Luke Cage: Manifest

 "Sometimes, if you want justice, you have to get it yourself."

Wow. The middle episode, just after all seemed so neatly wrapped up last episode, and we have such a reversal of fortune here. Without Scarfe to testify, the evidence won't stick against Cottonmouth, so he's released. Misty's captain is replaced by a hardarse who suspects Misty, but especially Luke. Cottonmouth uses his knowledge of Luke's past to blackmail him. Suddenly, he has things to fear.

Yet he has two women with conflicting advice. Misty, despite her soft spot for him, wants him to top meddling and leave policing to the professionals. But then there's Claire, positively evangelical in urging him to use his power for good, and not to run from his demons. It's moving how he trusts Claire enough to tell her everything.

Mariah's political career is falling apart after last episode. Yet Shades, displeased with Cottonmouth on behalf of his boss, has plans for her. The flashbacks of the two of them are fascinating; we learn of Mariah's studying, the sexual abuse she suffered, and of the young Cottonmouth's piano playing proclivities, neglected in favour of the family business of crime... and we see his first murder, at his matriarch aunt's bidding, of his traitor uncle who was also sexually abusing Mariah.

And then the episode finishes with real force as Mariah, goaded by Cottonmouth about the sexual abuse, throws him through a window to his death... and there is Shades, to suggest blaming Luke, about whom the police are now suspicious. Ouch. And, if that isn't bad enough, we end up with someone (Diamondback?) shooting him with bullets that can actually hurt him.

Wow. It's an interesting structure to the season to seemingly end things and then do this. And it seems Cottonmouth is not the big bad after all. Who is Diamondback...?

This is compelling telly.