Luke Cage, season 2
Jun. 25th, 2018 10:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakOr, the one where it’s evident Luke never watched the fifth season of Angel but Mariah has, while the scriptwriters and directors are really into The Godfather and film noir. And the overall verdict is: very mixed. Acting is great (and the season takes full advantage of having Alfe Woodard at its disposal as a main villain this time around), sense of place is still the strongest of any of the Marvel tv shows, there are no bewildering clunkers like the instant from s1 when Mariah after an incident of police brutality got to show her political demagogue powers by… making Harlem cry to give the police more weapons. Also, Misty has a great arc, and as opposed to Jessica Jones‘ second season , which doesn’t mention any Defenders related events, Luke Cage‘s second season mentions them left, right and center, with the connections made there continuing to exist in places where it makes sense. (I.e., Foggy continues to be Luke’s lawyer when he needs one, Misty goes to Colleen both for physical post-injury training and to confide in, and Danny Rand shows up when it makes sense that he would, reminding me that not so coincidentally his best scenes in Defenders were with Luke and demonstrating that the actor when given a better script and direction is apparantly fine. Oh, and Claire remembers belatedly what her Matt Murdock experience has taught her re: dating a certain type.
But. On the spoilery downside, there’s our central character, Luke Cage, and what the show does and doesn’t do with him. I’ll get to what under the cut. Let me just add that imo, the season is the story of the three villains – Mariah, Shades and new character Bushmaster/John McGyver. They and their conflict are what is driving the overall story, and it only intermittently involves Luke. If you want a show to be protagonist-driven, that’s a bit of a structural problem right there. Now, onto spoiler stuff.
During the first three episodes, I groaned and told myself, here we go, just like Daredevil s2 and Jessica Jones s2, Luke Cage s2 was driving towards enstrangement and break-up between the main character and his loved ones. This turned out not to be the case, in that while Luke loses his relationship with Claire (through his own fault), he does keep everyone else until arguably the very end of the season. Also, while said first three episodes increase his inner jerk factor until Claire breaks up with him, this is a sobering experience and he’s solid for the remaining season. However. That means you start the season with our hero acting jerkish, then, for the remaining season, basically reacting to what the villains are doing in terms of damage control but not being pro-actively doing something sympathetic. What I mean is: in the first season, we saw Luke trying to help people in other ways than physically defending them/attacking their attackers. Hell, we even saw that early in The Defenders (what brings him into the main plot there is trying to help out a troubled young guy and his mother). One reason why Danny feels like a breath of fresh air in the episode where he does show up is that this is that suddenly, you have Luke scenes where he’s hanging out with someone, kidding around, listening to and giving advice.
Also, there’s the general MCU-tv branch problem of on the one hand we’re told that the whole „to kill someone other than as a means of self defense/saving another person’s life“ means crossing the moral horizon in the eyes of its heroes. Yet on the other hand the Daredevil fight scenes are so brutal that swallowing your disbelief that none of this supposedly results in either death or serious crippling and coma becomes an ongoing exercise, and when Claire is horrified to see Luke almost beat someone (a wife and child abuser) to death and being unrepentant about it thereafter, instead of simply knocking the man unconscious which she knows he can do, I both understand the reaction displayed and think „but, um, him getting information out of people by hurting them was okay as a general principle? (This is why the only MCU character whose abhorrence of killing really resonates with me is Peter Parker. His method of fighting doesn’t feel like it’s likely to result in permanent brain damage and broken spines.) Not to mention that the lot of them signed up on killing the Hand and assorted minions in the Defenders finale via building implosion.
And then there’s the show finale. Wherein Luke ends up taking the keys to the kingdom, to slightly paraphrase the late Lilah Morgan when she gave those to Angel and company. Luke having come to the conclusion that you can only protect Harlem by essentially becoming a king(pin) yourself and accepting Mariah’s legacy as she wanted arrives with the show literally restaging the famous conclusion scene from The Godfather, with Misty as Kay watching as Luke/Michael accepts homage while the door closes in her face. (And just in case we’d miss the allusion, earlier a character tells Luke „you’re really Don Corleone now“.) Except that Michael going from „this is my family, this is not me“ to organizing a massacre as his bloody coronation is his big arc through that movie, and we see him making several decisions along the way that take him there. Not so for Luke.
