By Monique
I’ve thought about Luke Cage a lot since viewing the first season on Netflix. Part of the reason is because I’m knee-deep in #ShadyMariah stuff, which includes Theo Rossi himself signal-boosting my ShadyMariah post.
The Unexpected Joy of #LukeCage Power Couple #ShadyMariah https://t.co/e8vPkRVRxy
— JUST ADD COLOR (@COLORwebmag) October 11, 2016
Can’t believe Shades himself @Theorossi liked/RT’d this! Thanks so much, sir! ? https://t.co/cGhb53FCov
— JUST ADD COLOR (@COLORwebmag) October 16, 2016
So Shades knows I exist. That’s cool.
The other reason I’ve thought a lot about Luke Cage is because there were tons of parallels and foreshadowing moments that I didn’t realize until weeks after viewing. Ill run through a couple that have come to mind.
1. Cottonmouth throwing Tone off the roof.
When Tone gets thrown off the roof, Cottonmouth was actually predicting his own death—death by freefall.
2. Mama Mabel’s a direct foil to Mariah, and Cottonmouth is more like Mama Mabel than he realized.
Mariah is shown saying to Mama Mabel’s picture, “I’m not like you.” I dare say she isn’t. I’ve already explained this in my ShadyMariah article, but to go deeper in what I was writing about, Mama Mabel doesn’t kill someone unless they directly betray her and her money or if they insult her. Remember when Mama Mabel cut off that boy’s finger and then had Cornell kill him? The boy insults Mama Mabel, which made Mama Mabel immediately furious. This reaction is the same one Cottonmouth had when he killed his goon for suggesting that he was handling the Luke Cage situation wrong. How dare he suggest the “Benign Neglect.”
Meanwhile, it seems like Mariah’s tenure in politics (and maybe just her own temperament) allows her to see beyond just her own ego, unlike Mama Mabel and Cottonmouth. Mariah seems like she’s someone who creates a collective, but unlike Mama Mabel (who was also a stalwart figure in the community), Mariah wants to take people out that affect her people as well as her status.
3. Both Shades and Mariah tell Cottonmouth to sell the club
Shades’ insistence that he and Mariah think alike has its foundations in moments throughout the series, one of which being that both Shades and Mariah tell Cottonmouth to sell Harlem’s Paradise when it seems like Luke Cage is going to ruin their money laundering. Even more interesting is that they each tell him this without the knowledge that one of them has already said this. Even before they begin vibrating together, they are already on the same wavelength, with Cottonmouth being the concrete wall blocking the signals.
Related: Monique’s Luke Cage reviews | Tor.com
4. Shades and Mariah are both loyal to a fault
Both Shades and Mariah are loyal to their people. Too loyal, probably. They only leave or attack when a core tenet of the relationship has been demolished. Shades stuck with Diamondback even though Diamondback’s mind was gone. Shades only left Diamondback when Diamondback betrayed him.
Mariah’s favorite thing to tell Cornell is “Family first, always.” She lived by that tenet, but Cornell’s own out-of-control ego and resentment of Mama Mabel makes him forget that once he starts feeling stress. First, he nearly his Mariah with a bat until Mariah breaks something herself and yells at him to snap out of it. But even then, she sticks by him. It’s only when Cornell blames Mariah for her own sexual assault that Mariah breaks and pushes him out of the window.
Shades and Mariah’s loyalty further show why they’re tailor-made for each other. Each one will go HAM for the other if threatened once we get into the second season, I’m sure. There’s going to be some real Bonnie and Clyde stuff going on.
5. Luke’s a hero, but he’s also kinda a villain through his own inaction.
There’s quite the villains gallery in Luke Cage, but do you know what started everything? Luke—he didn’t tell Pop (or the cops) about Chico and Shameek when he had the chance, which created the series of events that led to Chico and Pop’s deaths. He saw Chico’s gun, and he knew they were up to no good. Yet he didn’t care enough about them or anyone else to stop them. All he cared about was himself and how he was going to stay low. Sure, he hasn’t killed anyone, but, since Luke respects his black heritage, he should know what Martin Luther King said about those who see but don’t act being just as culpable as those who do commit acts of violence.
What parallels and foreshadowing moments did you see in Luke Cage? Give your opinions below!
Julian 