‘Cloak & Dagger’ Recap: ‘Level Up’

Written by John Edward Betancourt 

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Normally in a superhero story, the hero and the villain take part in a powerful showdown at the end of their respective journeys. This is where the thunderous blows occur, city blocks are leveled and good overcomes evil because the hero figured out how to defeat the seeming invincibility of the bad guy. Sure, sometimes there’s fear injected into these stories, the kind that impacts the hero, but they eventually get over that because it is topical at best and they know deep down that they have to be bigger and stronger because everyone is depending upon them to do the right thing. But what if the hero or heroes struggled to overcome their fears in that final showdown? What if the villain’s cloak of invincibility was their ability to engender terror and fear in the hearts of the just? Would the good guy or good gal be able to rise to the occasion with their demons surrounding them? Well as it turns out, those powerful and pertinent questions served as the focal point for the season two finale of Cloak & Dagger.

For ‘Level Up’ saw Tryone and Tandy once again return to the void in a race against time to deal with Andre Deschaine since his power was growing stronger by the minute and more people were disappearing from the streets and well, what they found once they crossed the threshold was simply fascinating and unsettling all at once. For Andre was there, waiting for them, but rather than allow for a good old-fashioned fist fight to take place, he banished our heroes to the depths of their souls wherein they were forced to face their worst fears. For Tandy, that meant coming face to face with the darker side of her father, and for Tyrone, that meant facing off against the life he once believed he left behind and this, was freakin’ brilliant. Because it allowed for so much depth and emotion to come into play for our characters and it forced them to live up to the episode’s title and fight back in unique and creative ways.

Because their worst fears were strong to say the least, prompting the duo to switch sides to weaken what haunts the other, and while it seemed at first that they had discovered the solution to their problems, Andre didn’t let them off the hook that easily and made them face their direct fears once again and that’s really where the episode shined. Because Tyrone and Tandy came to realize that the only way to deal with a tragic past, or the fear that we’ve let an opportunity pass us by, is to embrace where we are at and acknowledge what’s happened and make peace with it and coming to that epiphany allowed for both Tyrone and Tandy to escape Andre’s clutches and confront him and work as one to finally defeat him and his evil machinations and it was supremely satisfying to see everything come together in this fashion, and even see Mayhem make peace with what she’s become.

Yet, what was equally as impressive about this episode, was its ending. Because it found a way to tie up every single plot thread introduced this season in rapid fire fashion since we saw Lia do time for her crimes. We saw a family start to heal since Tyrone’s parents found a way forward, and as a courtesy to Tyrone’s mother, Mayhem helped make it seem as though Connors did himself in to absolve Adina of her crime. But most importantly, we finally saw Tandy and Tyrone make a decision about what their future is going to hold and thankfully, they felt the time arrived at last to embrace their powers and their abilities and become the heroes they were meant to be. As to where they will set up shop, we simply don’t know since the closing moments of this tale saw them heading off into the night to places unknown, but when they get there, those that would do harm need to watch their backs because Cloak & Dagger will do whatever it takes to make things right…

If anything, this was just a wonderful way to close out season two because in essence, this has been a two season long, magnificent origin story for this powerhouse duo and well, I cannot say with any certainty that we will see more of their exploits since as of press time, Freeform has not renewed the show for a third season. So, if this is where the story ends, this will serve as a wonderful series finale, one that saw our characters complete a powerful arc. But I do hope that Freeform doesn’t make a mistake here like they did with Beyond and they give this series another year because this really is one of the finest superhero shows out there, and it would be incredible to see Tandy and Tyrone doing their thing, free from the baggage they’ve carried for decades and well, all we can do is hope and wait for season three, and bask in the wonder of this incredible finale. 

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