Meanwhile, it’s Mariah who has the descend-into-complete-darkness arc this season, going from individual murder to big time massacres. Not that she was good before that, this hardly comes out of nowhere, and if I regret the scriptwriters going fort he film noir trope of the villainous couple eventually turning on each other with her and Shades, it’s mostly because I had hopes for them becoming another villain couple I like at the end of s1. Alas no, not least because it’s so uneven and one sided and noirish between them, as in, you can never tell whether Mariah feels anything for Shades at all beyond basic sexual attraction, while he’s presented as devoted above and beyond. (Still my gold standard for villain couple whose villainy isn’t excused or prettified while their devotion and loyalty to each other remains steadfast and strong: Lucretia and Batiatus from Spartacus.) The other thing I regret about Mariah is that the show doesn’t let her be smarter about a couple of choices she makes; she’s more the Cersei Lannister type of villain who considers herself better at overladydom than she actually is. Otoh Alfe Woodard gets so many acting showcases in those episodes that it’s impossible not to want to watch them, and of course the Greek myth fan in me is into the entire House-of-Atreus tragedy they give her. (So of courseElektra her daughter is the one to kill her in the end.) Making Luke her heir, if you take it as Mariah’s story, not Luke’s, was also a masterstroke to go out on (as she’s fully convinced it will corrupt him), as well as one last effort to cling to her self belief that she does love Harlem.
New villain-with-tragic background Bushmaster is a better character than Diamondback (ugh) turned out to be, though his insistence that Mariah was Mariah Stokes every single time someone referred to her as Mariah Dillard really grew old fast. And yet, despite not having cared for over-the-top Diamondback in the least and considering the „he grew up with Luke and is in fact his illegitimate brother“ reveal having come far too late last season, I found myself oddly irritated by the fact that in all the father-son arguments between Luke and the Reverend, Wylis (spelling?) comes up only twice and very briefly. You’d think that if the Rev’s big arc in the season is to convince his son he does want to be a good father after all, he’s show the tiniest bit of regret about having messed up the other kid and/or interest on what the hell happened there, but no. Anyway, Bushmaster: fight scenes with Luke aside, it was Mariah he had the epic feud with, and her daughter Tilda he had the emotional resolution with, which, again, see above, structural problem.
Misty, on the other hand: the show does everything right with her. The loss of her arm isn’t treated lightly while also not as the only thing she has to struggle with. Her wondering whether or not she can continue as a cop, what the right thing to do is was the ongoing inner conflict we didn’t get to see with Luke, and given all the times it’s stated that legal methods are inefficient against the villains and only vigilantism has a chance, I found it very satisfying indeed that what eventually allows Misty to arrest Mariah is good old legal detective work (her eye for detail, matching bullets and weapons and tracking down the right answers) in combination of Shades being pushed too far. (Note: neither of which had anything to do with Luke.) Her scenes with Colleen are about her, not about how the guys are doing, and while she’s friendly with Luke, it cracked me up that she shuts down the question as to whether he can crash at her place after Claire kicked him out immediately and definitely. Not getting wrapped up in someone else’s drama, especially when having your own issues going on: SMART choice, Misty.
Also well done: most of the humorous bits, like Foggy’s „I can’t believe I’m saying this, but have you considered wearing a mask?“ and Luke’s reply. On the darker side, Claire’s belated Matt comparisons and realisation she’s been there, done this, and Luke going „I’m not Matt Murdock“ also felt right, though they made me think at the time, no, Luke, you’re not, you’ve found a far more intentional way to be an ass. Seriously, Claire deserves so much better.
Let's see, what else: show, I appreciate you belatedly discover same sex relationships exist by letting Comanche and Shades have a sex-in-prison backstory in addition to their earlier bffs-from-childhood tale and by letting Comanche still be in love with Shades in the present. Also by Shades not being in denial about it, just due to his involvement with Mariah unavailable sexually. However, given that this is the sole m/m relationship we get and that it ends bloodily, I wish we'd also have gotten something else. Why not let Misty in the bar when she's ready to flirt again eye a woman instead of a man, for example?
In conclusion: Jessica Jones is still the best of the tv shows for me. And I’ve had my fill of „alienation between hero and friends“ tales for now; can we just not for a chance with whatever comes next?
