Marvel's Cloak and Dagger 1x08 "Ghost Stories" Episode Review

Major spoilers are included in this episode review. Read with Caution!

This show is on the right track with another strong episode! I am thoroughly impressed how the action and plot are finally progressing, but it is coming too late in the game. However, Cloak and Dagger has been renewed for a season two!

Yes! This is exciting! 2019 will bring us another chance to put this show on the map!

But enough of that, let's carry on to the episode itself.

The episode centers around the eighth anniversary of the oil rig explosion. In other words, the day both Nathan Bowen and Billy Johnson tragically died. Tandy and Tyrone are grieving and dealing in their other ways, but thankfully, they have grown close enough to rely on each other for support. 

Tandy and her mother try to do a traditional balloon thing to honor Nathan Bowen (this is a yearly thing), but there is still no mention of Greg or Liam in sight. Does her mother assume Greg went back to his marriage? Is Liam not important enough for Tandy to save? 

Questions that are not answered this week. 

Tyrone and his family are avoiding the subject entirely. His mother is putting on a strong front, but it is clear that she is grieving and struggling. This is abundantly clear when Tandy visits to check on Tyrone (awe!) and tells his parents how she lost her dad the same day they lost Billy.

But Tandy's visit has an ulterior motive. She also came to swipe Tyrone's mother's ID card. She needed it to access the Roxxon building... so she can kidnap the CEO Peter Scarborough. The man she failed to kill earlier in the series. 

After learning about the memo sent out by her father from Ivan Hess, Tandy makes her move to have Peter clear her father's good name. Ivan Hess, an amazing character, was not given much to do besides provide this information, and I wish he was able to keep his memories while he was trapped with Tyrone and Tandy.

However, I hope Ivan and his daughter Mina continue to play a bigger role in the next season or even in the next two episodes. I think their characters have potential for more. 

Tandy uses her daggers, rather effectively, in this episode. She cut electrical wires, stone walls, and even parts of a building. She also learns a shocking secret about her father, but I will get to that further down...

Tyrone and O'Reilly's storylines blended in this episode. O'Reilly and police officer Fuchs are officially a couple. They live together and have special breakfast. The show put them on the spotlight as we got to see Fuchs work close and his name is mentioned a couple times.

Honestly, I had a hard time remembering his name, thinking he was only a hook-up buddy. But Tyrone thinks of a good plan to arrest Connors for murder. With a combination of relation, the day, and Connors' guilt, Tyrone believes he can trick Connors into a confession.

Once he explains his powers to the police officers, O'Reilly and Fuchs are game.

This feat is amazing display of Tyrone's powers and how far he's come in the season with them. He dons the cloak to mask his appearance and teleports around Connors, driving him insane. This forces Connors to confess to murder, which leads to his arrest as Fuchs records the entire thing. A victory for the good guys!

And a nice mention to the greater Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) to boot! When Fuchs questions O'Reilly on why she isn't surprised about Tyrone's powers, she simply says, "I lived in New York" and even name drops "Misty Knight" as a friend.

After all this, Tandy and Tyrone meet up on the beach with Tandy's mother. They recap what they did and are glad to have each other in their lives. When they touch the mother's hands though, the two of them are transported to a horrific memory.

Tandy and Tyrone are in a movie theater, watching something alongside the mother. The screen shows Tandy's mother giving Nathan a cup of coffee while he worked. He is grateful and smiles at her.

But then they go behind the scenes of the memory, the truth that wanted to get covered up. How the memory really went down:

Tandy's mother accidentally spilled that coffee onto his papers, and this leads to Nathan slapping her into the wall. HE IS AN ABUSIVE MAN! Everything clicked when he hit her! 

The seeds were planted in the earlier episodes and even in this current episode: how Tandy was deserted for hours after her ballet lesson was done, how he yelled on the phone right before the accident, and then how he pushed Tandy's ballet using passive aggressive methods: "leave the TV on, the distractions are needed". 

After learning this, Tandy gives up on saving her father and focuses on saving her mother. She calls Peter to make a deal: to hand over the evidence in exchange for money!

The episode closes out with O'Reilly coming home and finding Fuchs dead... stuffed into a fridge. He was literally FRIDGED! A horrible trope usually reserved for female characters... I think Marvel is starting to listen to us.

Two more episodes are headed our way. Let's see how they plan to end this somewhat interesting first season.