Netflix ‘Luke Cage’ season 1, episode 5 review: The Night Nurse returns, Sonja Sohn guest stars
On the last episode of “Luke Cage” he dug himself out of the rubble of a collapsed building and by doing so he’s exposed his super strength to the world. What is this going to mean for Luke moving forward?
We started this episode with a guest appearance from Claire, our favorite night nurse! We have seen her working with Matt Murdock (Daredevil), with Jessica Jones and she’s patched up Luke Cage before too (which is featured in the above picture). We caught up with what she’s doing now since quitting her job at the hospital in “Daredevil” season 2, and she still spinning about the man she saw come into the hospital with the autopsy scar down his chest as well as the hospital cover up. She has made some decisions about her life and she wants to focus on helping people in the city with abilities.
After Luke had all of Cornell’s money seized, he is broke outside of the properties he owns and people on the streets are talking. He sends his men out to shake down the local businesses and take half of what they have telling them to talk to LukeCage if they have a problem with it. When local store owners start coming into the shop and telling Luke what’s happening he starts hitting back at Cornell’s crew to send a message that he won’t be pushed out of Harlem.
Luke shows up at Cornell’s club and tells him to leave Harlem alone. As Cornell’s goons start shooting at Luke, Cornell realizes what’s he’s up against, but more then that Shades finally recognizes Luke as Carl Lucas. What was most interesting about this scene is that Cornell seemed completely unphased by the fact that he just watched a gun unload on Luke and do nothing to him.
Shades tells Cornell everything he knows about Luke, hoping to find a weakness, but with Reva and Squabbles both dead, we aren’t sure how much information Shades can provide. As it turns out, Shades knows of a bullet that can pierce Kevlar and explode inside a person, but is this really enough to kill Luke? If a rocket launcher and an entire building collapsing can’t do it, why will this special bullet made form unearthly materials get the job done? With Cornell being broke and unable to buy the bullets, his only other choice is to ask Diamondback to handle Luke for him. He decides to get Domingo back his guns, fix the situation so that Diamondback will loan him the cash to get the bullets to kill Luke himself and things can get back to normal.
Misty learns that Scarfe is under investigation, and she thinks it’s ridiculous, but it did afford us a nice guest spot from Sonja Sohn who we loved in “The Wire”. We’ve heard a lot of people try to compare “Luke Cage” to “The Wire”, but outside of Sohn making an appearance, we just don’t see a connection. Scarfe is told by a friend he’s being investigated, but the bigger problem is that Cornell needs Scarfe to get Domingo’s guns out of evidence for him. He gets it done, but when Cornell asks if he has the guns he doesn’t respond and closes up the truck.
Our biggest problem with this show is that the villain was starting to fall apart in the first episode, so we never really had a chance to see just how powerful he is, so by the time episode 5 has come around and Cornell is already looking at selling his club, we aren’t sure that there’s any real threat in this show for Luke. Add on top of that Luke being indestructible and we need a villain with a lot more power to hit back. Episode grade: C+
What did you think of this episode of “Luke Cage” and what do you think of the series so far? Leave a comment in the box below and share your thoughts.