Netflix ‘Luke Cage’ season 1, episode 11 review: Diamondback’s daddy issues
When we last saw “Luke Cage” he was in the midst of a bullet storm as he tried to protect Misty from Diamondback. Was he able to get her safely out of Harlem’s Paradise? More then that we have to wonder if his act of bravery helped the community see that he’s not out to hurt anyone or if it only helped to make everyone even more afraid.
This episode throws us right back into the action where Luke is trying to protect Misty and get her out of the club, but while he’s busy protecting her, Claire is captured by Diamondback’s men. Diamondback seals the club and inside his plan is to kill Luke and Misty and emerge the hero.
Even though Misty is shot, she’s still working Luke for information and he tells her everything about Diamondback, his connection to Cornell and that they are brothers. They are able to sneak into an old room underneath the club, but it doesn’t lead outside, so it’s just a safe hiding place for now. After a longer conversation, Misty finally trusts Luke and now knows he’s not the bad guy.
Diamondback uses the hostage situation to scare up more bad press for Luke. He has a hostage tell the police that Luke is holding everyone hostage inside. One of the hostages is Candace, the “eye witness” to Cornell’s murder. She admits to Claire that Mariah paid her to lie about Luke’s involvement in Cornell’s murder. After Candace tells Claire about the secret room in the kitchen, they fake a diabetic incident that allows Claire to get access to the kitchen. She is able to reach Luke and Misty and while Luke is off working on getting them out of there, Claire is patching up Misty.
With the hostage situation taking too long to resolve, the police are clued in to Diamondback’s special bullets (thanks to Mariah), so now the entire force is armed with these bullets and they are ready to storm the club to take out Luke.
Diamondback announces over the club PA system that if Carl doesn’t show his face, that he will start killing one hostage every ten minutes until he does. Luke takes the bait and leaves Misty and Claire in the underground storage. Luke frees most of the hostages, but Diamondback still has Candace. He throws Candace off the balcony to ensure that Luke stays in the club and while Diamondback escapes, the police move in and capture Luke (Shades also got nabbed). Misty tries to tell her boss everything she’s learned and while her boss is kind of on the fence about whether or not Luke is guilty, she wants more proof.
At one point in this episode we had a big speech from Diamondback all about his daddy issues, how Luke/Carl got his father’s last name and he didn’t, and how his father never loved him like he did Luke. With him having so much anger towards his father (and no one knowing where his father actually is) we are surprised that Diamondback isn’t focusing his rage on finding his father. There’s a nice revenge element to Diamondback and while we love a good revenge story, his obsessive daddy issues weakened him a bit for us. Also, we could do without the power glove – not really working for us either. Episode grade: B-
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