there in time to miss Luke, who has jumped out the window and gotten away.
In the barbershop, Claire is keeping Scarfe conscious when Luke returns knowing that the cops IDed him and will be close on his heels. Claire has arranged for her mom to bring them a van, and Luke wants to get them to One Police Plaza to turn in Scarfe and the evidence. He asks Claire to call an EMT she trusts to meet them there.
Misty and Perez find the evidence of Scarfe’s presence at the barbershop, and Perez gets a call from Cottonmouth while they’re there. Now all the cops and the bad guys know what kind of van to look out for and that Scarfe and Cage are together in it. Cottonmouth asks Zip to get the word out about the van and that he wants Scarfe dead.
When bad guys spot and follow them, Luke pulls into an alley, and by the time the bad guys catch up, he has ripped a hole in the side of the van, punched a hole into the adjacent building and escaped with Claire and Scarfe. The bad guys give chase after shooting the van to bits.
Perez and Misty are still on stakeout, and Perez is being a whiner. The radio says there are shots fired near One Police Plaza, and Misty is ready to go, but Perez makes excuses for them not to. She is on to him and pretends to make a phone call so she can record Perez confessing to being in Cottonmouth’s pocket, but not as much as Scarfe. Then she shows him what she did and draws her gun. They scuffle in the car, and she gets away and gets out, throws him her cuffs and orders him to cuff himself.
Meanwhile, Mariah is being interviewed live on TV by reporter Thembi Wallace (Tijuana Ricks). Mariah’s interview is going well, and she’s smug about her grandstanding and the flattering light in which she is being shown until: BAM! Thembi throws her a curve, calling her out for speaking about historic, hardworking and hopeful Harlem while also being tied to Cottonmouth and Mama Mabel and the previously unreported raid on “fort knox” (Crispus Attucks) in her office. Mariah makes a brief defensive statement, ends the interview and kicks the news team out of her home. Uh-oh! PR disaster!
Luke, Claire and Scarfe are making their way to One Police Plaza via a system of tunnels? hallways? when the bad guys catch up. Luke becomes a human shield before beating the bad guys up, and Claire and Scarfe continue to an outside alley, where he is suddenly too weak to continue. A speeding SUV comes towards them, and Luke stops it with his body just as Misty arrives in time to see her partner die and share the screen with Claire for the first time.
Afterwards, Cottonmouth gets arrested and Misty gets to put the cuffs on herself. Thembi hasn’t hasn’t yet left Mariah’s home and tries to get an on-camera comment about Cottonmouth’s arrest and possible link to the murder of Scarfe.
Elsewhere, Luke tells Claire that he is thinking of leaving town now that Cottonmouth is arrested. There’s a flirty energy as they walk down the street together. She offers to help him figure out how to use his powers for good if he stays. He asks if she wants coffee, and she AWESOMELY says, “I’m not sleeping with you.” He’s all like “Did I say anything about that?” And she astutely observes that she noticed him ignoring coffee at the diner and that he doesn’t like coffee. This was the best part of the episode.
We close with Misty and the Captain back at the office, where the Captain reveals that the cowards above her in the chain of command are going to cover up what happened with Scarfe and Cottonmouth somehow.
#BechdelTestPASS
Read the rest of my Luke Cage Season One recaps HERE.
- WANDAVISION Finale Recap: (S01E09) The Series Finale - March 5, 2021
- WANDAVISION Recap: (S01E08) Previously On - February 28, 2021
- WANDAVISION Recap: (S01E07) Breaking the Fourth Wall - February 19, 2021
