Marvel’s television universe has done a good job at staying consistently dark and layered. Save for the odd clunker like Iron Fist or Inhumans, the shows have been more about the characters than their powers. Marvel’s Cloak & Dagger keeps up that style, only with a teenage bent. Can a Marvel show on Freeform match the grittiness of the ones on Netflix? MARVEL’S CLOAK & DAGGER: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT? Opening Shot: A little girl ties on her ballet shoes as her class is about to start. She biffs a pirouette but smiles and gets in position after the teacher tells her, “Tandy! Focus!” The Gist: Meanwhile, in another part of New Orleans, a group of teens are planning to steal the radio out of a luxury car because the owner of the car stopped paying them for it. One of the teens, Billy (Marqus Clae), doesn’t want to do it, but his little brother Tyrone does it for him, despite Billy’s objections. While they talk, the cops come and they are chased on foot to a pier near an oil rig. Tandy’s dad picks her up from ballet, because her mother still has “back pain.” Her dad is frantically talking on his phone with people at work about an oil rig that’s collapsing. He’s stressed and not paying attention to the road. He ends up swerving to avoid a truck and plunges into the Gulf of Mexico just a the rig explodes. Tyrone’s brother, meanwhile, is shot by the cops and Tyrone dives in to help him. A shockwave hits the both of them, with Tandy emitting light, Tyrone admitting dark. Somehow, a hand reaches out and saves Tandy from doom. Cut to “Years Later.” Tandy Bowen (Olivia Holt) is a teenager who makes ends meet by grifting with her boyfriend Liam (Carl Lundstedt); instead of living with her alcoholic mother Melissa (Andrea Roth), she beds down in an abandoned church, wondering if she should have drowned with her father in their car. Tyrone Johnson (Aubrey Joseph) goes to prep school and is a star on the basketball team, but has lately been unfocused; the latest incident involves getting into a fight at a game. His parents Adina (Gloria Reuben) and Michael (Miles Mussenden) are wondering what’s wrong; all Tyrone wants to do is go under the covers and forget. The two meet at a party in the woods, where Tandy — “My dad named me after his first computer” — steals his wallet. He chases her and when he grabs her hand, her light and his dark meet. What they eventually find out is that they have powers. When Tandy fends off one of the rich guys she stole from, a light dagger shows up in her hand to stab him. And when Tyrone confronts the cop that shot Billy, he finds that he can escape by surrounding people in darkness. Our Take: As with everything Marvel, Cloak & Dagger started as a comic series, with Cloak (Tyrone) and Dagger (Tandy) debuting in 1982. It’s an interesting concept; two teens who have powers they don’t understand, coming together to help each other harness what they have. But, even after watching the first two episodes of the series, we don’t get that. In fact, except for the scene during the party in the woods, the two of them don’t even share the same camera shot. That feels like quite a slow pace of development, considering the show is supposed to be about the two of them developing a romance while trying to figure each other’s powers out. Otherwise, though, Cloak & Dagger does a great job setting up the lives of Tandy and Tyrone. Both have darkness in their lives that has gone unresolved. For Tyrone, it’s the shooting death of his brother; for Tandy, it’s how the Moxxon Corporation not only contributed to her father’s death but essentially tore their family to pieces — her mother continues to try to get restitution while bedding down one new lawyer after another. Marvel’s television universe tends to be on the darker side, especially compared to the cinematic universe, but considering that the heroes are teens and the show is on Freeform, this show is surprisingly dark and gritty. It’s not like Tandy suddenly drops her life of crime because she has powers; in the second episode, she and Liam rob a ritzy wedding in order to pay for a new identity for her. So, it might not be so bad to trade a slow pace in order to see all the facets of Tyrone and Tandy before they become Cloak and Dagger. Sex and Skin: Tandy and Liam have sex in Liam’s truck, but everyone’s clothes stay on. Parting Shot: At the end of the first episode, Tyrone looks at a ballet slipper he found on the beach the day his brother was shot; in a flashback, we see him and Tandy holding hands, unconscious. Tandy looks up at the stained glass in the church. At the end of episode 2, the car Tandy is driving out of New Orleans suddenly gets shot by a guy who appears out of nowhere. Little does she know that it’s Tyrone. Creator Joe Pokaski and the writing staff realize that they have Gloria Reuben at their disposal, and they give her meaty scenes in both episodes as Tyrone’s mother Adina, who has managed to rebuild their family after Billy’s death. We’ve been Reuben fans since ER and haven’t forgotten just how good she is. Most Pilot-y Line: “I find rich kids, slip a little something in their drink, and jack them of their rich kids stuff,” Tandy says to the mark she finds at the club. Our Call: Stream It, because the chemistry between Holt and Joseph is apparent in their brief scenes together, so we’re looking forward to seeing them together more going forward. And we’ll watch Gloria Reuben in anything. Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie.<doc-sep>At first glance, a TV show about teen superheroes airing on Freeform (the network formerly known as ABC Family) seems like it might be in line with “The Runaways” on Hulu: a glossy take on a beloved comic with some bonus salacious parent drama, as per teen soap standards. “Cloak & Dagger,” however, feels more akin to the Netflix genre of Marvel shows in all its grittiness — but it has an immediate leg up thanks to judicious editing, careful characterization, and downright surreal storytelling. Pairing writer Joe Pokaski (“Heroes,” “Underground”) with director Gina Prince-Bythewood (“Love & Basketball”), “Cloak & Dagger” plunges into its own darkness immediately. The origin story of “Cloak,” aka Tyrone (Aubrey Joseph) and “Dagger,” aka Tandy (Olivia Holt) begins when they’re both just kids, and suffer huge tragedies almost simultaneously. Tyrone sees his older brother — who was trying to get him away from police when caught in a petty crime misunderstanding — shot to death by a twitchy cop and fall into a lake, which Tyrone quickly dives into, still hoping to save him. Tandy sees her father — an executive arguing with his nefarious oil company — die when an unexpected rig explosion causes him to lose control of his car and plunge straight off a bridge into the lake below. Both feel an overwhelming shock as something emanates from the rig through the lake and their tiny bodies. Both wash up on the same beach, startled by each other before running their separate ways. Both won’t understand what it all means until much later. When the series picks up, Tandy and Tyrone are teenagers living polar opposite lives. Tyrone is a promising student and basketball player at a prestigious private Catholic school. Tandy is a con artist hustling rich kids for money, since she and her mother lost everything when her father’s company pinned the rig explosion on him and stripped them of all they had. Both are haunted by what they lost, and even though they hate to admit it, terrified of a future they can’t control. When they randomly meet at a high school party — one Tyrone is invited to and Tandy crashes in hopes of pickpocketing drunk kids — they trigger a dormant power in each other that leaves them both freaked out and reeling. “Cloak & Dagger” can be as blunt as a punch to the face when it hammers home the differences between Tandy and Tyrone’s lives. A few scenes — especially in the pilot — are so paint-by-numbers that you can see where they’re going the second they start. Still, “blunt” is exactly in line with what superhero origin stories tend to be, and “Cloak & Dagger” nonetheless does a few things to set itself apart from the dozens we’ve seen before. The Prince-Bythewood directed pilot sets a visibly sinister tone, following Tyrone and Tandy in their respective corners of New Orleans underneath the same overcast sky. Tandy’s world is a whiplash-inducing combination of poverty (as seen at her mother’s house and the church she secretly sleeps in at night) and the white yuppie class she routinely preys on as a means to both survival and revenge. Tyrone’s is narrow, suffocating him and his righteous anger at a world that sees him as a threat no matter what he does, until he finds a way to acknowledge his hurt and open up. Holt’s Tandy is bitter and defiant, raging like a teen Jessica Jones. Joseph’s Tyrone is tender, earnest even when he finally lets himself be truly angry. Both settle into their roles after a couple of episodes, especially as Tyrone and Tandy inch closer to the truths of who they really are. Some of the best material comes in the third episode as Tyrone explores parts of New Orleans he never took seriously before, like the tourist-swamped voodoo shops whose message takes on a whole new meaning as he tries to figure out what’s happening inside his own body. That episode also submerges both Tyrone and Tandy in a surreal dreamscape that never feels like a gimmick because the fears and hopes it reveals are so deeply rooted in their characters. And in a gutsy move for weekly teen television — which lives and dies by an audience’s rapidly narrowing attention span — “Cloak & Dagger” doesn’t rush itself. This isn’t to say that the show takes the Netflix route of dragging out a pilot’s worth of material across an entire season; the pilot itself is plenty eventful on its own. It’s more that the show is careful to flesh Tyrone and Tandy out individually, to make sure neither’s storyline depends on the other — unlike, as it turns out, the confusing new powers they only discover once they meet again. The moments when Tandy and Tyrone do share the screen in the first episodes are relatively few and far between, but “Cloak & Dagger” makes them count. By the time they come back together, years after that fateful night in the lake, the show has given us a deeper window into the people they both became so that their meeting and the truth of their powers have even more impact. “Cloak & Dagger” takes its stories and itself seriously, and is hoping you do the same. TV Review: “Cloak & Dagger” Drama series (10 episodes, four watched for review): Freeform, Thurs. June 7, 8 p.m.