History NightmareFuel / LukeCage2016

* Misty breaks into Cockroach's apartment, intending to plant a Judas bullet in one of his drawers. Just as recalling how she consoled Scarfe after his son's death leads her to reconsider, she accidentally steps on something. She grimaces when she sees that it's the end of a blood trail, and follows the trail with her flashlight. She finds Cockroach on the couch, '''[[OffWithHisHead missing his entire head]]''', explaining the large amount of blood spilled.
* As for what happened to Cockroach's head, we then immediately cut to Mariah's ribbon cutting ceremony at the Shirley Chisholm complex. Just as she cuts the ceremonial ribbon, she opens the doors to the complex...revealing [[DecapitationPresentation the severed heads of Cockroach, Mark Higgins, and Ray-Ray all mounted on spikes]] right inside the doors. It's a gruesome tableau that seems more suited to ''Game of Thrones'' than to something like ''Luke Cage''.

* Remember what Tomas Ciancio said in episode 4 about the Stylers being ISIS? Well, that shows in their willingness to try and stage a drive-by on Mariah ''right outside the police station''.

* Thankfully, we are spared the gory images when Bushmaster lets off a small grenade to bust himself out of the police van, only cutting to an exterior shot of the van interior blowing out and then the van coasting forward, driverless. Luckily the two ESU officers riding in back with him ''survived'' (probably because of their Kevlar vests absorbing shrapnel), but still.

** It's no wonder that, in the next episode, Shades decides Mariah is done. She could have just shot Stephanie and it would been enough to smoke out Bushmaster. She could have shot up the Stylers in one of their lairs instead of a restaurant full of innocent people, but instead, she pulls this. Then top that by calling all those innocent people "peasants" by proxy. It actually serves as an in universe NightmareFuel for him. As he himself notes two episodes later during his plea negotiation with the cops and US Attorney's office, in his criminal career, he has witnessed, participated and committed even similar horrific acts, even enjoying them, but towards other criminals. The fact that not one, but several completely innocent people were victim to such horrific deaths completely shakes him (while Candace was relatively innocent compared to others, Shades has argued that she was fair game after she took their bribe to lie to the cops about Cottonmouth's death). Which resonates even worse is that innocent people in real life do suffer such things at the hands of evil people.

* Shades is having a gradual breakdown, between his guilt over killing Comanche and being shell-shocked by what Mariah did at the Rum Punch Massacre. He's trying to wash imaginary blood off his hands early in the episode, he comes very close to shooting Ingrid when he catches up to her, only deciding against doing so at the last second. And when Mariah taunts him over Comanche's death, [[BerserkButton he snaps, throws her on the office desk and tries to strangle her]]. It's only his belief that she's not worth the effort to finish off that keeps him from completing the deed.

* Shades is having a gradual breakdown, between his guilt over killing Comanche and being shell-shocked by what Mariah did at the Rum Punch Massacre. [[OutDamnedSpot He's trying to wash imaginary blood off his hands]] early in the episode, he comes very close to shooting Ingrid when he catches up to her, only deciding against doing so at the last second. And when Mariah taunts him over Comanche's death, [[BerserkButton he snaps, throws her on the office desk and tries to strangle her]]. It's only his belief that she's not worth the effort to finish off that keeps him from completing the deed.

* Cottonmouth interrogates Shameek, who's already been beaten half to death. He first slaps him a few times "like a bitch" to find out where the money he stole his, but when Shameek gave a SpitefulSpit, he simply laughs, and [[NoHoldsBarredBeatdown finishes beating the remaining half of life out of him]]. [[GoryDiscretionShot You can audibly hear the crunching the bones of Shameek's face, and blood-splatter on his shirt, as Cottonmouth caves his face in.]]

* Luke Cage protects Connie while some of Cottonmouth's thugs are shaking the owners down for money. One guy makes the unfortunate mistake of trying to throw a punch at his face. Luke just stands still while the cinematography does a slow-motion close up of his arm making contact with a human-shaped brick at full strength, with the impact force instead causing his arm to fracture in three places. He's later shown with his arm wrapped in a cast.

** Tone calling Stokes "Cottonmouth" right in front of him. The guy immediately gets in Tone's face and bellows "MY NAME IS ''NOT'' '''''COTTONMOUTH!'''''" so suddenly that the self-assured Tone is immediately scared shitless.

