Cloak & Dagger S01E04 “Call/Response” REVIEW

Cloak & Dagger S01E04 “Call/Response” REVIEW

0 comments 📅22 June 2018, 14:38

Releasing Fridays on Amazon Prime in the UK
Director:
 Ami Canaan Mann
Writers:
 Christine Boylan and Marcus J. Giullory

Essential Plot Points:

  • We’re right back with Tandy and Ty in the church. The two kids are on the same page; they need to talk, because that’s the only way they can figure stuff out.
  • Ty explains about the bath, and how it was supposed to give him answers. However, he’s pretty certain he actually got Tandy’s answers. He explains about Roxxon, and seeing her dad tortured, and Tandy running, And then, Tandy stopping, and saving her father. She’s freaked out and.
  • The next morning, Ty throws his headphones on and gets out of the house as fast as possible.
  • Tandy goes back to her moms’s place with coffee and an effort to make peace. She also asks about the case and, for the first time in years, her mom talks and she listens. She explains that Tandy’s dad was brilliant, able to fix anything. Her mom is convinced that her dad has been scapegoated by Roxxon and is convinced that her lawyer/boyfriend Greg can do it. Tandy is convinced her mom is, again, going back to old habits.
  • At school, Ty and Evita make out.
  • Back in the church, Ty explains that he seems drawn to people’s darkest fears and that maybe why he saw Tandy’s nightmares. Tandy explains that she has the same abilities…
  • Back in the trailer, she touches Greg’s hand and sees his hopes. He and her mom, married. A new chef’s kitchen. A happy family.
  • The following day Tandy, still doubtful about Greg, goes to see him at his office. He explains about the investigation, and how much work has been done to cover up the real reason for the explosion on the rig. Tandy signs on to the investigation, much to her and Greg’s surprise.
  • Back in the church, Tandy explains that the best way to find out more about Connors is to con him. Construct a narrative, make him feel safe, reel him in. Just like she did with Ty the night she stole his wallet. Ty fakes his bike being stolen and talks his way into the police station. He almost immediately has a panic attack and has to leave.
  • At home, his dad confronts him over the bolt cutters he stole to fake the bike robbery. His dad is convinced he’s stealing things. Ty pleads with him to understand but his dad is having none of it.
  • In the church, Ty talks about how his abilities seem to protect him, both from himself and others. He also notices they keep bringing him back to Connors or Tandy. Tandy realizes they each have an ability that the other one wants. Ty can go anywhere, and Tandy can defend herself. And it all started when they touched…
  • In the present, Ty’s dad takes him to a neighborhood on the edge of town. He reveals that he’s a gang member of the Wild Red Hawks. He takes Ty to meet his old boss and after a tense confrontation, they’re embraced as family.
  • At Greg’s place, Tandy asks about Greg’s marriage. he admits it was a mistake and is all but over.
  • Back in the church, Tandy has Ty close his eyes and stay still. She does the same and they experiment with triggering their powers. Unseen, light flows from her hand, shadows from his. They touch and…a shock wave throws them to the opposite sides of the church.
  • At Tandy’s mom’s place for dinner, Greg takes a phone call from his wife. It breaks the mood but, to Greg’s surprise, Tandy suggests they take the food to the office for tomorrow’s work.
  • At the gang house, Ty is told that his dad used to be a Spy Boy. Spy Boys run fast, travel great distances and go unprotected to warn others of danger. Billy was being trained up as a Spy Boy when he was murdered. Ty’s dad explains about the regalia the Boys make too, and how its endlessly complex bead work trains them in confidence, diligence and patience. And, looking through their unfinished clothes, Ty finds a cloak…
  • At the church, Ty and Tandy talk about how they can’t tell anyone in their lives about what they can do. Ty admits that his parents haven’t trusted him since Billy died.
  • At the house, Ty brings the cloak out. His father, Otis, is terrified, and admits that it was Billy’s cloak. Ty vows to finish it for Billy and to march for him with the gang.
  • At the trailer, Tandy’s mom admits she just broke up with Greg, even as Tandy admits that he may be a legitimately good man. Later, Tandy goes to the office to talk to Greg and sees him get executed by a hit woman. She then douses the office in gasoline and lights it as Tandy watches in horror.
  • The following morning, Ty and his dad bond over his past life of crime as Ty makes breakfast. His mom is delighted to see it but can tell they’re hiding something.

