Mike Moody: Hey you're listening to Tv Eye on Marvel a Marvel tv podcast and we are your heroes for hire my name is mike with me today is Nate Bliss.
Nate Bliss: Hello.
Mike Moody: And martin thomas ok so today we're diving into the premiere of marvels luke cage on netflix but first,
Mike Moody: let's take a sec to talk about what we're doing with this podcast now over the next several episodes because we're kind of transitioning some of you listening may have been listeners of the Tv Eye podcast which nate and i did for about a year,
Mike Moody: it was sort of our first plunge into podcasting,
Mike Moody: and as you probably noticed we've re branded where Tv Eye on Marvel now like steve rogers sipping on that super serum you no way.
Martin Thomas: Did he sit on it? I always thought it was more injected into it. Or even so, though, it's a giant test, too. I never got the impression that he sipped.
Nate Bliss: Just kind of casually, yeah.
Mike Moody: Just you know on a bad day when he's feeling kind of tired is like i'm going to get some of that super serum anime he's hiding in the bathroom sipping on that canister yeah there you go yeah.
Nate Bliss: Agent carter, heating it up, looking like a pot of tea. Yes.
Mike Moody: All right so yeah like steve we are a stronger taller chest your version of what we once were,
Mike Moody: alright that we gas analogy aside we're now Tv Eye on Marvel and we'll be covering the Marvel netflix tv shows exclusively starting with an in depth episode review of all thirteen episodes of marvels luke cage.
Nate Bliss: You heard.
Mike Moody: Which premiered september thirtieth now we're not goingto i mean we're not going to fanboy out too much not too much martin's a critic i'm a critic your nate your guy.
Nate Bliss: I'm just a i'm just a geek, just just just ah, over exuberant, nerdy, gay.
Mike Moody: But, you know, we are going to celebrate the shows because we do like him, but you know, it, there's stuff we don't like, just like i do in mr roboto. We're going to talk about that, too.
Martin Thomas: Do you catch flak when you mention the stuff you don't like? Oh, oh, this's going to be okay, go ahead.
Mike Moody: Um, sometimes, but not a lot, but it's fine.
Mike Moody: Ah, oh, good teaser.
Mike Moody: I like this premiere a lot, and i think it's a great piece of auto or television, but before we get into it further, let's introduce ourselves a little further.
Mike Moody: Distillate. The listeners know who's talking here, so, martin, what the hell are you doing here?
Martin Thomas: Oh, well, i'm here because you invited me, but i assume you invited me because, yes, i have been podcasting for quite a while, at least. Ah, podcasts, and probably like the last ten years.
Martin Thomas: And before that part of a movie, reviews show that that ran for ten years on access tv.
Martin Thomas: So it's been a just about twenty years for me talking about pop culture and media.
Martin Thomas: Ah, pretty much working the comic industry, even reading comics.
Mike Moody: Yeah you're rolled in on your wheelchair tonight was good.
Martin Thomas: Since i was six years old, i'm not gonna tell you how long that is, but it's been a long time. Let me tell you, and i figure, hey, if anybody's going to come here and talk about this thing, why not me?
Mike Moody: Nate same question.
Nate Bliss: I've been podcasting for a little while. Ah, but like as listeners, people have come from Tv Eye probably know i was definitely the mohr, the gushy one, whereas michael's the more like, well, let's, talk about how the episode is structured.
Mike Moody: That was the boring when you're the fun one now there's two fun ones on and i'm still the boring one.
Nate Bliss: Ah, ah, but i mean, i.
Nate Bliss: But i've also been reading comics since i was like, in short pants and ah, ah, and, um.
Mike Moody: Since you're sipping on that super serum as a kid yeah it's done wonders for your chest.
Nate Bliss: Yeah, well, we had, like, you know, but more most of all, i'm just incredibly. I mean, i love the Marvel movies.
Nate Bliss: But the netflix shows for me have been so good. They've been my favorite Marvel, televised, filmed or other otherwise products, products, products that products their items, that they're there.
Mike Moody: Read on products things yeah i guess their products pieces of storytelling yeah.
Martin Thomas: Yes, these air better than all of their other one other tv thing.