** Diamondback is able to match Cage blow for blow and more. He actually causes him to suffer internal bleeding. Most likely, he actually broke some of Luke's RIBS. Think about that.

Season 2's level of nightmare fuel is miles worse than season 1, and rivals the gore seen in ''Daredevil'' and ''The Punisher''.

* The first demonstration of John [=McIver=] aka Bushmaster's power, is him ''slicing Nigel Garrison across the face and through both eyes'', in close up with gruesome detail, then soaking bullets as Garrison's men try to shoot him. Then he opens his shirt to show Nigel's men the bullets.

* Luke confronts Cockroach as he's beating up his girlfriend, and goes pretty overboard, unnecessarily wrecking the apartment, and traumatizing the man's son and girlfriend by beating the abuser to within an inch of his life.

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/vlcsnap_2020_07_24_19h24m17s644.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:350:What a way to ruin the mood of the party]]

* Continuing from the end of the previous episode, Luke is still helplessly paralyzed due to the effect of [=McIver=]'s paralysis powder, and unable to swim away, he is drowning. In fact he briefly loses consciousness and his life starts flashing before his eyes before he regains mobility.

* The fight between Luke Cage and Diamondback is awesome as it is tense. For the first time since he appeared on Marvel, Luke Cage shows what happens when he cuts loose and why he doesn't when fighting regular henchmen. His punches shatter steel, concrete and absolutely decimate cars. It probably gave many Harlemites [[Film/TheIncredibleHulk a grim reminder of the last duel that took place here...]]

* What happened to Cockroach's head? Well, we then immediately cut to Mariah's ribbon cutting ceremony at the Shirley Chisholm complex. Just as she cuts the ceremonial ribbon, she opens the doors to the complex...revealing [[DecapitationPresentation the severed heads of Cockroach, Mark Higgins, and Ray-Ray all mounted on spikes]] right inside the doors. It's a gruesome tableau that seems more suited to ''Game of Thrones'' than to something like ''Luke Cage''.

* Bushmaster orders his men to sweep Harlem looking for Piranha and Luke. This is done through multiple cabs slowly cruising through the streets blasting reggae music at full volume, acting as intimidating as possible. When Sheldon stops Lonnie on one street corner to get a tip, Lonnie is visibly unnerved by their questions and calls his mom once they're out of sight.

* After spending a good portion of the season making us wonder what Ridenhour meant when he talked about knowing Tilda's true parentage, we learn the truth: [[ChildByRape she was a product of Mariah constantly being raped at the hands of her uncle Pete]].

** Similarly, Pistol Pete casually gunning down the teenage John.

[[caption-width-right:350:[[DecapitationPresentation It's a Jamaican message.]] [[Film/TheGodfather It means "Piranha Jones sleeps with his bredren".]]]]

[[caption-width-right:350:[[Film/TheGodfather It's a Jamaican message. It means "Piranha Jones sleeps with his bredren".]]]]

* The fact that Scarfe has the exact same cheerfully snarky repartee with Cottonmouth that we've seen him have with Misty for three episodes, talking about getting people killed in the same tone he previously used bantering about basketball. He's one cold, cold man.

* Shades is sent to Brooklyn to collect from Nigel, and instead meets Bushmaster and his men. Bushmaster gives Shades the bags, and in one of them, [[DecapitationPresentation also has placed Nigel's severed head]].

* Continuing from the end of the previous episode, Luke is still helplessly paralysed due to the effect of [=McIver=]'s paralysis powder, and unable to swim away, he is drowning. In fact he briefly loses consciousness and his life starts flashing before his eyes before he regains mobility.

** It's no wonder that, in the next episode, Shades decides Mariah is done. She could have just shot Stephanie and it would been enough to smoke out Bushmaster. She could have shot up the Stylers in one of their lairs instead of a restaurant full of innocent people, but instead, she pulls this. Then top that by calling all those innocent people "peasants" by proxy. It actually serves as an in universe NightmareFuel for him. As he himself notes few episodes later, in his criminal career, he has witnessed, participated and committed even similar horrific acts, even enjoying them, but towards other criminals. The fact that not one, but several completely innocent people were victim to such horrific deaths completely shakes him. Which resonates even worse is that innocent people in real life do suffer such things at the hands of evil people.

