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Edited by Mrph1 on Jul 29th 2024 at 3:09:00 PM
I wanna point out that saying Luke's skin is unbreakable doesn't make it an indisputable fact. There's no such thing as bulletproof glass, after all.
My various fanfics.Even with Superman there are several ways around his seeming invincibility that don't involve hurling Kyrptonite at him.
Intellectual foes he can't outpunch (e.g Lex), alien warlords (e.g Mongul), psychic foes who target his mind (e.g Manchester Black), foes who drain his power (e.g Parasite), magic foes (e.g Mxy).
"All you Fascists bound to lose."Mxy isn't magic. In fact, he's probably more powerful than magic.
Though then again, I think the 52 might have re-established him as a a magician to his own people (provided that wasn't quickly retconned away like so many other Nu 52 ideas), so that would make him the magic equivalent to a plane of existence that's already ludicrously powerful in comparison to Superman's universe.
edited 3rd Sep '17 10:02:41 AM by KnownUnknown
I have no problem with Luke's skin being proven breakable eventually. I don't even have a problem with the Judas bullets themselves. But I take issue with the timing. If the hero has unbreakable skin, then the villains need to get creative to challenge him. We've already established that a shotgun blast to the head will work, and then there's poison or drowning as Mariah suggests, or disabling pressure point strikes like The Defenders introduces in the form of Sowande, but then barely uses. The problem with introducing Luke's kryptonite bullet this early on is that it takes much of the superpowered action out of the scene and makes it just another guy dodging bullets, and we've seen that.
Luke Cage, Episode Nine!
I'm sure we're supposed to be on Misty's side during her "voluntary" interrogation but she physically assaulted a witness last episode. She should be off the streets. There is no place for renegade cop bullshit like that in our justice system, especially not in a series that seemed to care as much about black culture as the first couple episodes did. Violent cops brutalizing suspects should not be our heroes in Luke F*cking Cage.
"Things got rough with a hostile witness. You think this is the first time that’s happened?" It's not? This is not the first time Misty Knight has flipped out and chokeslammed a witness into a wall? Jesus, her character is getting shittier by the minute. People are dead because of cops behaving like that.
"You think you are gonna break me? Bring it." Seriously, if that's her response to being questioned about brutalizing a witness, I say f*ck it. Take her badge and gun. If you're beating up witnesses and when asked why you think that's okay, you decide to treat the question like a fight's being picked, you don't deserve to wear the blue. I do not for the life of me understand why anyone thought "Misty Knight: Champion of Police Brutality" was a good direction to take her character in.
"So we've checked every truck, every landfill, and every borough." Because Diamondback suffered another spontaneous bout of laziness and f*cked off without so much as getting a license plate number for the truck? I mean, it's a garbage truck. Those things aren't hard to keep up with.
"Follow the smoke! Or the damb garbage truck!" You're the dumbass that let it drive off with him and then didn't bother pursuing it. Don't put this on them.
I love the tension in the scene between Diamondback and Shades. Diamondback successfully manages to give off an air of menace here, and the reveal that Shades may not have been entirely forthcoming with what Diamondback wanted from Cornell is legitimately interesting. This is an effective use of Diamondback's character. If he can be less of the shouting idiot we saw last episode and more of the imposing crimelord we're seeing here, we might be able to recapture some of the momentum that was lost.
"Give me one reason why I shouldn't splatter this pristine desk with your brain matter." "Because it won't help you find Luke Cage any faster?" That's not a reason. "Find Luke Cage faster" is a reason to do something. That doesn't mean things that don't contribute to that aren't worth doing. Having a shit doesn't help you find Luke Cage any faster but I'd still recommend doing it regularly.
"Luke Cage ain't dead until you find his goddamned body." I also want to give props to Diamondback for this as well. He's doing his due diligence as a crimelord. While it's still his dumb ass that lost Luke, I appreciate that he's not willing to just cry No One Could Survive That! and call it a day. Again: this is a vast improvement over his performance last episode.
Luke Cage: Dryer Thief!
"You did what you had to do." In his fancy suit with his indoor sunglasses, Shades looks like Mariah's chauffeur here to ask if she'd like him to pull the car around. I'm terribly amused by this.
And then racial profiling worked and was awesome? What the f*ck, show? Two cops decide to go hassle a guy for being a black man in a hoodie and it turns out to actually be their suspect. They were able to find Luke with minimal fuss through the magic of racism.
That said, Luke having to turn his body to shield the one officer from the other dumbass officer who emptied his clip into Luke while his partner was in the line of fire and could have easily been killed rings absolutely true.
"Or were you blinded by your emotions?" "Pfft, you wouldn't say that if I was a man." She's right. He totally wouldn't. As much as I think she absolutely deserves to be sitting here having this conversation, it is a fair criticism to point out that this is happening in part because she's black and a woman, which are two strikes against her in the system. It's not without reason that the writers chose to have the Strawman played by a pudgy white guy.
White men can murder black kids and get a slap on the wrist that they only obtained because of the media frenzy that surrounded it. Misty chokeslammed a witness in a sealed interrogation room. A white guy in her place would have gotten a finger wag and a stern, "Not cool, bro," for the same offense.
That's not to say that what she did isn't bad. Just that, as is often the case for black men and women, the rules only seem to apply to her particular demographic.
"And you never screwed anyone that you shouldn't have while you were on the job." I love that this is Strawpudge's retort to being accused of discrimination; he goes right back to the questions he wouldn't even be asking if Misty wasn't a woman.
