‘Cloak & Dagger’ Recap: ‘B Sides’

Written by John Edward Betancourt 

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One thing I’ve noticed when it comes to comic book stories that are adapted for television, is how little they resemble the medium they come from visually. For a great deal of the unique aspects of the page are abandoned in favor of creating a more cinematic journey for the hero or heroes in question and while there’s great merit in making this happen, since it does provide the audience with an appealing aesthetic, one does miss the uniqueness of what you find in print and this is on my mind today simply because once again, Cloak & Dagger once again managed to defy convention by delivering unto us a story that quite frankly, made it feel as though the audience had picked up a good old fashioned comic book.
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For ‘B Sides’ took us on a journey through Tandy’s mind while she was under stress and duress from Lia, her captor and well, the only way to properly do that was to bring the format of a comic book to life, meaning that the quick jumps that happen in between panels in print was on display in this particular tale, and that element, alongside some magnificent ‘what if’ moments made for quite the entertaining episode because this story also ended up being quite the mystery. Because it quickly allowed for the audience to wonder, exactly why it was so important for Lia to keep Tandy unconscious and locked in a fantasy world where her biggest dreams and worst nightmares played out in vivid and realistic fashion and as it turns out, that’s because Lia and an unknown tormentor had a plan for Tandy.

The plan was in essence, to break Tandy’s spirit, so that she would know nothing but despair, and that was due to the fact that the unknown tormentor, who turned out to be Andre, the man who runs the woman’s shelter; needed despair to heal his body and his mind. For we came to learn that Andre was transformed during the Roxxon explosion as well, giving him the ability to reach into people’s minds and draw that despair out and in essence, this revealed that he and Lia have been gathering up the missing girls and sucking the despair out of them to feed Andre’s twisted needs and unfortunately for Andre, he had discovered his greatest challenge yet in Tandy, because breaking her was no easy task and really, the journey through her mind revealed so many complex layers and emotions when it comes to this dynamic character.

For example, we learned that there is a part of Tandy that dreams of a life where nothing bad happened to her family, or Tyrone’s for that matter as well, and her fantasy about Tyrone becoming a member of the New Orleans Police Department reflects that since she was a ballerina in that tale where she was adored by her family, but thankfully, the show didn’t remain in totally fantasy land since some of these vignettes allowed for us to explore Tandy’s psyche, showing us the best parts and worst parts of her soul. Because her Roxxon Engineer fantasy allowed for us to see how much she believes in herself and her abilities which was wonderful to say the least, and we also saw the shame that hovers over her when it comes to her past life. But what matters most, is that we learned that was truly drives her these days and what she truly cares about is Tyrone and unfortunately for her, revealing that, was her greatest mistake.

Because in this dream world, Andre was able to ‘murder’ Tyrone, robbing Tandy of the one thing she held near and dear, breaking her at last and giving Andre the strange sustenance he needs and that sadly is where this episode ends, on a sour note with Tandy still in grave trouble and facing an uncertain future and well, all of these twists and turns make this one brilliant episode when all is said and done. Because in essence, this was a transitional episode, and normally, those can be dry and boring. But by changing things up with the comic book style of storytelling and offering up a good look at Tandy’s psyche, this episode was able to drop quite the stunner in our lap with the reveal of Andre being the real brains behind this outfit, and it helped us to understand just how badly Tandy wants the world to be a better place for everyone. But either way, Tandy is in some serious trouble now, and it’s going to take some serious work on Tyrone’s part to find her and I hope he does quickly because who knows how long Tandy has, before hope fades from her mind completely. Until next time. 

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