* Shades is having a gradual breakdown, shell-shocked by what Mariah did at the Rum Punch Massacre. [[OutDamnedSpot He's trying to wash imaginary blood off his hands]] early in the episode. And when Mariah taunts him over Comanche's death, [[BerserkButton he snaps, throws her on the office desk and tries to strangle her]]. It's only his belief that she's not worth the effort to finish off that keeps him from completing the deed.
* Mama Mabel burning Bushmaster's home with his mom and sister inside, casually ignoring the grieving kid as she throws the contract about Harlem's paradise co-ownership. Makes the Rum-Punch massacre a case of InTheBlood.

* The scene where Bushmaster's Nightshade induced HealingFactor jicks in to push out the shrapnel in his body is nauseating.

-->'''Bobby Fish:''' Anyone who can take you on barehanded can't be good for Harlem.

[[/folder]]

* Continuing from the end of the previous episode, Luke is still helplessly paralysed due to the effect of McIver's paralysis powder, and unable to swim away, he us drowning. In fact he briefly loses consciousness and his life starts flashing before his eyes before he regains mobility.

-->(''Shameek spits on Stokes'')
-->'''Cornell "Cottonmouth" Stokes:''' (''laughs'') Yeah. Thank you. ''[[PreMortemOneLiner Now I can hit you like a man]]''.

* The first demonstration of John McIver aka Bushmaster's power, is him ''slicing Nigel Garrison across the face and through both eyes'', in close up with gruesome detail, then soaking bullets as Garrison's men try to shoot him. Then he opens his shirt to show Nigel's men the bullets.

* The first demonstration of Bushmaster's power, is him ''slicing Nigel Garrison across the face and through both eyes'', in close up with gruesome detail, then soaking bullets as Garrison's men try to shoot him. Then he opens his shirt to show Nigel's men the bullets.

* The first demonstration of Bushmaster's power, is him ''slicing Nigel Garrison across the face and through both eyes'', then soaking bullets as Garrison's men try to shoot him. Then he opens his shirt to show Nigel's men the bullets.

* Continuing from the end of the previous episode, Luke is still helplessly paralysed

** It's no wonder that, in the next episode, Shades decides Mariah is done. She could have just shot Stephanie and it would been enough to smoke out Bushmaster. She could have shot up the Stylers in one of their lairs instead of a restaurant full of innocent people, but instead, she pulls this. Then top that by calling all those innocent people "peasants" by proxy.

* Mama Mabel burning Bushmaster's home with his mom inside, casually ignoring the grieving kid as she throws the contract about Harlem's paradise co-ownership. Makes the Rum-Punch massacre a case of InTheBlood.

** The way Bushmaster merely ''walks'' up to Luke before decking him. Luke's invulnerability makes him comfortable enough to walk around in public without worry. Then a [[TheyLookJustLikeEveryoneElse random pedestrian]] walks up to Luke and immediately lays him flat in two hits. Just to let him know that he can whenever he wants.

* As Tomas puts it, if the Yardies are Al-Qaeda, then the Stylers are ISIS, as far as their ruthlessness is concerned.

* What happened to the head? Well, we then immediately cut to Mariah's ribbon cutting ceremony at the Shirley Chisholm complex. Just as she cuts the ceremonial ribbon, she opens the doors to the complex...revealing [[DecapitationPresentation the severed heads of Cockroach, Mark Higgins, and Ray-Ray all mounted on spikes]] right inside the doors. It's a gruesome tableau that seems more suited to ''Game of Thrones'' than to something like ''Luke Cage''.

* While Luke is able to anticipate Bushmaster's moves this time around, Bushmaster surprises him by throwing a powder in his face that paralyzes his muscles, and allows Bushmaster to push him off the bridge to take a 200+ foot plunge into the Harlem River below.

** Despite knowing that bullets don't work on Bushmaster, Shades tries to do aim for his eye as he busts down the door, [[BulletTime and we see him casually sidestep the bullet]].

** Despite knowing that bullets don't work on Bushmaster, Shades tries to do so as he busts down the door, [[BulletTime and we see him casually sidestep the bullet]].