The stakes are higher than ever as New Orleans descends into madness. Find out what happens in the explosive Cloak & Dagger season finale.
Fear Bubbling Under the Skin
If you wanted to see what happened after the cliffhanger of episode nine, prepare to take a step back. Because this finale starts with a history lesson about, you guessed it, the divine pairing. The first pair, Native American siblings, ended a great famine. But there was a cost. One must always sacrifice their life and the question remains will it be Ty or Tandy?
Back at the Bowen household, Tandy gets the upper hand on the assassin sent to kill her and her mother. But rather than hide, Tandy knows she must save the city. Even her mother is stunned, asking, “Why you?”
Ty transports to the Redhawks headquarters after escaping the police and immediately looks for Billy’s cloak. He finds it as Otis shows up, warning him to run away and never look back. Otis admits he doesn’t know if he was a good father, but the emotional moment is cut short by the police arriving. By the time Otis turns back to his son, he’s gone. It could be the last time he ever sees him.
The source material always meant Ty and Tandy would have to run, but it’s heartbreaking none the less to see them give up the family they have left.
After her change of heart, Tandy goes to look for Mina and is attacked by one of the infected workers, the “terrors” from Ivan’s memories. She realizes it’s happening all over again. All of Chantelle’s doomsday prophecies came true, even if there was a shred of us hoping they wouldn’t.
She’s able to save Mina and tell her the truth, but things take a horrifying turn when Mina reveals there are nine valves around the city ready to blow. The only way to save the city is to go straight to Roxxon.
Ty isn’t so lucky and ends up captured by the police with O’Reilly after being unable to use his powers.
Auntie Chantelle tells the story of the second divine pairing, two brothers, one of which had to sacrifice himself to end the natural disaster. So far we’re two for two with the necessary sacrifice.
While the interludes distract a little from the pacing of the episode, it’s truly incredible to watch it all come together. What was once a strange little collection of dolls comes to life on the screen, stories within a story. Actress Angela M. Davis has brought so much power to all of her scenes as Chantelle, giving one of the best performances of all the adult characters. Her delivery of lines like, “There is a danger coming right at us, fear bubbling just beneath the skin of this city” send chills down your spine.
With less gifted actors the Voodoo might seem hokey, but she and Noëlle Renée Bercy (Evita) share a brilliant chemistry that really sells their characters’ role in all of this. (I also laughed out loud when Evita shaded Tandy, saying, “She ain’t particularly divine”).
At the police station, Ty and O’Reilly fight a much less supernatural battle. They are close to becoming victims of Connors’ corruption. Ty tries to level with an officer on duty and appeal to the sense of justice that drove him to be a cop, begging him to find a reason to be just.
Aubrey Joseph continues to impress with his grounded performances, balancing Ty’s bravery and vulnerability.
And it almost works until another cop comes in.
Back at Roxxon, Scarborough is destroying any and all evidence, proving himself to be the most marvelous villain (“And with great power comes…even more power.”) In a nice nod to the wider MCU universe he name drops the Starks and the Rands as people Roxxon are competing with and why they’re trying to harness the energy source despite the risks.
But even if he wanted to he couldn’t stop the disaster because the remote switch isn’t working. Which means Mina and Tandy must shut it off manually. It’s seeming more and more like Tandy will be the one to make the ultimate sacrifice of the pair.
While I would have liked to see more of Ally Maki this season, it’s nice to see how well the actresses play off of each other in the scenes they do have.
Connors plans to set Ty up again, this time for O’Reilly’s murder. The good/ bad news though is the infected have reached the precinct, giving Ty a chance to escape.
With another flashback to a divine pairing, Chantelle reiterates to Evita, “One must live, one must die. That is the way.”
OK, yeesh, we get it!
Tandy loses Mina to the infected but Ty shows up just in time. Tandy and Ty make it to the church, but with Mina and Ty’s cloak gone, they feel hopeless.
They don’t have time to pity themselves for too long because Evita shows up to reveal the truth. They have the power to fix it but one must die. Tandy is skeptical, but Evita insists.
Tandy later jokes she would approve of Evita as Ty’s girlfriend, but it’s strongly suggested this will be the last we see of Evita. There is no turning back now.
Ty still doesn’t believe in himself, but Tandy gives him a pep talk…and a new cloak in the form of the hoodie she kept all those years from Billy. It turns out that was the first thing she ever stole.
She tells him he doesn’t need the cloak to be powerful, but she does need him to save the city.
Tandy and Ty spring into action and have to fight off the infected and make it to the kill switch. There’s no better way of putting it: seeing them team up is BADASS. Cloak AND Dagger in action, y’all!
O’Reilly gives them back up but is attacked by Connors. He thinks he’s murdered her, but viewers will notice she was hit with a blast of the Roxxon energy…just like Tandy and Ty back on that fateful day.
Connors then corners them but he’s no match for the duo. Something goes wrong though with Ty’s powers, instead of just frightening Connors he somehow absorbs him entirely. This is something new for Ty’s powers and possible foreshadowing that there is more we haven’t seen from what they both can do.
Ty realizes that his power allows him to be where he wants to be…and where he needs to be. He decides he must be the one to sacrifice himself.
He tries to leave Tandy behind, but she follows him anyway. It has to be both of them (“For some reason, life tossed us together.”)
Tandy’s meltdown also makes them realize that to unlock their full power they have to touch again.
“We’ll show these assholes a divine pairing”- Tandy, who is pretty much an icon.
Also fun fact, Olivia Holt’s cover of “Come Sail Away” plays in the background of these scenes. What a bizarre musical choice that I love all the more.
Uniting their powers as one, Cloak and Dagger force the energy out of the city. The divine pairing has done it once again, keeping their perfect record. And this time without either one dying.
And just like that, it’s over. Or is it?
Evita packs away all the divine pairing dolls insinuating perhaps the curse has been broken.
Tandy goes home to her mother, with Roxxon finally implicated for their crimes. But Ty is on the run, trading places with Tandy at the church. At the very least he still has Tandy, but the road ahead won’t be easy.
A lot of questions go unanswered in the finale, but In the final moments, we see O’Reilly rise from the water, clearly changed. It’s not over, just the beginning.
Additional Thoughts:
- Showrunner Joe Pokaski already confirmed Emma Lahana will return as villain “Mayhem,” next season, but I’m interested to see how/if Father Delgado’s role expands to match his comic counterpart.
- Seeing Ty and Tandy’s fortunes reversed from the start of the season is especially compelling. How will Ty hold up under his new circumstances?
- Two words: Runaways crossover. It can’t be a coincidence Freeform is airing the second run of Runaway’s first season following the Cloak & Dagger finale. Can you imagine Tandy meeting Gert? Or Old Lace?!
- There were so many great Easter Eggs this episode but my personal favorite was the address being 616, a nod to Earth-616, Marvel’s primary continuity.
Cloak & Dagger will return for Season 2 in 2019.