Luke Cage 1.08 Review: “Blowin’ Up the Spot”
If you’ve spent the first seven episodes asking yourself, “Who is Diamondback?” you finally get your answer in episode 8.
“Just breathe”
After a shocking twist at the end of the last episode, Claire gets Luke to safety in the back of a stolen ambulance driven by her cousin Manny. However, both still can’t believe a bullet was able to penetrate Luke’s skin.
Just when they think they’re in the clear, the ambulance flips over and the shooter from the last episode is revealed to be Willis Stryker, aka Diamondback.
This makes sense given we knew Diamondback had access to the Judas bullet. What doesn’t make sense is that he doesn’t call out for Luke…he calls out for Carl Lucas.
“DNA is our friend, and our enemy”
Back at Harlem’s Paradise, Shades and Mariah are dealing with the aftermath of the murder. While shaken at first, Mariah quickly bounces back telling Shades to quit speaking to her like a child.
Misty, however, doesn’t buy their carefully constructed tale and their fake witness Candace who she remembers was afraid to even approach Cornell at the club during her previous visit.
But the damage is done because the only court that matters is the court of public opinion, and Mariah is quick to prosecute Luke in front of the cameras.
A Twist of Biblical Proportions
The rest of the episode turns into a giant game of cat and mouse: Claire trying to remove the shrapnel, Misty chasing after Luke, Diamondback hunting down Luke.
Luke and Diamondback’s showdown takes a theatrical turn – quite literally – as he finds him in a theater. The location is the perfect setting for Diamondback’s Biblical and dramatic monologues. Despite having been shot once, the fight between the two rages on.
The episode ends in a slightly less glamorous but more dramatic way. Chased into the streets Luke tries to tell Stryker he loved him like a brother.
His reply as he shoots Luke for dead into a garbage truck? “N****, I am your brother.”
After more than half of a season of Cottonmouth, Diamondback feels a little lackluster in his first episode despite the reveal that he is Luke’s biological brother.
However, it is easy to see why Cottonmouth was afraid of him. He seems to have more than just a few screws loose, which is saying a lot given most Marvel villains are a little psychotic or sociopathic.
It will be interesting to see how Diamondback ranks among Netflix Marvel villains by the end of the season, including the ones we’ve already seen in Luke Cage.
Luke Cage is currently available to stream on Netflix.