{"id":103470,"date":"2018-06-25T12:16:50","date_gmt":"2018-06-25T11:16:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/?p=103470"},"modified":"2019-06-28T14:21:57","modified_gmt":"2019-06-28T13:21:57","slug":"luke-cage-season-2-cheo-hodari-coker-on-that-ending","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/news\/luke-cage-season-2-cheo-hodari-coker-on-that-ending\/","title":{"rendered":"Luke Cage Season 2: Cheo Hodari Coker on THAT ending"},"content":{"rendered":"

WARNING \u2013 SPOILERS FOR ALL OF LUKE CAGE<\/em> SEASON 2 FOLLOW.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Well. We can\u2019t imagine many people saw that coming. His disagreements with Claire at the start of Season 2 should have tipped us off \u2013 it turns out Luke Cage DOES want to be king after all, and he ends the season in charge of Harlem\u2019s Paradise, convinced that he can control Harlem\u2019s gangs without becoming a crimelord himself. Because that\u2019s going to go well.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe great thing about the ending is that it\u2019s going to make some fans go back and watch all 26 episodes all over again because they\u2019re going to question \u2018did I even know this guy?\u2019 because of just how easily he shifts into something else,\u201d says showrunner Cheo Hodari Coker when we chatted to him before the season landed. <\/span><\/p>\n

The ending was given extra weight with a poignant voiceover from the late Reg E. Cathey as Luke\u2019s father. But if you assumed that was put there as a tribute to the actor, you\u2019d be wrong. \u201cThe thing that\u2019s interesting about that is I had done that before he passed,\u201d Coker reveals. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSo it wasn\u2019t like \u2018oh, he passed, let\u2019s pay tribute\u2019, it was more like, when you see Luke sitting down with the weight of the world on his shoulders, what\u2019s he thinking about? And so it became a natural path to put that conversation there. It\u2019s one of those things, when we did it, it brings the entire season together because Reg E\u2019s voice is the first thing you hear at the beginning of the season, \u2018people talk about Luke Cage like he\u2019s Jesus\u2019, and then at the end when he talks about the definition of a hero, was just really one of those things that make you think \u2018oh man, this show\u2019s the shit\u2019,\u201d he laughs.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Cheo Hodari Coker on the set of Luke Cage Season 2<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Luke wasn\u2019t the only character to undergo some big changes in Season 2. Coker is gleeful as he refers to Shades as \u201cthe first pansexual supervillain\u201d, but it\u2019s Mariah who undergoes the biggest shift, embracing her Stokes heritage and getting extremely murderous. Coker raves about Alfre Woodard\u2019s work in the part, but her big Mariah Stokes moment \u2013 killing Bushmaster\u2019s friends and family \u2013 is the key turning point, and one he had to witness in person.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you get the moment in episode 10 when she\u2019s fully realised, I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve ever seen Alfre at her scariest. I remember I flew from the west coast to the set in New York just to be there for that scene, because our entire season hinged on that one scene in episode 10 when she embraces herself as Mariah Stokes. And the one note that both Akela Cooper [the episode writer] and I told Alfre was just play it calm. Play it like this is how things should be.\u201d Coker starts laughing at the memory. \u201cAnd her face! I\u2019ve never been so afraid of somebody! But she was just cool. I can\u2019t wait to see people\u2019s reactions to both episodes nine and ten.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Luke Cage<\/em> Season 2 is available to stream on Netflix. You can read our full interview with Cheo Hodari Coker in the current issue of SciFiNow.<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Luke Cage showrunner Cheo Hodari Coker talks about THAT Season 2 ending <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":103472,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"MSN_Categories":"Uncategorized","MSN_Publish_Option":false,"MSN_Is_Local_News":false,"MSN_Is_AIAC_Included":"Empty","MSN_Location":"[]","MSN_Add_Feature_Img_On_Top_Of_Post":false,"MSN_Has_Custom_Author":false,"MSN_Custom_Author":"","MSN_Has_Custom_Canonical_Url":false,"MSN_Custom_Canonical_Url":""},"categories":[1718,7,3],"tags":[3505],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/0869_TIARA_201_Unit_00008R.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103470"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/43"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103470"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103470\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/103472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}