Mike Moody: Yeah well there was agent carter which wasn't bad but these are better yeah, these are better okay, so me i'm a recovering Tv critic i've written for birth movies death a well Tv haven't imposed moviefone other sites that i don't want to mention because you're terrible,
Mike Moody: several newspapers co hosted mr roboto podcast like you guys know,
Mike Moody: ah i absolutely love tv which i think is obvious ah i'm interested in covering shows that really matter okay like mr robot and i think luke cage like mr robot,
Mike Moody: is poised to be maybe one of those essential shows of this current wave a progressive television,
Mike Moody: this socially aware Tv getting especially with this tv season i mean we have ah atlanta yeah.
Nate Bliss: Holy cow! Yeah!
Mike Moody: Atlanta luke cage i heard queen sugar's up there too haven't seen it yet,
Mike Moody: but i can't wait to dig into luke age um oh and i love me some Marvel comics and the more movies so i think everyone in the world backs me up on that one,
Mike Moody: um okay, so luke cage season one episode one moment of truth named after one of my favorite gang star songs.
Mike Moody: So this episode was a strong slow jam if there ever was one, and i can't wait to see what the show plays next.
Mike Moody: That's my one sentence. Take martin quick, take away from the first episode.
Martin Thomas: Quick, take away. Ah, name in the episodes after gang star titles. That's really cool, the music's great. I love having a cameo from rafael siddique singing on stage.
Mike Moody: Tony, tony, tony has done it again.
Martin Thomas: Right, right, i, mike colter, is his he's he's. Great. He really he has a lot of charisma, so he captured my attention the whole time, he's on everything else about the show. I don't like it all.
Mike Moody: I think i know where you're going, nate. First, give me your your one sentence. Review your your first take on the pilot on the pilot.
Nate Bliss: Well uh on the pilot yeah i have a couple episodes.
Mike Moody: I know you watch more and martin, you've watched. You've watched like three or four, ok, i've only watched the first one, so we're just talking about the pilot.
Martin Thomas: I watched the first three.
Mike Moody: When you're watching this pilot where you like, bam, i'm in or what you feel.
Nate Bliss: As i was watching it because there have been daredevil on jessica jones so far i've been kind of thinking all right here's a new creative team,
Nate Bliss: obviously a new cast out there a couple of returning characters and stuff but i was i was struck that like daredevil jessica jones kind of from the get go we're like,
Nate Bliss: tense and automatically it was high octane right from the start and once i realized ok this is they're going for a slower start like with daredevil you know might murdoch was already very poised he's already,
Nate Bliss: running out at night and beating people up jessica jones is already,
Nate Bliss: a private eye and she's very invested in these cases that come up.
Mike Moody: She's into some shit. But lucas hanging back.
Nate Bliss: Luke is very much hanging back he because i mean especially after what happened to him and jessica jones where it's like he's stuck his neck out and then he gets you know led around by mind controlling doctor who and,
Nate Bliss: and and like luke lost bad in jessica jones i mean he he was so coming right off of that i mean,
Nate Bliss: he does not want to stick his head out but as far as like quick take away before going too much or tangent and stuff,
Nate Bliss: it was just kind of adjusting to all right it's going to be a slower start and it's not going to be a sprint from the first episode.
Martin Thomas: I like mike colter in the show because he delivers his lines well, he has just a natural charisma about him, just he's, he's, good looking. He looks like he means what he says.
Martin Thomas: Well, he plays this well, i was going back and reading a bunch of Luke Cage comics, and a thing about luke cage was that he was always a larger than life character, not just physically,
Martin Thomas: but the way you talk Luke Cage always talked a lot of shit.
Martin Thomas: I was constantly run his mouth, he could back it up, and at first he was he was kind of like a blaxploitation sort of cartoon, and then in later incarnations, they pulled back.
Martin Thomas: But he never was somebody who didn't run his mouth constantly where he was in everybody's face and just go back and read those comics and thinking about this first episode. I'm like man it's really missing that it's missing that thing that makes him actually luke cage.
Martin Thomas: I mean, school. They're going a different direction and that's, fine, but i'm just acknowledging that it's still not really luke aid.
Mike Moody: It is the beginning of Luke Cage shows, so maybe we'll get there.
Mike Moody: We still haven't gotten the origin. We still haven't gotten the, you know, he's.