But. On the spoilery downside, there’s our central character, Luke Cage, and what the show does and doesn’t do with him. I’ll get to what under the cut. Let me just add that imo, the season is the story of the three villains – Mariah, Shades and new character Bushmaster/John McGyver. They and their conflict are what is driving the overall story, and it only intermittently involves Luke. If you want a show to be protagonist-driven, that’s a bit of a structural problem right there. Now, onto spoiler stuff.
During the first three episodes, I groaned and told myself, here we go, just like Daredevil s2 and Jessica Jones s2, Luke Cage s2 was driving towards enstrangement and break-up between the main character and his loved ones. This turned out not to be the case, in that while Luke loses his relationship with Claire (through his own fault), he does keep everyone else until arguably the very end of the season. Also, while said first three episodes increase his inner jerk factor until Claire breaks up with him, this is a sobering experience and he’s solid for the remaining season. However. That means you start the season with our hero acting jerkish, then, for the remaining season, basically reacting to what the villains are doing in terms of damage control but not being pro-actively doing something sympathetic. What I mean is: in the first season, we saw Luke trying to help people in other ways than physically defending them/attacking their attackers. Hell, we even saw that early in The Defenders (what brings him into the main plot there is trying to help out a troubled young guy and his mother). One reason why Danny feels like a breath of fresh air in the episode where he does show up is that this is that suddenly, you have Luke scenes where he’s hanging out with someone, kidding around, listening to and giving advice.
Also, there’s the general MCU-tv branch problem of on the one hand we’re told that the whole „to kill someone other than as a means of self defense/saving another person’s life“ means crossing the moral horizon in the eyes of its heroes. Yet on the other hand the Daredevil fight scenes are so brutal that swallowing your disbelief that none of this supposedly results in either death or serious crippling and coma becomes an ongoing exercise, and when Claire is horrified to see Luke almost beat someone (a wife and child abuser) to death and being unrepentant about it thereafter, instead of simply knocking the man unconscious which she knows he can do, I both understand the reaction displayed and think „but, um, him getting information out of people by hurting them was okay as a general principle? (This is why the only MCU character whose abhorrence of killing really resonates with me is Peter Parker. His method of fighting doesn’t feel like it’s likely to result in permanent brain damage and broken spines.) Not to mention that the lot of them signed up on killing the Hand and assorted minions in the Defenders finale via building implosion.
And then there’s the show finale. Wherein Luke ends up taking the keys to the kingdom, to slightly paraphrase the late Lilah Morgan when she gave those to Angel and company. Luke having come to the conclusion that you can only protect Harlem by essentially becoming a king(pin) yourself and accepting Mariah’s legacy as she wanted arrives with the show literally restaging the famous conclusion scene from The Godfather, with Misty as Kay watching as Luke/Michael accepts homage while the door closes in her face. (And just in case we’d miss the allusion, earlier a character tells Luke „you’re really Don Corleone now“.) Except that Michael going from „this is my family, this is not me“ to organizing a massacre as his bloody coronation is his big arc through that movie, and we see him making several decisions along the way that take him there. Not so for Luke.
Meanwhile, it’s Mariah who has the descend-into-complete-darkness arc this season, going from individual murder to big time massacres. Not that she was good before that, this hardly comes out of nowhere, and if I regret the scriptwriters going fort he film noir trope of the villainous couple eventually turning on each other with her and Shades, it’s mostly because I had hopes for them becoming another villain couple I like at the end of s1. Alas no, not least because it’s so uneven and one sided and noirish between them, as in, you can never tell whether Mariah feels anything for Shades at all beyond basic sexual attraction, while he’s presented as devoted above and beyond. (Still my gold standard for villain couple whose villainy isn’t excused or prettified while their devotion and loyalty to each other remains steadfast and strong: Lucretia and Batiatus from Spartacus.) The other thing I regret about Mariah is that the show doesn’t let her be smarter about a couple of choices she makes; she’s more the Cersei Lannister type of villain who considers herself better at overladydom than she actually is. Otoh Alfe Woodard gets so many acting showcases in those episodes that it’s impossible not to want to watch them, and of course the Greek myth fan in me is into the entire House-of-Atreus tragedy they give her. (So of course
New villain-with-tragic background Bushmaster is a better character than Diamondback (ugh) turned out to be, though his insistence that Mariah was Mariah Stokes every single time someone referred to her as Mariah Dillard really grew old fast. And yet, despite not having cared for over-the-top Diamondback in the least and considering the „he grew up with Luke and is in fact his illegitimate brother“ reveal having come far too late last season, I found myself oddly irritated by the fact that in all the father-son arguments between Luke and the Reverend, Wylis (spelling?) comes up only twice and very briefly. You’d think that if the Rev’s big arc in the season is to convince his son he does want to be a good father after all, he’s show the tiniest bit of regret about having messed up the other kid and/or interest on what the hell happened there, but no. Anyway, Bushmaster: fight scenes with Luke aside, it was Mariah he had the epic feud with, and her daughter Tilda he had the emotional resolution with, which, again, see above, structural problem.
