Episode 6, “B Sides,” answers a few of the big questions Cloak & Dagger has been setting up this season while also raising the stakes. We also get a deeper dive into Tandy’s psyche as she fights a new villain.
The episode starts with a mysterious figure in white gloves sorting through Tandy’s records (first seen in episode 4). He places the record titled “Perfect Family” onto the turntable.
And so begins our journey into a series of alternate futures explored while Tandy is drugged in the back of the ambulance.
In this first future, everything seems to be going great and not only is her dad alive but so is Billy. Is it the drugs interfering with Tandy’s powers causing these hallucinations or something else?
In this version, Ty and Tandy’s friendship blossomed not through pain but through a friendship formed after Ty rescued Tandy from the water which prevented Billy’s murder. Things couldn’t be more worlds apart. Ty just graduated from the police academy and Tandy returned home from her life at the New York City Ballet just to celebrate.
Cloak & Dagger isn’t the first show to explore a “What if” concept, and in fact, Marvel dedicated a whole comic line to the concept, but since we know from the start Tandy’s in danger it’s especially unsettling.
It doesn’t take long for reality to start breaking through for Tandy, and she shouts at her father when he goes to reach for her mother.
It’s interesting that even in this alternate reality Ty and Tandy still saved one another. Ty literally saves her life but also her family is changed for the better after the accident. And Ty says her friendship and support has saved him too.
But the “feel good” moment can only last so long before things take a tragic turn and Ty ends up being verbally attacked by a racist customer and cashier at the convenience store he and Tandy stopped in. Even in this “ideal” version of their lives, the tragedy of the reality they face seeps in.
The confrontation escalates when they see Ty’s gun, and Ty and Tandy’s powers are triggered, propelling Tandy to the next vision.
With the second record “Fractured Family,” and second vision, we can see the track names even more clearly and they outline the events to come.
In this vision, she’s working for Roxxon as an engineer and meets Billy and Ty who are working on the same rig as Mina Hess. But this Mina Hess isn’t nearly as friendly to Tandy and accuses her of spying for Scarborough.
Ty shows Tandy to the control room so she can investigate the pressure spikes. Again, before the vision can crash into a nightmare, Ty and Tandy have a meaningful talk about science and how comforting because it’s black and white. It’s a little heavy handed since the black and white, good and evil motif is well established in this show and doesn’t really fit into Tandy’s move towards Mayhem’s brand of chaos.
Before the rig blows up she notices a man in the back humming, someone haunting her vision. The explosion triggers Ty and Tandy’s powers again and propels her into one last vision.
On the “All Alone” record, Tandy’s life is worse than ever, and she’s pulling cons and exhibiting the symptoms of a junkie. In this scenario, she meets an equally troubled Ty who’s jacking a car. Billy initially survived in this one, but ended up in jail and later died from drugs. She and Ty are drawn together every time, no matter how good or bad things are for them.
Once again Tandy knows something isn’t right and almost wakes up again. And in a shocking twist, this time we find out Lia’s not alone in the van. She’s with Andre.
That’s right. The same Andre who first told Tandy about the missing girls is the same leader involved in her kidnapping. Andre is the record collector who’s store they found in the mall in the darkforce dimension.
Broken Record
The final record he plays is just called “jam session.”
Tandy’s sent back to the last scenario but immediately knows something’s off and sees Andre in the distance. Every time she escapes she’s sent back to the previous scenario until she ends up in the record store with Andre.
If you thought the Mayhem twist couldn’t be topped this season, this episode will make you reconsider. We don’t only learn Andre’s been trafficking women, but why.
The night of the explosion, Andre tried to kill himself over his chronic headaches by jumping into the reservoir but instead of dying was given powers. He can feed off victims’ despair, like an energy vampire. That’s why Tandy couldn’t read the victims’ hopes, he took it all.
Tandy confronts him, but he only points out it’s the same thing she was doing when she stole the hope of others last season.
In defiance, Tandy stabs the records and is able to escape to Tyrone and the church so they can track down Andre and Lia.
Andre pulls a gun while Lia distracts them and Tandy tells him to go ahead and shoot, knowing Ty will absorb the bullets.
Andre tries to play mind games telling her, “You know you’re worth nothing, you know you have no one.”
But he’s wrong, because she has Ty.
And that’s what he was counting on. He shoots Ty who dies instead of absorbing the bullets.
We realize this was the plan all along. Andre knew Ty was the only person Tandy cared about, so he played out one final scenario with her. And this final scene is the one that breaks Tandy so much that so she gives up and can no longer fight back. She’s now their next victim.
Additional Thoughts:
- While the reveal of Andre as the villain behind the trafficking was a little too predictable, the fact he got his powers from the same accident as Ty and Tandy was a nice twist.
- After setting up Mayhem as a key player this season, she’s been suspiciously absent the past two episodes. Surely she’s primed to make a comeback next episode, possibly as a part of Tandy’s rescue.
Cloak & Dagger airs Thursdays on Freeform.