1x06 Suckas Need Bodyguards

6.2/10. I enjoy a potboiler as much as the next guy, but man, for an episode about a dirty cop taking refuge with his enemies, this episode was so boring. A friend of mine commented that he likes the MCU Netflix shows, but feel like they stretch about 9 episodes worth of incident out to a 13 episode season, and this is the first time I've really felt that complaint come to life.

There's basically three stories here. The first is Luke and Clare Temple carting Scarfe around. Unfortunately not even Clare can liven up the scenes with the charisma suck of Luke. She's fun, and I still enjoy her kicking around the various neighborhoods of Marvel's New York City, but the last thing I'm asking for is for another of these shows' interesting characters to be paired up with a dull log like him. The Scarf stuff was a little better, with Luke showing a dark side that makes him a little more interesting, but the whole effort to get his notepad to expose Cottonmouth and then get away from the guys going after the bounty felt like it was unnecessarily drawn out.

Misty going after Scarfe had a bit more juice to him. I still think they're overplaying the "Misty is a brilliant cop" thing. Her being able to visualize crime scenes based on photos is all well and good, but we haven't really seen the detective work to justify it, so it comes off as a told not shown characteristic for her. The fact that she's able to sniff out and trap Perez as a dirty cop goes a step in the right direction, but still feels like we learn more about her character from clumsy expository monologues than from anything we actually see the character do. That said, the moment where she finds Scarfe, tears up, and jokes with him as he's dying was a highlight of the episode, and the best performance we've seen from the actress.

The best part of the episode, however, is the one with Councilwoman Mariah. Frankly, thus far I wish the series centered on her rather than Luke since she's been far more interesting as a character. The idea that she is someone trying to transcend her criminal familial roots to become part of respectable society, who's doing her best to be an operator while still having to move in that world is way more interesting than a muscly bulletproof guy. The way the reporter sells her on a fluffy story and then corners her with connections to the crime world, including her grandmother and Cottonmouth, is a nice illustration of that.

Mariah is trying to project an image, one of revitalization and tradition, but as the reporter throws in her face, there's a dark side to that history, one involving crime and corruption that she's desperately trying to outrun. The episode seems to tie a bow on the opening arc of the season, with Cottonmouth getting arrested, and Luke claiming that he's going to move on despite the obvious next threat looming on the horizon. But Mariah's reaction to the news that Cottonmouth is going to jail, she's been tied to him, and some random guy named Canada who's likely looking to nab her political power in the community is another great performance moment that sells this character better than any other on the show.

It will be interesting to see where the second half of the series goes, since this seems like a dividing line. Captain Kima (sorry non-fans of The Wire, I don't know what the character's real name is and she'll always be Kima to me) suggests there's more about corruption and a cowardice to root out the rot in the system to be explored. But with the first half's major threat neutralized for the time being, I'm curious to see what fills the vacuum.

(As an aside, it was nice to hear from Trish's radio show at the top of the episode. Her comments didn't make much sense and were a bit clunky all around, but it's another small detail that helps make these Netflix shows feel like part of a universe and not just silo'd individual stories.)