<doc-sep>The titular superhero characters of CW’s The Flash and Freeform’s new Marvel series Cloak & Dagger came from the comics world and got their powers from exploding science experiments, but that’s where the similarities stop. It would have been easy for Cloak & Dagger to follow The Flash’s highly successful formula and have the initial power-granting incident produce a bounty of supervillains, which the protagonists would have to use their new powers to stop. But in its first four episodes, at least, Cloak & Dagger goes a different route by having them focus on real-world injustices. The approach aligns with the characters’ comics roots. First introduced in the 1980s, Cloak and Dagger primarily focused on fighting the war on drugs, rather than doing battle with costumed supervillains. Drugs are still a major issue in the show, starting with the two-hour pilot episode, which premieres Thursday, June 7th at 8PM ET. It starts when Tandy Bowen (aka Dagger) is left waiting in the rain when her painkiller-addicted mother (Andrea Roth) fails to pick her up from ballet class. Tandy (Olivia Holt) follows in her mother’s footsteps, stealing drugs and money from rich guys she picks up from clubs. Meanwhile, her mother can’t hold down a job, and she always blames her supervisors for her failings. She steals from Tandy and entertains a regular stream of married, drug-abusing men. Powered by Roth’s ability to act as both aggressor and victim, and Holt’s talent for presenting biting lines that hint at the pain and fear hidden underneath, the scenes between the two characters are vicious and raw. Cloak & Dagger also makes a key issue of racism, as Tyrone Johnson (aka Cloak) watches his unarmed teenage brother Billy get shot by a white police officer in the pilot. This isn’t new ground for a superhero show — Cloak & Dagger follows plotlines devoted to racism or police brutality on Luke Cage, Krypton, and Supergirl — but the new series is refreshing in the way it makes the story deeply personal. Billy’s death comes to define the Johnson family. Tyrone (Aubrey Joseph) is saddled with the burden of living up to all his parents’ hopes, given that he’s their only surviving child. He’s also a constant reminder of their worst fears made manifest. He’s a literal choir boy, trying to be the perfect model of a young black man while suppressing a simmering anger that he knows could too easily get him killed. Racism and drug abuse are the series’s 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, but showrunner Joe Pokaski, whose writing credits include Heroes and Daredevil, doesn’t feel the need to use the ensemble approach of past MCU shows. There are no sidekicks who can’t hold their own scenes or plots made up so minor characters have something to do when the heroes are out saving the day. Keeping the network around the heroes thin makes them feel isolated and emphasizes the importance of their coming together. The show’s writing is crisp, avoiding clichés and bringing surprises. With its high school-aged heroes and romance plots, Cloak & Dagger, in theory, should have a lot in common with Hulu’s Runaways. These are similarities that could have been built in to let Cloak and Dagger cross over to other series (Runaways included), the way they do in the comics. But the focus on two teens instead of six lets Cloak & Dagger’s writers take their time and focus on character-building, instead of flitting around from one soap opera-style plot to the next. It also helps that the protagonists’ parents in Cloak & Dagger are flawed but reasonable people, as opposed to mass-murdering supervillains who are still meant to draw audience sympathy. The smaller cast also tones down Runaways’ convoluted relationship configurations, in favor of ones that are easier to follow but still emotionally complicated. In the comics, Tandy and Tyrone are superhero partners as well as romantic partners, but on the show, they still have a long way to go before they reach either outcome. The one-sided relationships they start in are doomed, but their initial partners don’t feel disposable. It’s only easy to root against them because the chemistry between Tyrone and Tandy is electric. Stylistically, Cloak & Dagger leans closer to Legion than to other current superhero shows. The curling darkness manifesting when Cloak uses his powers, or the blinding light of Dagger’s signature weapons are beautifully done, but the dream sequences are even more striking. They aren’t just visually stunning; they push the plot forward, providing insights into both the main and supporting characters in a way that could feel forced if they weren’t so jarring and emotional. Cloak & Dagger isn’t as surreal as Legion, but they both spend an inordinate amount of time exploring characters’ psyches. 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. Ever since Spider-Man’s Uncle Ben said “With great power comes great responsibility,” superheroes have been forced to question how to use their powers for the greatest good, but also how to avoid doing harm to those not in their league. More up to the challenge is Roxxon Energy Corporation, responsible for the explosion that gave Tandy and Tyrone their powers. While the company has been mentioned in passing in multiple MCU television shows and movies, no Marvel show has used Roxxon to the full villainous potential it’s achieved in the comic books. Cloak & Dagger has the freedom to experiment in part because its characters are relatively obscure. Fans aren’t likely to feel cheated by not seeing signature villains the way they would with Arrow or The Flash. The writers have also shown a willingness to change established character beats, moving the duo from the MCU’s crowded New York to New Orleans.