Frank Whaley
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With His ‘Goddamn TV Money,’ John Early Is Making Queer Theater
‘Luke Cage’ 1×05/06/07 Recap: Complications
If there’s a primary artistic drawback to the binge-and-purge model of television that Netflix has adopted, in which it dumps an entire season on you on a Friday and essentially dares you to spend the bulk of your free time over the next few days tunneling through the rubble till you hit fresh air again, it’s how easy it is for simple, subtle, finely observed moments to get lost in the sweep of a larger storyline. Actually, no, that’s not quite it. In watching episodes 5-7 of Luke Cage, which take us from his emergence as a local celebrity to the unexpected death of his erstwhile nemesis Cottonmouth, strong bits of writing, acting, and filmmaking do indeed stand out. The problem is that in doing so, they reveal much of the workaday business of the series for the time-filling make-work it is.