Misty, on the other hand: the show does everything right with her. The loss of her arm isn’t treated lightly while also not as the only thing she has to struggle with. Her wondering whether or not she can continue as a cop, what the right thing to do is was the ongoing inner conflict we didn’t get to see with Luke, and given all the times it’s stated that legal methods are inefficient against the villains and only vigilantism has a chance, I found it very satisfying indeed that what eventually allows Misty to arrest Mariah is good old legal detective work (her eye for detail, matching bullets and weapons and tracking down the right answers) in combination of Shades being pushed too far. (Note: neither of which had anything to do with Luke.) Her scenes with Colleen are about her, not about how the guys are doing, and while she’s friendly with Luke, it cracked me up that she shuts down the question as to whether he can crash at her place after Claire kicked him out immediately and definitely. Not getting wrapped up in someone else’s drama, especially when having your own issues going on: SMART choice, Misty.
Also well done: most of the humorous bits, like Foggy’s „I can’t believe I’m saying this, but have you considered wearing a mask?“ and Luke’s reply. On the darker side, Claire’s belated Matt comparisons and realisation she’s been there, done this, and Luke going „I’m not Matt Murdock“ also felt right, though they made me think at the time, no, Luke, you’re not, you’ve found a far more intentional way to be an ass. Seriously, Claire deserves so much better.
Let's see, what else: show, I appreciate you belatedly discover same sex relationships exist by letting Comanche and Shades have a sex-in-prison backstory in addition to their earlier bffs-from-childhood tale and by letting Comanche still be in love with Shades in the present. Also by Shades not being in denial about it, just due to his involvement with Mariah unavailable sexually. However, given that this is the sole m/m relationship we get and that it ends bloodily, I wish we'd also have gotten something else. Why not let Misty in the bar when she's ready to flirt again eye a woman instead of a man, for example?
In conclusion: Jessica Jones is still the best of the tv shows for me. And I’ve had my fill of „alienation between hero and friends“ tales for now; can we just not for a chance with whatever comes next?
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Date: 2018-06-25 09:59 am (UTC)I want the Misty & Colleen Daughters of the Dragon to be a show.
I want Claire to find somebody emotionally stable to be in a relationship with.
The hopeless Jessica/Luke shipper in me wants them back together if I no longer have Claire/Luke to not want to break up. But considering Jess is on the outs with Malcolm and Trish so Oscar & his son are all she has, and considering Luke is going to a dark place . . . Even if they never get back together it would be nice to get some crossovers in their third seasons. I can definitely see Jessica's snarky responses to Luke's new role.
Yes, enough with all this "second book of a trilogy" stuff. I hope we get some decent resolutions of all these shattered relationships in the third seasons. At least it was looking in that direction for DD season 3 during The Defenders.
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Date: 2018-06-25 02:23 pm (UTC)Re: Jessica, given that Danny and Colleen showed up this season, I wouldn't exclude the possibility that Jessica shows up in Luke's third season in order to help him find back to himself at some critical point. It would bring things full circle again since their relationship, screwed up as it was, helped her get out of her post-Kilgrave state. And in Defenders, they had ended up in a good place with each other. Otoh, we might get a second Defenders season first, in which case they'll definitely interact there.
Mind you, my own guest starring dream for Jessica is a case episode for her and Matt on Daredevil, because I had loved their interactions, and their civilian professions just match.
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Date: 2018-06-25 02:41 pm (UTC)They should ALL turn up on each other's shows. They all live in the same city, after all . . .