"And when Claire was talking sideways at me, all I wanted to do was take my control back." You know what, I take it back. Misty Knight: Champion of Police Brutality was actually a pretty cool direction to go in, because it's being used to explore the motivates and traumas that push people to behave like that. Point goes to the show.
Seagate Doc needs a blood sample? Well, Luke just coughed one up. Can we use that?
"This could work. If you go down his throat—" "We can puncture his mucus membrane!" …that sounds horrible and I am so glad I'm not Luke right now.
Jesus Christ, it's as horrible as I thought it'd be. This is the first bit of Netflix gore that I legitimately could not bear to watch. Had to look away. F*ck needles, man.
And there's Priscilla bringing up Misty sleeping with Luke. Seriously, why does everyone in the precinct know about that? How does everyone know about that?
"You invited me by not inviting me." This could be either a really good scene or a really bad one. It's all going to depend on Diamondback. This is a Joker scene. Shit, this is specifically a Heath Ledger Joker scene, straight out of The Dark Knight. But as long as he refrains from going Full Joker, this could be a fantastic moment for his character. Shit, even Ledger knew better than to go Full Joker in a live-action production, and he was actually playing the Joker.
"Your men outside are dead. Your greed superceded your common sense so now I have the paupit." He's doing it. Those two executions were perfect. No cackling. No stupid More Psycho Than Thou lines. Just two straight-up murders of major crimelords. Diamondback is successfully exuding power and menace in a way that really sells him as the next step on the Sorting Algorithm of Evil past Cornell.
"What are you doing, man?! You're gonna start a war!" "And then many will fall away, and they will betray each other and hate one another. And many false prophets will arise and leave many astray, but the one who endures to the end, he will be saved." This feels more like a Rise of the Kingpin than anything Fisk ever did in DareDevil. This is a power play against every crime family at once, and it feels effective in large part because the people he's screwing aren't supposed to be his own allies.
"Rest assured, I will kill him when the time is right." Still ever action movie cliché, but like many things about this episode, Diamondback sells it better than last. Because he's full of shit. Usually, when a villain says that, he's just being a stupid asshole giving a dumb excuse for why he's letting the hero get the drop on him. But this use of the trope actually works well, because he's clearly just trying to save face and sound tough. Luke's not dead, but not for lack of trying. His continued existence isn't Diamondback stupidly biding his time; he's putting in his best effort. He just hasn't succeeded, which isn't something he can cop to while trying to look tough.
"You can't bargain with me. You buy or you die." This is the kind of line that would have sounded toothless coming out of Fisk's mouth, but after Diamondback just straight up murdered the heads of four crime families, it actually resonates. Diamondback doesn't need a Wesley. He can sell himself as threatening well enough.
"Shhh. I like this song." I love Diamondback standing in Cornell's spot, soaking up the music. Really makes me wish he'd been more involved in Cornell's demise. This is a great hostile takeover moment; after all the threats about Diamondback taking Cornell's business from him, now he's here and Cornell's in the grave. It'd be such a powerful moment that once again reinforces Diamondback's Kingpin-esque image if it had actually happened on purpose.
"I think he wants to deep-fry you. Like a turkey." You know, I still think the Judas Bullets are dumb, but I do like how the show is making use of them. Not only do they lend a legitimate ability to hurt Luke to Diamondback which helps sell him as a dangerous adversary, but they're also prompting a lot of exploration of exactly what Luke's power is and how it functions that wouldn't otherwise exist if the show had gone with other methods of threatening him.
That seems to be an overarching trend with this show. Dumb ideas pretty well executed.
"We're losing him! What do we do?!" Pull him back up again before his vitals go critical. Doc didn't put a spike strip around the pulley controls. They're right there. Use them.
And there he goes critical.
This was a really good episode. It brought a level of legitimacy and menace to Diamondback that he sorely needed and really sold him as the new antagonist. Meanwhile, Mariah was nearby. Taking Luke to Seagate Doc was a clever idea I hadn't considered, and we're already getting some interesting new information out of it. Meanwhile, Misty's arc took a surprising turn for the better after the brutal derailment of last episode, so all in all, I was very satisfied.
edited 3rd Sep '17 5:06:43 PM by TobiasDrake
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.The big thing with Misty is that the writers were very deliberate in making her a very flawed character. It's something that shows up in multiple ways, and I think starts to become fairly obvious by the "interrogation" scene if it wasn't before then.
I don't think it was a misstep or anything because it was very deliberate and done with the understanding that, well, flawed characters, especially heavily flawed characters, who make bad decisions as a result of their character flaws and have to suffer the consequences, just makes for better drama and conflict. You can't just reduce yourself to straightforwardly likable characters like Claire (who I like a lot, just for the record) because that ultimately is quite limiting.
A lot of black women whose opinions I've seen on the show have praised the handling of Misty's character for that very reason.
edited 3rd Sep '17 6:07:25 PM by Draghinazzo
This was a good episode for him. If they'd kept it up, Diamondback could've been salvaged. It's what came next that really soured me on the character. Like Tobias has been saying, every cliche in the book. ![]()
I don't actually think the eyewitnesses believe it's Luke Cage, but sort of like the Trish Talk interlude in episode 5, not everyone's actually met Luke Cage. It's the people who haven't met him who are most prone to distrust him, tying back into the idea of a hero of the people, someone who they can see, talk to, and trust.
Yeah, that's fair. Pretty much the opposite over here. I think he's fairly well-played, but it's the way he never quite grounds himself in the rest of the show that sunk him. I think there's a way that could've worked as written, but the execution didn't do it for me.
edited 4th Sep '17 7:19:38 AM by Unsung

Yup, the second half of Luke Cage sucks dick.