Marvel's Cloak & Dagger Premiere Review: 8 Ups And 2 Downs

Shadows and light.

Cloak & Dagger
Freeform

The people at Marvel Television have certainly been busy over the past year.

In the previous ten months alone, The Defenders, The Punisher, Runaways, Inhumans, season five of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., and season two of Jessica Jones have all been added to the Marvel Cinematic Universe (in addition to their non-MCU projects like The Gifted and season two of Legion).

They have now added yet another show to their MCU roster and a rather intriguing one at that: Cloak & Dagger.

Based on the Marvel comic book duo of the same name, Cloak & Dagger revolves around Tyrone Johnson and Tandy Bowen, two teenagers from drastically different walks of life who, through their own personal family tragedies, find themselves with bizarre superpowers that link them together.

In addition to its fascinating premise, it's clear that Marvel was looking to start Cloak & Dagger off with a bang, as the show debuted on Freeform with a two-hour premiere event that treated viewers to the entirety of the series' first two episodes.

These episodes, First Light and Suicide Sprints, paint a pretty clear picture as to what we can expect from the series going forward. So, let's take a look at Cloak & Dagger's many strengths (as well as its minor weaknesses).

10. Downs - The Texts

Cloak & Dagger
Freeform

Admittedly, this is a bit of a nitpick, but it's such a frustrating aspect of the Cloak & Dagger premiere that it bears mentioning.

At certain points throughout the episode Suicide Sprints, Tyrone takes out his cell phone to read the text messages he's been sent. These texts are supposed to provide insight as to what's going on in Tyrone's life and what he's going to do next.

Unfortunately, however, it's near impossible to read all of the text messages unless you're constantly pausing the episode (which can be a bit difficult if you're watching the show on live on TV).

Despite the texts being in focus, which implies that the audience is meant to be reading them, they're also off-center and go by way too fast, with walls of text disappearing just as quickly as they appeared.

It's fairly easy to fill in the gaps as you keep watching, but this was still some noticeably baffling direction.

Contributor
Contributor

A film-loving wrestling fan from west Texas who will live and die by the statement that Return of the Jedi is the best Star Wars movie and unironically cherishes the brief moment and time when Deuce & Domino were WWE Tag Team Champions. Hates honey, but loves honey mustard.