Cloak and Dagger

There seems to be an abundance of riches these past few years as far as comic book shows go. I can count at least nine comic book series I have watched. JUST THIS YEAR! Thankfully with each new show that comes out, they all have something fresh to offer.

This is what I felt about Cloak and Dagger. Look, I know this will sound like I have said this about a lot of things on this blog, but it is true. I've been a Cloak and Dagger fan for years. Unlike the other characters I have talked about loving before, I can't even determine when I started to like these two. I'm not even going to quantify it.

I say all that to set up that I was looking forward to this show. This might be a minor complaint, but it is something I am noticing with more of these shows. There is a definite slow burn that is happening. Since it's not serialized television, you have a long running arc that goes throughout the season. What I had worried about here is that this show was a super hero show based on all the ads. That is barely what this show is about. So, I feel like those that came to this show expecting super heroes are going to be disappointed. Yes, they do have powers, but half the season are these two trying to figure it all out. They don't even appear in costume.

However, I did actually like this show. I just felt like it dragged a little in the middle. Also, knowing that these two are a couple in the comics, I kept shipping them hard and being disappointed when it wasn't going in that direction. This is my OWN baggage. I am at least thankful that it kept me guessing.

I also want to say that I loved that they chose New Orleans as the setting. In the comics, damn near every super hero is based in New York. These two are no exception. It's nice to see that with some of these shows, they are willing to move the characters to completely different locales. This is a city I don't see much of, so it's a refreshing change. The city also plays a part into many elements of the story.

As silly as their origin seems here, it's a lot better than the original conceit. Marvel really loved to tie all their super heroes to drugs in some way. Other small things that changed for the better, is they got rid of Tyrone's stutter, which was a big part of his personality within the comics. He didn't need that as a crutch. Giving him a somewhat happy home life helped flesh him out.

If I have a criticism, it's that not all of the actors are strong. This is a cable TV show and I feel like that shows. The main actors playing Tyrone and Tandy are good, it's just some of the periphery characters. I'm thinking of most of the cops that show up. Tandy's mom was a tad annoying too.

I am so glad that we didn't get a cartoony, comic book type of villain. These two are not fighting a costumed super villain. There are a lot of shades of grey here. I got wrapped up in the main mysteries of the season. That being the duel vengeance for the death of Tyrone's brother and Tandy's father. You wanted to see justice done and guess what, spoiler, it gets resolved. I now look forward to see where they go with their main quests achieved. There I am hoping they will be in some form of their costumes. All of the promo material had them looking like that, so I feel like that was the biggest bait and switch.

Would I recommend this show to others? Absolutely. The only caveat I would make is that this is a show aimed at teenagers, so you will have to deal with teenage angst. For me, I already watch Riverdale unabashedly, so I'm fine with teenage angst in my life.