Mike Moody: At the end of this episode, we do see him jump into the action, right, and we do see him talk a little shit,
Mike Moody: you know, but he's not, you know, he's, not black exploitation from the seventies, luke cage, but he's more in line, because my Luke Cage and i read,
Mike Moody: recently, i read about three of those original Luke Cage comics from the seventies, the first one's, right, and i like him.
Mike Moody: They're good, but the luke aids that i really like is that the new avengers, luke cage from early two thousand's, or or the jessica jonesy, the alias luke cage, which i think colter's kind of plane a little bit.
Martin Thomas: Yeah he's a lot more like he wasn't in the alias comic.
Martin Thomas: The funny thing is Luke Cage he had yeah, he'd been that blaxploitation character,
Martin Thomas: and then they brought him back where he had kind of a red shirt but instead the band and he was a bit more serious still yeah, yeah in the nineties on and it wasn't until there was at that miniseries cage,
Martin Thomas: where richard corbin like the last person i thought would draw a Luke Cage story drew him and he had more the look he hasn't adventures way within it hat and just regular street clothes,
Martin Thomas: yeah ball yeah baldhead regular street clothes and they just kind of disappeared until he popped up and jessica jones,
Martin Thomas: and after that boom he's all it's almost like he is the new avengers they always make sure he's in there and and brian michael bendis uses them to write some to great effect,
Martin Thomas: and there's just some of that that i wish was in the show just him the yeah the says set that's exactly what i'm looking for the sas.
Mike Moody: Some of the sas.
Martin Thomas: Yeah, i want himto open up some let let us because get over hit the ground running and he's he's he's in a fight like right off the bat with jessica jones even though the kilgrave stuff came in,
Martin Thomas: if a few episodes in were introduced to her and she's a train wreck i mean you know, you is so rare that you're you're asked to follow such such a damaged character.
Martin Thomas: I mean, she's, not even just she's, an anti hero to herself, and you're just like, yeah, exactly, exactly.
Mike Moody: That was incredibly compelling from the start.
Martin Thomas: And i'm just finding with luke cage so far, it's as much as it's, the culture it's also the culture of a lot of cliches from black movies.
Martin Thomas: I see. I don't know how many of the barbershops you guys,
Martin Thomas: episodes of the barbershop movies you've watched, and so food and tyler perry this and that i've seen a lot, and i'm i'm just seeing,
Martin Thomas: too many of the cliches pop up here, and i keep hoping one will get turned on its ear. But it's, sort of not.
Mike Moody: Yeah there's there's lots of troops going on here, especially in this first episode because as good as mike colter is as good as alfred watered is as good as a lot of these characters are actors are,
Mike Moody: the story largely in a broad sense relies on kind of old boring tropes you have the reluctant hero, the troubled neighborhood, the rising gangster with a messiah complex, right?
Mike Moody: Ah, working his political connections a corrupt politician ah, the beat cops working the case right?
Mike Moody: These air troops we've seen a million times before.
Martin Thomas: The old father figure, who you know is destined to die.
Mike Moody: There we go. Yeah he's going to die but for me, what makes a show come alive despite thes tropes that i've seen before? And i hate your hopes i want something original, you know?
Mike Moody: But you know, for me i still like to show because despite thes tropes well makes the show come alive for me is you made is the amazing texture and the specificity,
Mike Moody: of it all like like the gangsters meet up with a corrupt official at cottonmouths club.
Mike Moody: It's intercut with that great raphael siddiq performance. You're not going to see that on network tv, right?
Mike Moody: The gun deal gone horribly wrong it's also winner cut with one of those performances,
Mike Moody: the barbershop scene that opens up the episode it does not it doesn't hold our hand doesn't guide us gently into this new world, it just dropped us right in with these characters, you know, talking these deep sports references and stuff, and and.
Nate Bliss: Which i still azad geek. I still don't understand it's like they said, kobe. At one point, like i know who kobe bryant is. I know who he is.
Mike Moody: I don't know,
Mike Moody: i know phil jackson is i know phil jackson is ah, but the but the show just dives right into the specific personalities that make this place come alive.
Mike Moody: And i really like that, like the giant biggie picture and cottonmouths office. Sure, that's kind of ridiculous, but it kind of tells you what that guy's all about a little bit, you know, and also its is beautiful, like visual.
