The tenth episode of Luke Cage, ‘Take it Personal’ gave us a lot of answers with regards to the relationship between Luke and Willis Stryker.
The last episode ended with a cliffhanger as Claire and Noah almost lost Luke, but just like the previous episodes, yo we know Luke isn’t going to die, so the amount of ‘almost’ cliffhangers that they have does not leave us in suspense as they assume we will be, because we know that they would not kill him off mid-season so we just keep waiting for him to be healed.
An important results came from this healing scene, firstly when watching videos on Reva’s flashdrive, Luke learned that Reva was in on the fight club at Seagate and was keeping tabs on him to see if he was strong enough to take part in the experiments, which means that she was lying to him the entire time they were together. He confesses to Claire that he is more in love with the idea of Reva at this point. I know that the show is trying to open Luke up for a romance with Claire, but I’m still not over Luke/Jessica so hopefully all avenues will be open for the future.
After being all healed up, Luke and Claire take a trip to Savannah, Georgia in order to find out the route of all Luke’s problems – the reason why Stryker hates him. Through a series of flashbacks that he has while he is standing in the dilapidated church that his father was a preacher, he discovered that his father was having an affair with Willis’ mother who was his secretary. It appeared as though Stryker hated him because his father rejected him. So yes, they are brothers.
Everything comes to a halt at Harlem’s Paradise, where Mariah is holding a rally. Diamondback and Mariah had caused Harlem to go into chaos, as Stryker disguised as Luke Cage punched and killed a cop, causing the police to go haywire searching for Luke, so much so that one harasses a child that used to go to Pop’s Barbershop in an effort to gain information on Luke. Mariah and Diamondback attempt to sell the Judas bullet to police officers so that they can deal with powered individuals thereby creating the disease and selling the cure. The rally was to get Harlem up in arms against the super-powered individuals, more importantly – Luke Cage.
However Misty and the duo of Luke and Claire make an appearance at the rally. Firstly Misty after she learns that Stryker is Diamondback and his history with Luke. It is obvious that her encounter with him has traumatized her, so she corners him in Cottonmouth’s old office, but she comes out weaker when he shoots her and Luke comes to her aid. And this is our next cliffhanger.
We can expect that Diamondback is not done with Luke or Misty, and there is more to learn from his history with Luke.
Marvel’s Luke Cage is currently streaming on Netflix.
