Releasing Fridays on Amazon Prime in the UK
Director: Wayne Yip
Writer: Joe Pokaski

Essential Plot Points:

• Evita’s Auntie narrates the story of the first Divine Pairing. We see the two children, one of whom is marked, calmly place a box of rocks on her head and walk into the river. As Evita’s Auntie describes it, the moment she died, the land came to life again.

• And we’re back with Tandy facing off against Greg’s assassin. Tandy talks her down, gets close enough and her mom stabs the woman in the next. An ugly fight ensues, Tandy slashing the assassin with one of her daggers. They chase her off and Tandy takes control, getting her mom somewhere safe. And rushing off to help save the day.
• Ty sneaks into the Redhawk warehouse looking for his cloak. His dadis waiting for him, with the cloak. Otis tells him he believes he’s son but he has to run and never look back. Ty puts the cloak on and vanishes as the police arrive.
• Tandy, realizing just how badly she’s screwed up, goes to Mina’s place. She’s instantly tackled by a Terror and is forced to stab him. Upstairs in Mina’s apartment, a second one is about to kill Mina when Tandy saves her. Tandy fills her in and Mina, because she’s a good scientist, takes the new information and uses it to solve a problem. A big problem.
• Nine other valves, all about to blow. All over the city. And the only way to stop it is in Roxxon.
• Ty almost makes it to a cab but is recognized. A chase ensues, O’Reilly arrives to save him but he’s cornered. They’re both arrested.

• Auntie talks about the duel between two brothers that ended a life and a storm that threatened the city.
• O’Reilly and Ty are walked into the precinct but not booked. That isn’t good…
• Mina and Tandy head towards Roxxon. To her surprise, Tandy is able to talk the other woman around into something approximating hope.
• Ty and O’Reilly are locked up in a storeroom. Ty tries to use his powers but it doesn’t work. O’Reilly and Ty verbally tag team the cop guarding them. Ty, because no one deserves Ty, persuades the uniform to unlock them. Just in time for him to be replaced on shift.
• Peter Scarborough is engaging in a little light hard drive destruction when Tandy and Mina show up. He admits that they can’t shut it down and he’s running. Mina punches him and Tandy gets him to admit that it’s possible to close the system down after all, just like on the rig. Then she touches him and shows him his hopes. She tells him they’re through the door to the rig, and smiles as her nemesis steps through into Ivan Hess’ personal hell.
• At the precinct, Connors arrives and explains that Ty is going to ‘escape’, kill O’Reilly and then Connors will kill him. O’Reilly will be mourned as a hero and Connors will skate, once again.
• They’re being walked out when a Terror with a fire ax hacks his way into the station. He’s downed but the moment a cop touches him the infection spreads. All Hell breaks loose.
• Auntie talks about the Battle of New Orleans in the Civil War and how the private intended to spread the peace to the city died on the way. A young girl saw him, took his message up and ensured he was the last person to die in the war. Auntie makes it clear one of the Divine Pairing must die.
• Tandy and Mina are almost at the shut off point when Scarborough’s assassin gets to them. She’s cut down by a horde of Terrors but they make it inside, not before Mina is infected.
• At the station, O’Reilly and Ty make it to the weapons locker. O’Reilly tells him to get out of town but Ty refuses. This is his town. He has to help.
• Mina stalks Tandy as Ty leads all the Terrors into one room. Tandy is seconds from having to hurt her friend when Ty appears and tazes Mina, saving the day.
• Auntie talks about the Spanish Flu epidemic and a Doctor who sacrificed himself to save his lover, and in doing so saved both him and the city.
• Tandy and Ty are hiding in the church, crushed. Ty is horrified his cloak has been ripped apart, Tandy is horrified that the only person who could shut the system off is infected.
• Evita arrives and explains about the Divine Pairing. Tandy is, shall we say, unthrilled. But they both see the sense of what she’s saying.
• Ty kisses her, and her hand brushes against his arm. He’s been cut. In the exact same place every single Divine Pair who died was marked.
• She leaves and Tandy explains the plan; get to the core room, shut it down. Ty is distraught, convinced it won’t work. Tandy? Not having it.
• Besides, she has an idea;
• Billy’s hoodie.
• Time to go.
• They get to the area only to be surrounded by a group of Terrors. They fight them off, an entire horde arrives and they’re saved by O’Reilly, with a sniper rifle, taking the leaders out.
• She leaves to reload and is gunned down by Connors. Taking multiple shots to the vest, she gets a face full of energy when Connors shoots a valve open and collapses. He kicks her into the water and leaves her for dead.
• Connors corners Tandy and Ty outside the Roxxon facility. They take him apart, culminating in Ty drawing Connors into the darkforce energy of his cloak.
• There’s a tremor and Ty puts it together. His powers, the speed with which he can move around the city. He was always meant to be the one who died to save the city. Tandy starts to protest and Ty vanishes. and arrives in the core.
• And then, Tandy cuts her way through the door, yells at him and then…stumbles against a railing. She’s scarred. Same place as Ty. They both live or they both die.
• They realize the energy is both light and dark and bracing for it, touch. The shock waves roils over them and they scream as Tandy holds a dagger to the heavens, Ty opens his cloak and two columns of energy hurtle into the sky.
• They come to, smiling, holding hands. On the roof of the superdome stadium.
• At Roxxon, the assassin finds Peter Scarborough staring into space.
• At Ty’s home, his parents and Father Delgado are questioned by the police. Ty’s mom hears something and goes upstairs. She finds Ty’s drawers empty.
• Tandy moves back in with her mom, showing her a headline: ROXXON RESPONSIBLE. They’re finally getting their payout.
• Ty, duffel bag and bedroll in hand, arrives at the church. He takes a photo of the whole family out and puts it in a shelf, then sits, puts his hood up and gets used to his new life.
• Tandy arrives with a care package and they smile at one another.
• And in the swamp, O’Reilly surfaces. Not quite alive, not quite dead, her eyes green and her movements inhumanly fast…