Mike Moody: Like all the scenes of cottonmouths office and those violent scenes, you reminded me a lot about a lot of, like spike lee movies, you know? Yeah.
Mike Moody: And i think all that stuff, those earmarks oven on tour. And judging by this pilot, i think they got the great guy to run this show jail. Coker ah, he wrote the biggie smalls biopic notorious ah, he wrote a number of episodes of that show south land on tnt.
Martin Thomas: And the wire, i think, yeah, yeah, he wrote some episodes of the wire.
Mike Moody: It was really okay. Cool.
Mike Moody: If the show is still relying on those tropes in this first episode and you guys have seymour, so you kind of looking at me like it maybe continues to do that, which kind of sucks, but we'll see.
Nate Bliss: It does feel like like every time a trope happens, there should be, like, a little thing, little a little little ticker.
Martin Thomas: If you made a drinking game, you'd pass out before the show.
Nate Bliss: E. I don't think it would be that i don't think it's that bad, but it does seem as if, like there are quite a few.
Nate Bliss: But for me, i'm a sucker for when a show where a movie really takes it's time to show a neighborhood or a sense of place, you know, i won't say it's as good as this show, but it made me think of tremaine,
Nate Bliss: remains a great show.
Nate Bliss: But and i'm not saying Luke Cage is as good as tremaine, but with the music and with this, this neighborhood and all these very like this wider and itjust mork characters get introduced in subsequent episodes.
Mike Moody: I love i love the setting i love the specificity of the setting i love that the show is taking time,
Mike Moody: to world build and we're build based on a world or culture that is riel in twenty sixteen sure it's his heightened version of harlem i've never been to harlem but i don't imagine it's everything is bathed in this beautiful golden light,
Mike Moody: you know, like the show is you know but the show and cheo coker is i think, doing a great job in expanding and deepening the emcee you because,
Mike Moody: you know, i never thought we would we would see a deep story rooted in the political and criminal structures of harlem based in dmc you i think that's great,
Mike Moody: that doesn't mean this is a great show it means that's a good effort,
Mike Moody: yeah, i think what's happening from my perspective the show in this first episodes trying to do two things and maybe it's going to be a problem going forward it's trying to world build,
Mike Moody: almost like charm a almost like the wire but it's also trying to tell a specific story about one dude,
Mike Moody: are the reluctant hero finding his power now it seems like shale coker's really in love with creating this harlem, which is amazing and which leads to some really nice sequences but then it seemed to me luke age himself was a bit of an afterthought.
Nate Bliss: It was almost like we're just kind of just a fly on his shoulder. Ah, kind of kind of, kind of like watching, like earlier in the episode where he needs a misty we haven't talked about mr yet. I i really like misty, but.
Mike Moody: Right.
Martin Thomas: Did that get revealed in the first episode? Misty si si ah.
Nate Bliss: Oh, good point, good, thank you for thank you for looking out for the year, right.
Mike Moody: Oh, we know she's, misty night, i'm looking, i'm d b right now, and it says she's, misty night.
Nate Bliss: Okay, all right, okay, okay, all right.
Martin Thomas: Okay. All right, all right, all right. Okay, well, what you're talking about because that that didn't get revealed to the second episode.
Mike Moody: Ah, got it, okay, no right here, simone misic as misty night, they're thirteen episodes, it's, all good.
Nate Bliss: You're right, you're right, thank you. Yeah, okay, all right.
Martin Thomas: No, but you look it i am devi that's cheating.
Mike Moody: Well, i'm glad you brought her up then, because my favorite, i mean my favorite sequence in this in this whole pilot was luke flirting with misty night luke, going to bed with misty night,
Mike Moody: luke, waking up the next day, are they going toe hook up again? Who knows, you know, she's taken charge.
Mike Moody: I think they have a lot of chemistry, i really do.
Martin Thomas: Well, it's an interesting thing because i'm watching it i didn't check i am d b first and i just like this just like the idea that hey, he picked up this chick in the bar who he's working as a dishwasher and a bartender, right? Right?
Nate Bliss: Yeah, and he's, not bartender all the time. He's. Just covering that night.
