Episode Info:
In Cloak & Dagger’s fourth episode, things finally come to a head between Tandy and Tyrone. We pick up right where we left off last week, as they’re hashing out their situation in Tandy’s church. Our heroes are in the same room, finally, for the overwhelming bulk of the hour, but in a somewhat unprecedented move, both characters touch on the race and privilege elephant that many of the show’s viewers (and detractors) hoped (and feared) we’d be led to.
But Olivia Holt and Aubrey Johnson cross that bridge with intensity and sensitivity. Their execution is striking, and it really can’t be overstated how much of an improvement this episode is from last week’s. (In comparison, the narrative-hopping histrionics felt like an entirely different series.) The structure of “Call/Response” is ambitious in itself: We alternate between the past and the present, with snippets of the days that follow. This time, the action is hardly as confusing, and it isn’t until the episode’s climax that each moment converges with one another – and that culmination is satisfying. It is absolutely a feat. But one wonders why it took us so long to get here.
Nevertheless, we start with a conversation that proves to be indicative of Tandy and Tyrone’s relationship. The pair literally walk in circles around one another, dishing on their respective backgrounds. Now that they’ve seen what their counterpart hopes and fears, they have plenty of anecdotes to catch up on. Tyrone asks Tandy about her father’s death, and whether Roxxon led to that demise (it did). Tandy asks Tyrone about his brother’s killing, and whether or not it was NOPD that murdered him (they did).
But stakes aside, they’re still two teens getting to know one another. They lay on the church’s wood floors. They lean against the walls. They ask one another about their respective significant others (which raises the question, once again, of where the hell Liam is). They prod each other about parents, hopes, and fears. The recurring scene moves naturally, and the rapport between our actors is allowed to really flex, even as their conversation is just one of the three threads spooling across the episode.
On Tandy’s end, we watch as she returns home – home home – to her mother the following day. Greg isn’t around yet, so Tandy is able to express her concerns to Melissa: She is seeing a married man, and it isn’t going to work out. Tandy wants to help her mother with the Roxxon investigation, even if only to clear her father’s name, but she only wants in if Melissa is serious about it – and Greg doesn’t seem like a serious guy. But just as it looks like Melissa is giving her daughter some serious consideration, Greg arrives, with groceries in hand, and the conversation is tabled for later.
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