Luke Cage, Bushmaster, and Why No One Ever Really Wins with Capitalism [SEASON REVIEW]

This isn’t about to be your typical, pseudo-woke longform thinkpiece about race, politics, and buzzwords that you must be tired of hearing on the daily by now. However, Marvel’s grandiose effort with this season of Luke Cage, exclusively streaming on Netflix, is a dynamic and masterfully illustrated message that should not be ignored in its gravity. In the Fall of 2016, we received the first season of Luke Cage-a dark-skinned, bulletproof Black man in a hoodie (beautiful, ironic symbolism by the way) ridding his community of organized crime and dangers upon its citizens. With twist and turns, elements of Marvel movies mixed in with elements of modern police dramas and essential Easter Eggs of Black culture, Season 1 was a smash hit.

Season 2, albeit missing of Mahershala Ali’s flawless acting as the character Cottonmouth because of events the past season, incorporated similar elements of a working formula-including notable Black musical artist performances, Black pop culture references, great fighting choreography, detailed plot transitioning, Marvel Netflix cameos, etc.-for a hell of a good time. However, there was a central element and message this season that never left my thought process. Months ago this year in 2018, during the ludicrous trailer of the repetitive nonsense that was the plot of Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, I remember my colleague, in an aside to me, saying:

You notice how capitalism is always the real villain?

Whether he was being partially facetious or not, his words shook me, stuck with me, and proved itself true in every way with the underlying message Season 2 of Luke Cage on Netflix: No one ever really wins in the end with capitalism.

As with the first season, Luke Cage, an ex-con compelled with restraint, is the hero of Harlem, NY and anti-thesis to the toxic law and order of Harlem’s streets. Instead of his bouts with Cottonmouth and Diamondback, whom he survived last season, Cage deals with “Black” Mariah Stokes, the politician cousin of Cottonmouth, as she falls victim to her lust for acquisition of generational power and wealth in the legacy of her organized family lineage. Cage doesn’t give two hells about the legacy, dismantling the toxic capitalist collective working with/under Stokes the entire second season, who lust after for control of Harlem’s people, institutions and cash flow. Luke Cage is not the enemy of Stokes and the other gangsters because he wants to help people by keeping the peace; Luke Cage is the enemy because he is not letting the gangsters get their money at the expense of others no matter the determined cause-the most fundamental evil of capitalism. Regardless of Cage’s wins against those trying to get a piece of his city, two notable developments appeared:

1. People were trying to profit off of Cage’s success and stature, with the young boy DW selling shirts and Luke Cage merchandise/content whether Luke got his ass beat or not, and endorsements from big companies like Nike trying to make Luke Cage into a money machine of a juggernaut.
2. People getting paid off left and right at every turn (hired hands, Mariah’s lawyer, other neighboring mobsters, police cops) to continue the cycle of retaining power and wealth over Harlem.

With either development, the love of the dollar motivated all except Cage, Misty Knight, and a select few.

The character of Bushmaster is a Black Shakespean-character like case study. Disregarding the debate of the authenticity of the Jamaican accents flaunted throughout the season, Bushmaster proved himself as one of the greatest anti-heroes I have ever seen. Bushmaster’s crusade was one of the most stern convictions: to end the reign of the Stokes family over the Harlem’s Paradise club and Harlem itself. For years, Bushmaster learned the most brutal martial arts, studied and utilized top tier natural medicines to make himself superhuman to the point of severe anatomical decay, and rallied all the money and goons he could master to annihilate the Stokes empire.

The creation of Bushmaster’s inhuman tenacity stems directly from how malicious capitalism can get. Season 2 of Luke Cage shined with its essential flashback highlighting the past versions of the series’ most paramount characters: Uncle Pete, Mama Stokes, Mariah Stokes, Cottonmouth (Cornell Stokes), Bushmaster, and Bushmaster’s closest relatives. The Stokes family head murdered Bushmaster’s father, even after the two built Harlem’s Paradise from the ground-up, because of much bigger profits of sole-ownership. The flashback showed Maybelline Stokes (Mama Mabel) and Peter Stokes (Pistol Pete) denying a settlement with Bushmaster’s mother in order for them to retain all funds and ownership of Harlem’s Paradise. Mabel and Pete laughed hard in the meeting, later burning down the McIver household (burning Bushmaster’s mother alive) and later having Pistol Pete shoot Bushmaster on a random day of his new life-all for the sake of the dollar.