Martin Thomas: But he still picks her up and you know, they go back to her place and and they do it and he goes on about a business only about his business and i was like that's kind of cool and then you okay she's a cop,
Martin Thomas: i'm not even thinking misty night because misty was well i mean, maybe she was at some point but comic she's always been a private detective and her big signature is what?
Martin Thomas: No no thank you the afro,
Martin Thomas: the afro and and even if you say like, well, they're updated it because that was the seventies but i'm like no black woman i'm back to wearing afros now it's actually really chic so i'm just like, uh why would you not,
Martin Thomas: have that in here? It's it's frustrating.
Mike Moody: Okay, so.
Nate Bliss: Part of me wonders if the nypd has a rule against afros or something. You know that? Well, no, because because the military has look incredibly strange and hair, but i'm but i'm wondering.
Mike Moody: No
Mike Moody: Right. It's, the cops, man, and that the army, she'd do whatever she wants.
Nate Bliss: I don't know. I don't know. I don't know if that's true. Yeah, yeah, that you're right, what you become, detective. You can just do it, everyone.
Martin Thomas: And she's a detective she couldn't wear what you want.
Mike Moody: Yeah, yeah, well, martin, i think early i cut you off, man, because you were you were one to dive into some more, the problems he had with the with the premiere. So.
Martin Thomas: Oh well i mean i mean i'm not goingto i don't want to be beat over the same problems ok something you you talked about was how how much you love the intercutting of the performance on stage with the violence going on but you probably watched empire do you?
Mike Moody: Talks of shit, martin.
Mike Moody: Ah, watch the first season, i dropped off second season. They they do that. I don't know.
Martin Thomas: I know man wouldn't women then they in that first season so horribly,
Martin Thomas: but the first exit was i was like i wasn't gonna watch it and i did and we got to where we would all gather on the tv and enjoy it and he got to that last episode in man did it ever shit the bed,
Martin Thomas: like every like it was like a seventh episode season where all the characters are doing things that they would never do.
Mike Moody: Yes, yes, indeed, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Martin Thomas: And i was just like all right i'm done.
Nate Bliss: I know that show has. I mean, a lot of my friends watch out show, and they basically say, it's so crazy, it's, it's, bonkers.
Martin Thomas: It's it's it's a black telenovela.
Nate Bliss: How, okay, i owe so goes. It goes as far as telling a villawood, okay, alright, okay, okay, all right.
Mike Moody: Oh, sure, yeah, yeah, this is it's, like falcon crest, but crazy, yeah.
Martin Thomas: Yeah,
Martin Thomas: yeah yeah it's just like what can we do to make the audience go?
Martin Thomas: Who but right, right, right but from the time that empire was good, i see a lot of things happening in Luke Cage like i said.
Nate Bliss: Whoa! Okay.
Mike Moody: Way to make him tweet.
Martin Thomas: Mike, you're so hopeful that it makes me want to go all right just just just hang in there.
Martin Thomas: I'm a little worried i mean a part of it was i felt i was kind of set up just because the early reviews it came in talking about how how good it was, how is probably the best in the Marvel shows so i was,
Martin Thomas: trying not to have those expect expectations, but of course, yes, but they were high and so yeah, i have to come down quite a bit.
Martin Thomas: I'm only three in and i thought, well, maybe it picks up, but i keep reading things were different things from people now now, then, now the reviews to start to be mixed and there's people who say like, oh, it's really great up until the seventh episode, so like,
Martin Thomas: uh, okay, but just speaking on what i've seen so far, we're in trying to, like, back my memory up just to the first episode,
Martin Thomas: i recognized the things in there that are good, they don't seduce me as much as everybody else,
Martin Thomas: so i'm still like i still just think story, structure and dialogue goes there's always like to two things i'm looking for and pacing, i feel like like,
Martin Thomas: i don't mind something being deliberate or even being slow, i'm not having an eighty de sense of pace with things,
Martin Thomas: but i feel like in moving slow it's okay, not having thing happened as long as what's happening is the things your characters are saying back and forth to each other and a lot of the way it's being filmed?
Martin Thomas: Almost never do i see a scene where the camera's there, except for the barbershop scene.
Martin Thomas: After that, there's hardly a scene where the cameras in one place and characters talk back and forth to each other.