Review:

Everything, and we do mean everything, ties together in the season finale. From the entire history of New Orleans to the hoodie to the 3D printed voodoo doll, Mina Hess and the events on the rig, all of it’s brought into land in this vastly tidy episode.

From a sheer structural point of view it’s a masterclass. Pokaski puts every toy down but does so in a manner that sets up season 2 brilliantly and flips the circumstances of the two leads. He also finds some time for other characters too, with Mina, Ty’s mom and Officer Lafayette all getting surprising emotional beats.

But what really works here is the sense of escalating scale and the common sense approach everyone has to it. Evita briefs the pair of them after being filled in by her Auntie and there’s no argument, just everyone on the same page. Mina buys into Tandy’s explanation completely because it fits the science. Even Lafayette almost releases Ty because it’s the right thing to do. This is an episode full of people making smart choices and it’s a welcome change. We especially loved the subversion of the Divine Pairing story at the end and the way that promises something very new, and potentially dangerous, for everyone. Ty and Tandy will have allies next year for sure, but also, odds are, some very new problems.

Cloak & Dagger season 1 has been, consistently, the strongest debut any Marvel show has had since season 1 of Daredevil. Willfully eccentric, fiercely smart and absolutely one of the best things to happen to scripted drama in years. Bring on season 2.

The Good:

• The structure, with the supernatural history of the city, is brilliant. This show is immensely well written.

• That first Terror coming out of nowhere and flattening Tandy is a hell of a shock.
• The fact O’Reilly’s outfit subtly keys into her alter-ego’s colour scheme is a nice touch.
• The 10 episode long payoff on Billie’s hoodie was SO worth it.
• Likewise Scarborough being trapped in Ivan’s Hell. Which also raises the interesting question of whether Tandy is a hard drive storing all the Hopes and Terrors she’s witnessed and if she can perhaps give them back to people too…
• The duality at the end, and the way the two leads swap places is so smart.
• The entire final scene being set to Come Sail Away is so completely weird, and uniquely Cloak & Dagger, that it works.

The Bad:

• The New Orleans apocalypse is a bit low end. The show does a good job of covering it but it is pretty serene for a citywide violence epidemic.
• The pacing is a tiny bit choppy too. There seem to have been a good chunk of scenes cut for time, as shown in the promo stills of Father Delgado.

The Random:

• Poor Detective O’Reilly has no manner of luck at all. The good news is she does get a vigilante alter-ego, Mayhem, who specifically targeted drug dealers. Not exactly a hero, or an ally to Cloak & Dagger, Mayhem remains one of the most interesting characters in their world and should be a fun addition to season 2.
• Joe Pokaski is of course the showrunner for Cloak & Dagger and co-executive producer for Daredevil. He’s also written for Daredevil, Underground, and Heroes as well as being a major part of almost all this first season’s scripts.
• Wayne Yip is a major force in modern genre direction, having done episodes of Class, Doctor Who, Preacher and Into The Badlands among many others.

Best Lines:

• ‘It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t anything resembling justice. It just was.’
• ‘Why you?’
  ‘Why not?’
• ‘We need to get to Roxxon.’
  ‘Of course we do.’
• ‘You found her, Tyrone’s divine pairing.’
  ‘I found her but she ain’t particularly divine.’
• ‘You’re not supposed to talk.’
  ‘They’ve been telling me that my whole life yet here I am, gabbing.’
• ‘With great power comes more power. And in this day and age you have to keep up with the Joneses. As well as the Starks and the Rands.’
• ‘Took you long enough.’
• ‘You really gonna try and shoot at me again?’

‘

Read all of our Cloak and Dagger reviews here