What I’m Watching: Luke Cage (Penultimate Episode)

Luke Cage: Season 2, Episode 12 “Can’t Front on Me” (B+)

It’s strange to watch this show knowing that there’s only one episode left, something that most marathoned through it wouldn’t learn for a few months after it premiered. I’m going to miss this show’s choreographed fights and style, particularly the ones in which multiple people are fighting each other and change sides during the course of the battle. That was best illustrated in this hour was when Luke stepped in to help Bushmaster before going head-to-head with him, which of course resulted in Luke getting punched out and starting to bleed at the mouth. He did manage to honor the deal proposed by Luke for a little bit, agreeing not to kill anyone, and Luke nearly choked him out and killed him before Misty talked him down. The biggest instance of conflicted loyalties in this hour came from Shades, who delighted in confessing all of his misdeeds, resulting in his lawyer recusing herself and telling him to burn in hell and the usually stoic Misty breaking down and crying when she learned how he manipulated her and caused an innocent person’s death. Shades handing Misty the gun so that she could triumphantly arrest Mariah the end of the episode indicated that he did do his part, and that sometimes one evil is required to get rid of another. The guilty party who has thus far gone unpunished is Tilda, who decided to help Bushmaster do much more than stay alive, giving him the power-up he needed so that he could take down Mariah once and for all. Now that he failed to do that, we’ll see where Tilda lands and whether she pays for what she’s done.