CLOAK AND DAGGER REVIEW: A grounded reality

Teens with superpowers are hardly a new phenomenon on television — to the point where the same day of “Cloak and Dagger’s” premiere, YouTube Premium also launched its new superpowered-teen drama “Impulse” — so the question becomes, how to stand out?

In “Cloak’s” case, the answer is to commit to character, specifically laying the foundation for the connection between Tyrone (Aubrey Joseph) and Tandy (Olivia Holt). While the two teenagers happen to be from very different worlds, a childhood encounter during one terrible night of tragedy for them both has seemed to create an unbreakable bond with a new mysterious edge.

The day they both lost the person they loved most in the world. The day some mysterious force saved them from the same fate, and brought them together. If you’re not invested in this world and these characters by the time the “Cloak and Dagger” title comes up on the screen, then, well, why watch?

In the first two episodes, creator Joe Pokaski, doesn’t put much elbow grease into explaining their aforementioned abilities (or curses at this point, given how little control they have). The setup here is clearly for the long game — it’s not hard to anticipate that the full season will focus on Tandy and Tyrone figuring out what exactly their powers mean, and how they can use them fully. This has been a source of frustration when it comes to a lot of other first-season superhero shows, especially in the binge era, when the entirety of Season 1 is asked to serve as an origin story.

However, there’s something genuinely fun about the fact that after a few episodes, we still don’t quite understand Tandy and Tyrone’s powers. We certainly don’t understand them any better than Tandy and Tyrone do.

And the reason it works well here is that their powers are, well, weird. They’re certainly weirder than the average superhero premise, and it’s quite likely that there’s a massive exposition dump in the show’s future.

Following the titles, the episode picks up many years later with Tandy and Tyrone as teenagers, their lives forever changed by that day.

Tandy, who spent the beginning years of her life in economic privilege, is now living in quasi-homelessness as she struggles to maintain a relationship with her unstable, addict mother.

Tyrone, fueled by the guilt surrounding his older brother’s death all those years ago, works doubly as hard to make it up to his parents as the star athlete on his prep school’s basketball team.

When it comes to the other characters, The vulnerabilities and flaws of the adults at times plays more to the extreme than necessary — Tandy’s mother Melissa (Andrea Roth) is an especially over-the-top train wreck.

Lest you think the series is completely stand-alone from the rest of the MCU, there are elements that do technically connect (as one example, the prominent role of the Roxxon Corporation, which has also come up in “Daredevil,” “Iron Fist,” and “Agents of SHIELD”). Like most other Marvel shows these connections are likely to be only surface-level for the foreseeable future, but it still speaks to the tricky balancing act all these shows have to achieve: exist in their own universe, yet walk their own path.

The closest thing the show currently has to a villain is Detective Connors (J.D. Evermore), the corrupt vice cop who killed Tyrone’s brother. But he’s just an ordinary man, up against a teenager who has the power to teleport and control darkness.

Through 40 percent of the first Cloak & Dagger season, a show about superheroes still boasts no superheroes, no mission and no clear bad guy.

Cloak and Dagger wonderfully subverts tropes and racist expectations when it comes to the two main characters, with conventionally pretty white girl Tandy as the con woman criminal and black teen boy Tyrone as a the quiet rule-follower who doesn’t drink and is BFFs with the priest at his school. It also makes fine use of its New Orleans backdrop and a few moments of real cleverness.

It’s possible that Cloak & Dagger might fall into the same traps. But the initial episodes are remarkably well-crafted, making a collapse feel less likely. It’s surprisingly mature for a show targeted at young adults.

This is a dark show that doesn’t shy away from the sometimes harsh realities of life in America. Racism and drug abuse are the series initial dominant issues, but Cloak & Dagger also brings up sexual assault, corporate malfeasance, and suicidal depression. The willingness to get dark and heavy makes it similar to Marvel’s Netflix shows Jessica Jones and Luke Cage.

3.5/5 STARS