Luke Cage Season 2 Television 

Five Thoughts on Luke Cage‘s “Soul Brother #1”

By | June 25th, 2018
Posted in Television | % Comments

Netflix released Season 2 of Luke Cage last Friday, and the premiere episode, “Soul Brother #1,” gets us caught up with Luke, his friends, his enemies, and Harlem.

This season will be a heck of a ride. Let’s get started!

1. Season 2 hits the ground running

“Soul Brother #1” opens with Luke pulling up his iconic hoodie to the beats of Mobb Deep’s “Shook Ones, Pt. 2.”  The camera cuts, and we see a small envelope with “Luke Cage” emblazoned on it in block letters. Luke drops the envelope, crosses the street, heads into a drug lab to take it down.

Opening with an action scene gets things moving quickly, but the first 55 minutes of the season continues building pressure.

Misty Knight is struggling with the loss of her arm, and the damage seems more psychological than physical. Luke’s father has been trying to contact him, and Luke is not pleased. Claire chafes at being stuck in the background while Luke cleans up Harlem. Dozens of criminals are back on the streets because of the investigation into Lt. Scarfe. Mariah wants to leave her criminal empire behind and “go legit.” A super-powered Bushmaster has arrived in Brooklyn and has his sights set on ruling Harlem. Luke can now withstand a point blank hit from a Judas bullet, and he has no idea why.

Even that envelope we see 44 seconds into the episode is an establishing shot; a callback to Madame Gao’s heroin establishing the status quo in Harlem.  Luke is famous, but it hasn’t stopped the gangs at all. They’re cashing in on his name.

2. Shades of Heroes for Hire?

Luke wears a hoodie with a logo for “African American College Alliance” when he storms the heroin den in the opening scene.  It was for a sponsorship that he wasn’t comfortable with, but money is tight and the team is being forced out of Pop’s by higher rent.

When Bobby asks about all of the cash Luke must come across when busts drug dealers, Luke says he won’t “profit off of people’s pain.”

Bobby responds with “Just ’cause you a woke superhero, don’t mean you gotta be a broke superhero.”

Luke needs to solve the money issue if he is going to continue realizing Pop’s vision for Harlem. Can you think of anyone that might help?

3. Mariah has plans

“I’ve been a Dillard for a number of years, but I’m haunted by being a Stokes,” Mariah tells us. She wants to sell the Paradise and invest in a legitimate business,  finishing her transformation from a Stokes to a Dillard.

We learned about where Mariah (and her cousin Cornell) came from last season. Mariah’s troubled past haunts her, and she is determined to overcome it. Unfortunately, selling Harlem’s Paradise and “going legit ” doesn’t mean selling to a real estate developer that will put in condos or turn the nightclub into a Starbucks. It entails selling the gun smuggling business to another ganglord.

Crime bosses competing for the same business means violence; violence that explodes in Luke face, literally, a half hour into the episode.

While Mariah wants to bury the Stokes and move on, Bushmaster is here to exhume their legacy and then destroy it. His desire to rule Harlem is at least as personal as it is professional. If he has anything to say about it, Mariah will die a Stokes.

4. Claire is restless

Claire is unhappy with staying home at night while Luke works the “other 9 to 5” fighting crime. She wants in and puts herself in danger when she follows Luke to the Paradise to do some investigating of her own. When Luke confronts Mariah at the club, she points Claire out to him and says “I like her dress. Be a shame if something happened to her.” Luke is forced to back down.

Luke and Claire argue about her getting involved, while they kiss and make-up, the conflict is not resolved. Is Claire headed for trouble?

5. There’s an app for that

How did Claire know Luke was at the club? She used the Harlem’s Hero App!

There’s a mobile app, and one of the things it’s useful for is tracking Luke Cage.  Users can use it to record, follow, and even live stream sightings of the hero. It plays a part in “Soul Brother #1” three different times;  a tourist uses it at Pop’s,  Claire uses it to find Luke, and D.W. uses it to follow Luke to the Harlem River and live streams him walking into a trap. “It’s like Waze… for you!” D.W. says.

Continued below

It’s hard to believe that this application won’t cause complications for Luke down the line. Who created it? Was it an overeager fan or someone with more nefarious motives?

That’s five things for “Soul Brother #1,” the first episode of Luke Cage Season 2. What did you think? Let me know in the comments.


//TAGS | Luke Cage

Eric Goebelbecker

Eric is a software engineer who lives and works in the NYC metro area. When he's not writing, he's reading. When he's not writing or reading, he is displeased. You can find his personal blog over here.

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