Thus, Bushmaster’s unfiltered, yet calculated rage for the results of the Stokes’ temporary “win” ultimately resulted in him almost burning Mariah Stokes alive, stealing $350+ million from her, taking over Harlem’s Paradise and running his own organized syndicate. Unfortunately for his life’s ambitions, the things that permanently curbed his standing power was his avarice for money and power over Harlem by any means (capitalism) and Luke Cage.

Alfre Woodard as “Black” Mariah Stokes is worthy of several acting awards. No other character quite portrays the vileness of how dark capitalism can get like Mariah Stokes. Mariah’s lust for power and solidification of the Stokes empire in Harlem for years to come dwarfed her “positive” ambitions of her Family First Initiative. Through the lust of the dollar, Black Mariah became a bigger and more vicious crime lord than her late cousin Cornell “Cottonmouth” Stokes, murdering Bushmaster’s kinsfolk in New York in their own safe haven of a shop (burning them alive too) introducing cannibal tendency-inducing drugs into the youth of Harlem, and even being a devilish monster to her own daughter, lovers, and long-term allies.

Black Mariah’s capitalistic acquisitions were profitable, but without any ethical consideration for those of her community. Karma slayed Black Mariah in the end, with her choking on her own blood and no one left to help her. The greatest representation of capitalism with Mariah was the family lawyer, who had bailed out the family and their entire syndicate for years, who quit his loyal services once Mariah ran out of money and it was Bushmaster who had the funds. Mariah, before her death, had began seeing the ghosts of her past, Pistol Pete (her uncle) and Mama Mabel (her mother), who also died in pursuit of the dollar. In the end, Black Mariah too fell like Bushmaster, not able to control her insatiable, capitalistic lusts to control all. With Mariah’s death however, like a virus, she passed on the toxic mindset of money and power to her most tragic, yet “reliable” foe: Luke Cage.

This entire season we saw the most conflicted version of Cage, betwixt being pulled in different directions as Harlem’s Hero, impediment to conflicted justice (Bushmaster), bodyguard (Mariah and Piranha), responsible lover (Claire) and vigilante. Just imagine trying to be the stereotypical “strong Black man” through all of this mess too. Judas bullets, drowning, magic spells, legions of thugs, rocket launchers, belle-fleurs of the mafia boss level of temptation, and so much more could not quell the justice of Cage this season. However, Mariah knew his weakness in the end: the superego that came with the superhuman abilities and gravity attached feeling like having to control everything all the time. In Mariah’s will, she gave Luke Cage, in a crazy twist of fate, Harlem’s Paradise. The club was Cottonmouth’s throne, Mariah’s throne, and even Bushmaster’s for a brief time. The allure of the aura there influenced its ruler to maintain the spreading of the power there and beyond.

As good as Cage’s intentions are, when he took on commanding Harlem’s Paradise, he already lost. Claire, Luke Cage’s problematic pastor father, Iron Fist, Misty Knight and more warned Cage about his transformation due to his conflict of how to handle power. Unfortunately, Cage took the path of all of his previous enemies, spewing a philosophy once upon the throne at the end of the final episode that sounded reminiscent of his adversaries’ philosophies, if not the budding seeds of it at the very least. An enemy of the capitalistic juggernauts he had to eliminate, Luke Cage ended the unforgettable second season by becoming everything he fought against.

No one ever really wins with capitalism, ever. By its design, if unregulated, its premise is to keep feeding off of the profit of othes, which does not sound bad when considering economics and the balance, regulation and spreading of wealth. But, in order to keep winning, the beast of capitalism has to continue to eat more to beat its equally insatiable capitalist beasts in the same sphere. And, tragically enough, if one is able to defeat these beasts, they too have to indulge in capitalistic processes in order to maintain capital and power, being sucked into the same loop after time. With power and money, you come up the same way you go down. From Cottonmouth, to Mariah and the Stokes Family, to Bushmaster, to Piranha, the other heads of the mafia families, and finally Luke Cage, we have seen with Marvel’s Luke Cage Season 2 that with the hot potato game of capitalism, no one ever really wins in the end.