Trivia / Luke Cage (2016)

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• Actor-Shared Background:
  • This show reveals Claire Temple is half-Latina from her mother's side, just like Rosario Dawson, whose mother is of Puerto Rican and Cuban ancestry.
  • Misty Knight, played by Detroit native Simone Missick, is a Pistons fan.
• Approval of God: Episode 4 had an exchange regarding Lisa Bonet's daughter, "Zoë. Or like I call her, Godfather, Part Two." "The sequel better than the original?" "Close." Zoë Kravitz was flattered, changing her Twitter name and posting a picture of herself and Bonet on Instagram with the captions “#willneverbeasgoodaspt1 #butthankslukecage!”
• Author's Saving Throw:
  • For Season 2, Cheo Hodari Coker went to great lengths to avoid the sorts of issues that season 1 had. Pretty much everything about Bushmaster is a response to these criticisms, namely, giving us a villain that can fight Luke one-on-one without mechanical aids.
  • After many fans were just plain confused at the show bending over backwards to try to make Scarfe sympathetic in his dying hours, Season 2 digs a lot deeper into the problems the exposure of his corruption caused, with his name being mud in the station.
  • The second season also tones down the show's moralizing and gives Luke actual character flaws, namely arrogance when the fame goes to his head and a temper that causes Claire to leave him.
• Base-Breaking Character: Diamondback. Some fans love the Large Ham performance and his personal connection to Luke that makes for a more emotional climax, while others just find him silly and wish Cottonmouth had stayed for the whole season. And others still think his character wasn't really foreshadowed beyond his name, with Luke making no reference to him, and as such, this makes the show's writing clumsily try to catch the audience up on who he is. Others would've preferred the focus instead shifted to Mariah and/or Shades, though that thankfully is what ends up happening in season 2.
• Beam Me Up, Scotty!: Pop is often mistakenly called "Pops," even by professional critics.
• California Doubling:
  • Averted for the most part. While the series had the opportunity to film in other parts of New York, Coker thought it was important to film in Harlem since that is where the show is set. As he put it, "The opportunity to film it in Harlem was irresistible. I didn’t want us to talk about Harlem and then not film in Harlem." It also doesn't help that Harlem does have some distinct features that would make it pretty easy to tell what shots were Harlem and what weren't.
  • Sometimes played straight. For instance, the exteriors of Harlem's Paradise are the exteriors of the Music Hall of Williamsburg in Brooklyn. Crispus Attucks is represented by an abandoned jail in the Bronx.
  • Season 2 has some sections of Queens double for Harlem, like during the scene where Bushmaster's men are scouring the streets hunting Piranha.
  • A nice aversion in season 2 in that they actually did on-location filming in Jamaica for flashbacks to Bushmaster's childhood.
• The Cast Showoff:
  • Misty Knight's basketball skills, with each shot filmed in a single take to make clear that Simone Missick can actually do it. She reportedly filmed ten shots, only missing two.
  • Budding pop singer Antonique Smith sings an excerpt from "And I'm Telling You" early in Season 2.
• Channel Hop: From Netflix to Disney Plus, after Netflix lost distribution rights in early 2022.
• Creator Backlash: Very minor example, but during an interview with ESPN, Mike Colter seemed to imply that he agreed with the fan sentiment that it was a mistake to kill off Cottonmouth before the end of the first season to replace him with Diamondback.
• Creator Couple:
  • Dontrell "Cockroach" Hamilton in season 2 is played by Simone Missick's real-life husband Dorian.
  • Nick Fury never appears in this series, but Mama Mabel is played by Samuel L. Jackson's wife LaTanya Richardson Jackson.
• The Danza: The reporter from WKGU 8 News in "Manifest" is referred to by Mariah as Robyn, and is played by Robyn Payne.
• Dawson Casting: Flashbacks in season 2 show that Mariah was a teenager in the mid 1980s, so she should be in her early 50s at the most during the time period when we meet her. Alfre Woodard was in her early to mid 60s when she played her, making her approximately 15 years older than Mariah. Cottonmouth is probably five to ten years older than Mahershala Ali, consequently.
• Deleted Scene: According to an article, a scene was cut from the fifth episode that would've provided a more proper intro to Bailey, Misty's friend from the Crime Scene Unit.
• Dyeing for Your Art: Mike Colter put on twenty pounds of muscle for the role. Averted by Alfre Woodard, who did not become morbidly obese to play Black Mariah. This was forgivable due to the character's obscurity, however, not to mention the health issues you'd get.
• Executive Meddling: Attempted. Much dithering was apparently had over whether and how the show could use "nigga"/"nigger", which manifests in the rather awkward way the series uses the word.
• Fake American:
  • Brit Deborah Ayorinde as Candace Miller.
  • An inversion: Soledad Temple is Cuban. Her actress, Sônia Braga, is Brazilian-American.
  • Another inversion: Bushmaster is a Brooklyn-born Jamaican who is played by Harlem native Mustafa Shakir.
  • While Alfre Woodard is American much like Mariah, she's actually from Oklahoma and uses a noticeable NYC accent for her role as the Harlem native.
• Fake Nationality:
  • Shing Ka is Chinese, but portraying a Korean.
  • Barnwell is Jamaican but his actor is African-American.
  • Castro is Cuban but Franky G is North American from Puerto Rican descent.
• In Memoriam: Season 2 was dedicated to Reg E. Cathey, who passed away shortly after filming was completed.
• The Other Darrin: Reg E. Cathey played Luke's father in Season 2, replacing the unnamed actor fleetingly seen in flashbacks in Season 1.
• Posthumous Credit: Reg E. Cathey who plays James Lucas completed filming his role in Season 2 shortly before his sudden death at age 59.
• Saved from Development Hell: Columbia Pictures initially had the rights to Luke Cage, and nearly made a film out of him, but they never acted on it, and the rights went back to Marvel.
• Star-Making Role: Season 1 was this for Simone Missick. Season 2 was this for Mustafa Shakir (Bushmaster).
• Stunt Double: Guy Fernandez and Haaron Hines were stunt doubles for Mike Colter in the role of Luke Cage.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Lance Gross and Cleo Anthony screen-tested for the role of Luke Cage before Mike Colter was cast.
  • The crew hoped to get Prince as one of the acts in Cottonmouth's club, and even put in Pop's swear jar specifically to entice him, due to his own policy of fining fans who used profanity at his shows. Sadly, he died before they could approach him.
  • On January 31st, 2024, showrunner Cheo Hodari Coker revealed the episode titles for a potential third season of Luke Cage, presumably finalized before the cancellation notice came in. They were:
    • "Public Enemy #1"
    • "Don't Believe the Hype"
    • "Louder Than a Bomb"
    • "Burn, Hollywood, Burn"
    • "You're Gonna Get Yours"
    • "Can't Truss It"
    • "Brothers Gonna..."
    • "Can't Do Nuttin For Ya Man"
    • "Shut 'Em Down"
    • "Show 'Em Whatchu Got"
    • "Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos"
    • "Welcome to the Terrordome"
    • "Rebel Without a Pause"
• You Look Familiar: Alfre Woodard has a small role as Miriam Sharpe in Captain America: Civil War. Some viewers thought the accidental death of her son would be her reason for villany and Mariah Dillard would just be an alias, but it turns out Mariah is a completely separate character.

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