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Date: 2018-06-25 07:12 pm (UTC)http://www.ign.com/articles/2018/06/07/marvels-jeph-loeb-on-whether-the-defenders-season-2-is-planned
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Date: 2018-06-26 08:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-06-27 04:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-06-25 07:10 pm (UTC)YES. The actresses have great chemistry. I loved the faces they kept pulling when 'Morty' was trying to talk to them. If we get even a hint of that in Iron Fist S2, I'll love it.
Jessica and Luke are one of my fave couples ever in the comics, but I'm not sure how it would work for their MCU selves (unless it just goes totally dark).
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Date: 2018-06-25 08:21 pm (UTC)Although I can live without Jessica/Luke, I find that the lost of Jessica & Trish is what's really killing me. Trish definitely screwed up. But that "I love you" at the end of S. 1 was such a transcendent moment and I can't bear to think they won't somehow reconcile.
I'm trying to figure a way Jessica/Luke could work in the series-es. I think they both need to hit bottom in their different ways and then help each other on the way back up. I'd prefer them to be a couple, but if they did it as friends that would be pretty cool, too.
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Date: 2018-06-25 08:41 pm (UTC)And if they're really going to base DD S3 on the Born Again comic run....yeah, that's going to be dark.
Jess and Trish -- I loved JJ S2 actually but that HURT. I liked Trish's arc and how it mirrored S1 and really want her to come back as Hellcat, but I also want her and Jess to reunite, like, IMMEDIATELY. (AND THEN KISS.)
I'm trying to figure a way Jessica/Luke could work in the series-es. I think they both need to hit bottom in their different ways and then help each other on the way back up. I'd prefer them to be a couple, but if they did it as friends that would be pretty cool, too.
That would be neat, either way -- they were scorching hot as a couple but I liked the tentative beginning friendship they had in Defenders too.
no subject
Date: 2018-06-26 09:32 am (UTC)I haven't gotten to the end of Luke Cage yet, though I'm spoiled, obviously, of my own volition. (It's going to be a busy week workwise and I don't want to miss out on the conversations . . . ) It sounds like a dramatically satisfying ending, but also that it can't be sustained longterm without too drastically compromising who Luke really is. Also I completely agree about Karen in the next season of DD -- don't you dare hurt her, showrunners!
Agreed about the legal conflicts, which you put quite well. Though as an NYC resident since the mid-80s, there's not much grit here anymore. It's gotten gentrified out of existence, just as we see happening to Hell's Kitchen in the shows. (Also Luke's bar from JJ s. 1 is in my neighborhood and whenever I go past, I always look in the window sadly, though I am not delusional and know he is not real . . . )
I'm afraid I'm one of "those" who doesn't really know the comics, though I did read the Alias sequence last summer, because Jessica.
I'm hoping that Jessica and Hellcat-Trish will end up fighting side by side and that will lead to an ultimate reconciliation in s. 3. I just can't stand them being alienated. I didn't think anything could break me more than Jessica/Luke, but I was so very very wrong.
Though self-contradictory as I may be, I also think Misty is so right to not get caught back up in Luke's charms. I liked her in s. 1 of Luke Cage but I adore her like anything now.
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Date: 2018-06-25 08:22 pm (UTC)ITA the acting is uniformly great, the setting is still almost like another character in itself (I loved the scenes at Gwen's), MISTY remains fantastic and is basically the co-lead, Misty and Colleen were fantastic together, and I did not want to drown Danny in a bucket which is a not-so-minor miracle. Alfre Woodard continues to be great, but I really disliked what they did with her character, and Shades, too. Mariah hardly had any time in the sun at all before it started all going wrong for her, and her daughter was a bit of a blank. Bushmaster was a way better villain than Diamondback, nowhere near as good as Cottonmouth, and he seemed to have maybe three lines (including "Mariah STOKES. Mariah STOKES" and the joke about Usain, which got real old real quick), but the actor made him threatening without being stereotypical and then even sympathetic. The direction and cinematography and music were all amazing, and they kept all the direct references to African-American culture going, from Luke reading Ta-Nehisi Coates to Mariah's daughter going to Howard to Mariah naming her family center after Shirley Chisholm. The music is essential, the live performances and score and carefully chosen songs. The show does so many things so right.