  • At the church, Tandy and Ty talk about how they feel like they don’t deserve to be saved. Tandy admits she has suicidal thoughts from time to time. Ty checks her privilege and she reveals that O’Reilly told her that she can’t press charges. Ty retorts that being a black man in the South is infinitely harder than anything Tandy’s going through. She fires back that she saw this hopes and all they are is him committing suicide by cop over and over again. Ty storms out and Tandy gets
    high. Neither are remotely happy.
  • The next morning, Tandy goes to the shore of the lake, wraps chains around her ankles and jumps
    in. There is dead silence.
  • And then a flash of white light and Tandy surfaces, her chains cut and a light dagger in her hand.
  • Ty visits the police station, far calmer and asks to speak to o’reilly. Tandy goes to the burnt out officer and finds a secret compartment.
  • With no pain at all, she summons a light dagger, cuts it open and takes Greg’s real files…

Review:

The long awaited, and much needed, comparing of notes between Tandy and Ty takes up most of this episode of Cloak & Dagger. In the hands of a lesser show it’d be a clunky info dump but here it’s something much smarter. The conversation acts as both structure and tempo, constantly being referred back to even as we see flash forwards to its consequences. It’s a fun play on words too, the episode title referring to both the symbiotic nature of Tandy and Ty’s powers, and Otis’ return to the Red Hawks, but also to its own structure.

As well as the structural fun and games we also get some massively surprising moments with cast members you wouldn’t expect. Otis’ gang past comes out of nowhere but ties to both his sons’ lives and Ty’s future in ways that are impressive and surprisingly poignant. Tandy’s open discussion of suicide, Ty’s of the perils of being a black man in the South and their shared knowledge of the other are, if anything, even more powerful. This is a show that is intimately concerned with some of the most important issues of the day and it deals with all of them with a clear eye and a willingness to engage with the untidy elements of real life. Tandy and her mom swapping positions on how they view Greg at the worst possible moment to do so is especially well done. As is the revelation of Otis’ gang past.

But what really works here is what has to; Tandy and Ty, the heart of the show. Their untidy, fractious relationship is what drives them together and drives them apart and it’s the engine of the whole show. This week that engine accelerates and the result is a fantastic hour of TV in what’s shaping up to be the strongest freshman year a Marvel show has had in a very long time.

The Good:

  • It’s a little thing but Greg referring to Tandy as ‘Miss Tandy’ is a neat way of reminding us the show is set in the South.
  • Ty needing to explain to the pretty young white woman that the police will see him as a thug, because he’s a young man black in the South is one of the subtlest explorations of privilege Marvel have ever done.
  • Likewise Ty having a panic attack makes perfect sense. This is a massive issue for him, and completely outside his comfort zone.
  • Greg! Nooooooo!

The Bad:

  • Again, not a thing. This is another great episode.

The Random:

  • Ami Canaan Mann has directed feature films such as Jackie & Ryan and Texas Killing Fields and shows like Shots Fired and Friday Night Lights.
  • Christine Boylan was part of the writing staff for fantastic looking, but never aired, alien invasion series Day One. More recently she’s worked on Castle, The Punisher and eternal favorite of this particular corner of MCM Towers, Leverage.
  • Marcus J Giullory has written for Tales, The Breaks and others.

Best Lines:

  • ‘Fizzy bubble bomb for the soul?’
    “Something like that.’
  • ‘Character is what you do when no one else is watching.’
  • ‘Gimme your wallet.’
    ‘Why don’t you host steal it again?’
    ‘Could if I wanted to,’
  • ‘ I get all hot and bothered and weaponised.’
  • ‘Maybe that’s why we got what we got.’
    ‘Or why we didn’t get what we didn’t get.’
  • ‘So you’re married.’
    ‘Yeah.’
    ‘How does that work?’
    ‘Not very well.’
  • ‘You’re probably too honest.’
    Is there such a thing?’
    ‘There is. But it hangs off your shoulders nicely.’
  • ‘Try walking into a department store looking like me.’
    ‘This whole country’s trying to kill me EVERY DAY.’

Read all of our Cloak and Dagger reviews here

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