In the aftermath of Mariah's retaliatory strike against Bushmaster's family, it is discovered that there was a survivor.
While there is a window of time where Mariah is unaware, it is short lived as Karen Page gets wind of it and makes it public knowledge. What's funny is she doesn't even appear in the episode. On the one hand, the continuity nod is nice, but you really have to wonder what she was thinking.
Sure enough, Shades is dispatched to tie up that loose end. While the last episode strongly implied Shades being shaken by the attack, this episode makes it quite clear that he was not OK with what happened there. It's to the point where he can't even bring himself to pull the trigger when he does finally find her and have her dead to rights.
He's one of several characters who point out to Mariah that she is breaking the "rules" of street crime. In addition to the ruthless attack, her newfound desire to start trafficking heroin into Harlem is called out both by another drug dealer and by hallucinations of Mariah's grandmother and granduncle, who like Don Corleone, vehemently opposed drug dealing being a part of their operation. It's a little jarring, as a couple of episodes ago, she was building a free clinic; now she wants to bring in heroin.
It's a pretty drastic turnaround, but it does seem like Mariah is losing her marbles. Even the aforementioned hallucinations make a point to say that she's working through some issues.
Alfre Woodard continues her performance streak here. Her scenes make for some of the episode's standout moments. Her final confrontation with Shades is especially memorable. Not only is that scene a highlight in and of itself, but it leads to another shocking bit where he willingly turns himself in to police custody if it means helping take Mariah down. The other underling who walked also goes to Luke with a similar pitch. It seems like everybody has Mariah in their sights now.
Ironically enough, Bushmaster doesn't. He is still recovering and when you see him, you can tell that he was in no shape to take on the Heroes for Hire. It's a close call, but more Nightshade manages to do the trick, though Tilda does tell him that the process damaged his organs and he's living on borrowed time.
This, coupled with seeing the wreckage at the restaurant is enough to convince him to just walk away. He does have a solid scene with Luke, where he genuinely thanks Harlem's hero for keeping his aunt safe and the two discuss ideologies. The repeated comparisons between the two were a little on the nose, but Bushmaster does once again state that the two could have been close under different circumstances. After Jessica Jones and Punisher did the whole hero-villain similarity thing back-to-back, I guess doing it a third time in a row was a bit of a stretch.
The episode also features some flashbacks that detail Bushmaster's origins. A lot of it is just showing us things we were told, but it flowed well. It was interesting seeing the previous Stokes family in action and we do get a brief cameo from Cornell. It didn't take up the whole episode, but it added a little bit of extra flavor to the proceedings.
This was a very solid episode. There were plenty of great character moments and instances of progression. The status quo was shaken up on several fronts and it does seem like things are reaching the endgame. I'm guessing the next episode will be the final confrontation with the finale acting as a denouement, but I'll just have to watch and find out.
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