But it was hard to believe Shades, who was so burningly focused on Mariah and what they could do together in S1, was so insecure he'd severely beat someone for an honest mistake based on her age. I guess they set Mariah up for a Richard III-type "you reach the top and then flame out" arc, but like Shades she was too deep in the weeds right from the start. And I gotta admit, I hated that they killed off Mariah. I guess they're setting up her daughter as a new entry in the Stokes matriarchal line but that is NOT going to work just in terms of acting power alone. I really didn't like that her attempt to both embrace and rise above her family history ended so cruelly, while Bushmaster escaped that fate. It feels like they squandered Woodard and Mariah was ground down way too hard. That was a personal dealbreaker.
I really liked your comparison of Luke to Angel S5 and the Godfather -- I was reminded of Buffy S6, too, and the question of what makes a hero if they lose nearly everything that defines them and they start acting in self-destructive ways. But where Buffy had the weight of five other seasons behind the character and the "came back wrong"/"thrown out of heaaav'n" motivations, Luke going dark this fast seemed very OOC. They seemed to be paralleling him with Mariah, which also didn't work for me. Luke has always been quietly confident and sure of himself in a very grounded way, but he's flailing even before he flips out at Claire in the third ep. I don't think Luke has to be perfect, but he was really set up as a moral center of the show, and now it's like he got an angst transplant from Matt. Maybe he's supposed to be reclaiming some power after multiple storylines of him being used and victimized (by the prison officials, the scientists, Kilgrave, his half-brother, even by his first wife and Jessica) but if so I'm not crazy about where that wound up. S1 Luke was flawed but hung onto himself, even when he was being taken back to prison in that last ep. S2 Luke just feels like a hot mess. And the writing and acting is so good I would probably be fine with Luke being a hot mess, as long as it wasn't being dictated by the plot requirements, not who and where he is.
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Date: 2018-06-26 08:34 am (UTC)Yes, that’s what I meant with letting her make bad choices. At least Richard III got to be clever and successful at villainy for considerable time before he started to lose it. About the only time we saw Mariah viillainously outsmarting her enemies was when she used Misty’s phone to get rid of Candice in the s1 finale. Otherwise, she either was on the defensive or making bad choices. Now I’m not saying it was ooc for Mariah who had this incredibly messed up upbringing and the inner push-pull about both wanting and rejecting the criminal legacy, but I would have preferred a different story for her, too. Even if you postulate that burning Bushmaster’s uncle alive and massacring the diner was her equvialent of Richard III ordering the princes dead (co-starring Shades as Buckingham) - it would have worked better if we’d seen her triumph a couple of times before that.
Re: daughter Tilda, there I didn’t have the same problem, not least because I thought that the Luke and his father reconciliation was incredibly cliché, so Mariah and Tilda doing the opposite - shared danger brings out the truth, but the truth isn’t “I love you”, but “I don’t love you” was refreshing. Tilda’s professional epxertise being the very thing that enables her to help Bushmaster (and eventually killing her mother) also worked for me instead of feeling too constructed because it fit with the whole House of Atreus vibe and the Greek tragedy (complete with incest and family murder) everyone was playing out. As for Bushmaster surviving the whole thing - a) not for long, given Tilda said all that Nideshade was already killing him, and b) he’s Orestes, basically. He survives, barely, but he’s the last of the line, (Tilda manages to be Elektra and Iphigenia-on-Tauris at the same time, which is why her patching him up enough to exit the show alive and reconciling with him while also fulfilling his “Mariah must burn” request had a mythic fitness to it.)
Luke: I just rewatched some Defenders scenes, and yes, major, major shift from the guy who told Danny that beating ground level soldiers almost to death was wrong. (Otoh you actually can see a sort of arc from “money is power” to “okay, then this is the one thing I haven’t tried yet to set things right”. But really mainly it’s that in the first season of this show and in the Defenders, where there are four stories vying for attention, we still get to see Luke as someone basically at peace with who he is and trying to help others. In s2, we’re still told he tries to help others, but we don’t see it. I mean, Defenders Luike is seen trying to help the young guy drafted by the Hand, comforts said guy’s mother, reaches out to Jessica repeatedly when they meet again, and ditto Danny once they’re past the initial dick measuring stage. LC season 2 Luke during his encounters with normal Harlem citizens who ask him for help just says “I will, I will”, but we don’t see him reaching out to them. And with the regulars and recurrings, it’s them doing the reaching out, too.
Now part of this may be that Luke as central character gets written differently than Luke as ensemble character, which he was on both Jessica Jones and Defenders. But still - I don’t see a straight line from s1 LC Luke to s2 Luke, either.