Luke Cage: Code of the Streets

 "Jesus saves." I don't."

Wow. That was an unexpectedly eventful and deeply layered second episode with a lot going on. This is classy, richly textured television.

There's a lot of development here. We get the backstory of Pop, Chico's dad and Cottonmouth all being young thugs together, until Pop turned himself around after serving a ten stretch in prison as his lady was pregnant. Ouch. That goes to show how the concept of prison is so problematic- it punishes not only the guilty, but their innocent family and children too. We get more of Pop encouraging "Power Man" to be a hero. We get the We get emphasis that the barber shop is "Switzerland", so it's a betrayal, and shocking, when Pop dies the way he does.

We get some fascinating philsophical debate between Cottonmouth and Mariah, much of it framed by black history. We get an eventful appearance by Turk. We get Luke learning who Misty really is. And we get a superb shot, by the same Paul McGuigan who directed similar scenes in Sherlock, of Misty standing at a scene of a crime and literally seeing what happened. She's pretty good at basketball too.

This is extraordinary, easily as good as Daredevil and Jessica Jones so far, in a similar style but definitely its own thing. I'm loving it.