Luke Cage Season 2: 32 Easter Eggs & References Explained

4. The Souls Of Black Folk

In episode twelve, Mariah auctions off W.E.B Du Bois' original 1902 produced copy of "The Souls of Black Folks", a vital work of African-American literature which contains numerous pivotal and enduring essays on race relations in the U.S.

Perhaps most famously, the text popularised the term "double consciousness", with Du Bois suggesting that black people must be aware both of how they view themselves, and how the outside world views them.

This is especially ironic as Mariah is auctioning the text off as a seemingly charitable goodwill move, but in reality, she's actually doing so in order to launder money. Double consciousness, indeed. The irony is just too delicious.

3. Goodfellas

After Shades turns himself into the police, he starts discussing Luke's superhero origins, stating that he and Comanche were paid by a guard to assault Luke, adding that they "broke him down, Billy Batts style."

Billy Batts was a real-life New York mobster (given name William Bentvena), who was murdered by fellow gangster Tommy DeSimone, as was immortalised in Martin Scorsese's masterful 1990 crime thriller Goodfellas.

Batts was portrayed by the late, great Frank Vincent, who memorably got himself brutally assaulted and stabbed to death after repeatedly trolling Joe Pesci's DeSimone (renamed Tommy DeVito for the movie) about his younger days as a shoe-shiner.

Thanks to those monstrous Seagate doctors, though, Luke avoided suffering quite the same fate.