Shades vs. Diamondback

This isn’t a fight with the fists. This is a fight with words – and Luke Cage is filled with this type of confrontation. In Harlem’s Paradise, when everything goes down the drain, Shades arrives and confronts his boss. The gangster assistant can’t understand what the escape plan is. To which Diamondback says that it will all play out in their favor, even if a plan doesn’t exist.

To Diamondback, the chaos that ensues is poetry. And the fact that the villain states this says something about his persona. Of course, later on we realize his motives – but even without them we could have understood that he, too, is a scarred individual, someone who had to choose at a particular moment in his upbringing.

And, of course, this is the moment at which Shades’ fate is decided. But I can’t be the only one to believe that there is a bigger power at work. After all, Diamondback has also forgotten who he was talking with…

As far as the intensity of the dialogue is concerned, it is on par with the Cottonmouth and Domingo confrontation. Which side can the viewer choose?