Luke Cage - 'DWYCK'

There's irony in the fact that when the cops stop a guy for being big, black and
in a hoodie, he actually is the one they're after.

Just a single episode of Luke Cage for this review, but damned if it an't a big one. Seriously, 'DWYCK'(1) clocks in at 65 minutes, and struggles a little as it works through some necessary transitional material.

Cornell Stokes was dead, to begin with, and that death is still having repercussions. Shades is sliding into Stokes' old role at Harlem's Paradise, while angling Mariah to be the face of the Stokes organisation, but it turns out that Diamondback is less than sanguine at the thought that his number two might have manoeuevred Mariah into murdering her cousin, a man whom he trusted regardless of some bad decisions. Speaking of Diamondback, there's a man who embraces his ophidian moniker, bobbing and swaying like a cobra trying to work out what to do with these arm things. He decimates the Harlem underground with Joker-like savagery, leaving only Domingo and Mariah, and refusing to let the latter leave the game when she comes up with ideas like selling his product - especially the Judas - to the police.

Meanwhile, Luke escapes from the garbage truck, but is still in a bad way. He gets stopped by a couple of patrol cops and is filmed fighting them by their dash-cam. It's an interesting fight, because even hurt he takes a full clip to the back rather than expose one of the officers to his partner's panicked fire. Still, it does not fill the cops with joy. Misty Knight goes through her psych evaluation over her encounter with Diamondback and the impact of her loss of control, before being assigned to find Luke Cage and not worry about Mariah or anything else.

This is a malpractice suit waiting to happen.

Luke gets back to Claire, who has had a chance to look over Reva's flash drive. They track Noah Burstein, perhaps the only person who can help. Burstein explains that Carl Lucas was tapped for his programme even before his beating; Reva was keeping a lot of secrets. He has the equipment to maybe help Luke, with the added information from the flash drive, but it will involve boiling Luke in acid to soften his skin so they can remove the shrapnel. They do this, but Luke's heart gives out.

'DWYCK' is frankly a slightly soggy episode. With a lot to get done and no particular framework on which to hang it it lacks the tightness of previous episodes, despite a lot of excellent moments. Misty's psych evaluation is as revealing as a flashback episode, and we learn a lot about what kind of man Burstein is from his refusal to accept anything that Claire says as relevant until he's tested it himself. It just doesn't hang together like other episodes, and I think it's telling that this is the one that runs long.

(1) The internet suggests that the title - like all of the episode titles, taken from a Gang Starr song - might mean 'do what you can, kid', or might mean nothing.