After no selling a Judas bullet, Luke decides to test how far his figurative zenkai boost has gone. I was expecting a montage of Luke getting hit by friends and fans with various objects to see what would faze him, but instead, all we see is him performing various physical feats. It does show us that Luke is a powerhouse in and of himself, and it is a fun sequence, but I'm not sure it really accomplished the goal that the characters wanted. It does allow us to see a glimpse of that "friendly neighborhood Luke Cage" persona.
In an interesting twist, Claire becomes concerned that Luke's power boost could become a detriment later. His abilities made it hard to treat him when he did get injured, and this development could just make that worse.
She's also concerned about Luke's estranged relationship with his father. You can kind of see where she's coming from. She does relate her own past to Luke's situation and her intentions are good, but at the same time, some of her ideas don't hold water. I mean, the distance eating Luke from the inside could be true for some, but it hasn't really come up until now, so I don't really see it.
As if that weren't enough, she's also concerned that Luke is going too far and following too closely in Matt's footsteps. She's just very concerned this episode and it's enough to drive a wedge between the two, which I have to imagine is very concerning.
Luke does seem to prove Claire right in the final fight against Cockroach. It was partially satisfying, given that it's established that Cockroach is a domestic abuser, but the more the fight goes on, the more you can see that Luke is slipping to the dark side and it starts to become a tad unsettling. Even he's appalled by what he did by the episode's end.
Even though this season's story line is standing on its own, I did enjoy the nods to the other heroes. There was even a mention of the Incident. You'd think that they could throw some allusions to more current events in, but still continuity references are continuity references. I'll take them where I can get them.
Bushmaster gets some more screen time and some more development. He doesn't quite have Stokes' charm and personability, but he has a fair share of it. He gets on well with neighborhood kids and leaves a generous tip for a shopkeep who provides him with some medicinal supplies. Speaking of the Stokes', Moriah seems to be the object of his ire. He is made aware of Luke Cage, but doesn't really seem to have any serious beef with him. He scoffs at Luke's reputation, but that's about it. I got Clubber Lang vibes from the way his grudge is being developed. Whether it goes deeper than that as the season unfolds remains to be seen.
Moriah herself is still intent on going legit by selling off her cache of guns. Her club is pretty packed, so I don't know why it would be that hard for her. The musical act seen here was quite good. Just keep doing that, but apparently, that's not an option.
Instead, she reaches out to her estranged daughter...for PR reasons? You'd think that they would make some parallel with Luke and his estranged parent, but the script mostly dodged that. It might come up later, but so far, no real connection has been made between the two character plots.. Said daughter does eventually come around to the idea, so we'll see how that plays out. Maybe the reconnection will prove to make things worse, proving Luke's point, or go the opposite way and show how Claire's analysis was astute. It's too soon to say.
All in all, this episode was solid. It wasn't quite as good as the one that came before it, but there's still quite a bit to enjoy.
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