Marvel Netflix: Ranking all seasons of Marvel’s Netflix dramas

Photo Credit: Marvel’s Luke Cage/Netflix Image Acquired from Netflix Media Center

7. Luke Cage Season 2

With Luke Cage, we are getting away from the disappointing series and into the dependable Marvel Netflix properties. Even though The Defenders encompassed several heroes in one show, the standalone series have their own distinct flair and flavor.

Out of the three shows that already aired its sophomore seasons, Luke Cage is the most difficult to determine which season is better – Season 1 was actually more unevenly split between its first and second halves where this current run experiences slighter splotches of inconsistencies between pacing and character arrivals/departures.

While Foggy and Turk are appropriately inserted into the narrative, the most high profile guest star is Finn Jones as Iron Fist, who steps in to help Luke out, and after the tag team blows up a nightshade lab, Danny is done.

His absence in subsequent episodes is particularly noticeable because a few chapters later, Luke works with Bushmaster to similarly take down a drug operation and doesn’t call on his teammate. It is almost as if showrunner, Cheo Hodari Coker, called a meeting and decided episode 10 will be the Power Man & Iron Fist episode, disregarding how it fit in with the rest of the season.

Luckily it was great fun to watch the “Heroes for Hire” collaborate – their action sequence is one of the best in Luke Cage’s two seasons. The same goes for “Daughters of the Dragon,” Misty and Colleen, taking out the trash at a local bar (also a one and done deal).

They stepped up the fight scenes this year in general, with the ferocious Bushmaster running circles around Luke. Bushmaster is a brutal villain who has a deep rooted family feud with the Stokes. And the family dynamic is doubled down on this time round by including Mariah’s daughter and Luke’s father as supporting players.

Despite the family squabbles and Luke and Claire’s lovers quarrel, the most compelling relationship is between Shades and Comanche. Theirs is a tale of childhood friendship, brothers in arms, with a history of a closeted affair that ends tragically.

So how does the main man stand out in Season 2? Luke always has plenty to do, but sometimes is not the most remarkable character in his own story. When Misty jokes that Luke could be her sidekick, he rebuts by stating “this is my show,” playfully on the verge of breaking the fourth wall, yet he could actually be reminding some viewers who is the star in this show.

Matt Murdock, Jessica Jones, and Frank Castle are inherently more intricate than Luke Cage and it seems like Coker, being aware of this, tries to rock the boat toward the end of the season when we see a different side of the Harlem hero.

After Mariah leaves Luke Harlem’s Paradise, he is up in the executive suite whispering to Sugar with Misty looking in from just outside the room and the door slowly closes, shutting out her view, symbolically cutting her off from Cage. This Godfather reference is somewhat problematic in that Luke doesn’t truly earn this persona the way Michael Corleone does.

There is no steady path that takes him from boy scout peacekeeper to king of the club. There are a few mentions that he may have to do something drastic just to put an end to the bloodshed, but he never crosses that line. Having Luke overseeing his people from a place of power serves as an intriguing position going forward, yet his modified demeanor that accompanies it comes out of left field.

We’ll have to see where these sudden changes take Power Man in Season 3 to fully analyze this new direction, so we shouldn’t let it take too much away from an overall solid season.