Marvel’s Cloak and Dagger season 2 review

Credit: Freeform/Alfonso Bresciani

Marvel’s Cloak and Dagger‘s first season was a success for the network’s new brand, Freeform. Known for its soapy teen dramas, Cloak and Dagger gave Freeform an edge into the superhero genre. The first season introduced us to the heroes, villains, backstories, and a little bit of social justice. The villains for the first season were privileged corporations and police corruption, things we actually see happening today. We saw our heroes – Tyrone Johnson (Aubrey Joseph) and Tandy Bowen (Olivia Holt) – teenagers with abilities – work together to bring it all down.

Now, we move onto season 2, where the roles between the Tandy, a runaway living in a church, and Tyrone, who lived happily with his family, switched. Tyrone is on the run from the police, who have falsely pinned a crime on him. He is now living in the abandoned church with little to no contact with his previous life – other than Tandy. After exposing Roxxon’s role in the explosion that killed her father, Tandy is now living with her mother, who is now clean, and ready to start over. Of course, in exposing Roxxon, Tandy found out the truth about her abusive father. This new knowledge continues to stay with Tandy throughout this season.

Although police corruption and evil corporations still exist, it seems like the “big bad” of this season is a supernatural kind. Detective Brigid O’Reilly (Emma Lahana) was last seen shot and thrown into a lake, with the same chemicals that gave Tyrone and Tandy their powers. O’Reilly emerged with yellow eyes from the swamp and hasn’t been the same since. Many comic book fans may recognize O’Reilly’s turn into the super-vigilant anti-hero named Mayhem, but after just viewing the first two episodes, it may be a more extreme version of this character. Hopefully, the series won’t focus too much on the supernatural, but also on the real-world situations that made the first season so appealing.

Credit: Freeform/Alfonso Bresciani

They do show a hint of that when several women of color in the community go missing, and Tandy questions why isn’t this a bigger deal. She is told by a counselor that white girls, like Tandy, get the media attention, but black and brown girls do not. My only concern about this moment was my fear of Tandy becoming a white savior to the community in finding these women.

The series does have its sweet moments between our two heroes. Being polar opposites, the friendship between the two feels genuine and strictly platonic. Due to their powers, it seems like they know when they need each other most and bring out the best out of each other. Individually, our characters are sorting out their own problems and powers. Tyrone has been practicing his powers via stealing from local drug dealers and gangs in hopes to expose them to the police. Tandy has been dealing with returning to the ballet scene and dealing with the perpetrators of domestic violence. Their powers begin to evolve this season with Tyrone learning to teleport himself and others, with the help of his girlfriend, Avita (Noëlle Renée Bercy), and Tandy harnessing her light powers into a Dragon Ball-like beam.

The first season thrived with the character development, especially being able to see the darkness and light in the people our heroes touched. So far, their physical powers seem to come into play rather than the emotional ones. Hopefully, this season will have them using those emotional powers again to fight against the villains and not just become the typical superhero-kicking-ass-kind-of-show.

Marvel’s Cloak and Dagger returns Thursday, April 4th on Freeform.