<doc-sep>Avengers: Infinity War has been in theaters for months, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is on hiatus, and Marvel’s Luke Cage still weeks away from hitting Netflix. We are in a severe Marvel drought! But with the premiere of Cloak and Dagger, that drought is about to end. Yep, Freeform’s latest teen drama is a total Marvel Comics property, one based on a pair of teenage heroes that have been kicking around in the comics for over 30 years. Now Cloak and Dagger are making their live-action debut in a new hourlong series, making them the latest super-powered vigilantes to leap from the page to the screen. But since Marvel’s content appears kinda all over the place, from movies to networks to streaming services, you might have more than a few questions about exactly how to watch Cloak and Dagger. Don’t let the shadows of doubt consume you. Step into the light with these answers to all of your burning streaming questions! What channel is Cloak and Dagger on? Cloak and Dagger’s two-hour premiere will light up Freeform on Thursday, June 7 at 8 p.m. ET. The first two episodes (titled “First Light” and “Suicide Sprints,” if you’re really into knowing episode titles) will air back-to-back, kicking off Cloak and Dagger’s first season. And if you’re wondering what channel Freeform is on DirecTV, that answer is 311! And Freeform is channel 180 on Dish Network. If you have a cable provider, you should also be able to stream the premiere on the Cloak and Dagger page on the Freeform website. Click on over there at 8 p.m. ET and you’ll be set! You can also watch Freeform content as it airs on streaming TV providers Sling TV, DirecTV Now, YouTube TV, or Playstation Vue. Will Cloak and Dagger be on Hulu? Yes! New episodes of Cloak and Dagger will hit Hulu the Friday after they premiere on Freeform. So the first two episodes of Cloak and Dagger will arrive on Hulu on June 8, presumably sometime between 3-5 a.m. ET. This is part of Hulu and Freeform’s partnership strategy, one that includes Hulu getting the Season 2 premiere of The Bold Type before it even airs on the cable network. That also means that episodes of Cloak and Dagger will continue to arrive on Hulu the very next morning after they air on Freeform. You can read way more about in this Decider interview with Freeform president Tom Ashcheim. Will Cloak and Dagger be on Netflix? No, at least not during the broadcast season. If you want to stream Cloak and Dagger as it airs, you’ll have to go with Hulu. Whether or not Cloak and Dagger will end up on Netflix after the season has wrapped is another question, one we don’t know the answer to yet. Freeform shows like Young & Hungry, Switched at Birth, The Fosters, and Pretty Little Liars are all on Netflix. But it’s also possible that Freeform’s partnership with Hulu will keep the show off Netflix for good. For now, Hulu is your best and most sure bet. Where to stream Cloak and Dagger<doc-sep>
SPOILER ALERT: This review includes details from the premiere episodes of Marvel’s Cloak & Dagger. In short, Cloak & Dagger is trippy. It’s not Legion-level trippy, but it’s perplexing astral plane time and space travel — or whatever it is that the two teenage leads do — is enough to make a worthy and woke adaptation featuring the lesser-known Marvel comic book super duo. With Marvel’s long list of TV shows, Cloak & Dagger stands out in more ways than one as a different kind of superhero show. In fact, showrunner Joe Pokaski makes it feels less like a superhero show and more like a drama-thriller. It doesn’t have the urban grit as Netflix’s quartet of street-level superheroes and it isn’t cut from the same cloth as Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. — but there is a minor connection within the MCU which I will get into later. It has moments like the aforementioned Legion that leaves you asking “WTF was that?” and there are minor similarities to The Runaways, but it doesn’t share the same vibe or tone. Both are filled with angst, but compared to Runaways, Cloak & Dagger is cooler when it tackles the woes of having superpowers while traversing that hormonal landscape of adolescence. As much of a comic book fan as I was (and still am), Cloak & Dagger always remained tertiary to me (although I loved the movie starring Henry Thomas). They popped up as guests in a couple of stories I read, but other than that, my knowledge of them remained very limited. I knew that they worked together to fight evil and, well, that’s about it. That said, Freeform’s adaptation is the perfect introduction to a different kind of comic book TV series while Marvel diehards will be re-introduced to the characters that have now been reframed in a story couched in class and race with millennial angst woven in. Freeform/Alfonso Bresciani The two-hour premiere serves as an origin story for the titular characters — although they have yet to even receive those monikers. In the first episode directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood (Love and Basketball, anyone? ), we are introduced to a young Tandy Bowen and Tyrone Johnson. Two very different kids with two very different upbringings. Tandy comes from money and prestigious ballet classes while Tyrone is learning the art of street hustling from his older brother. As the two live their young lives in New Orleans, a new refreshing setting for a Marvel series, tragedy strikes the kids simultaneously when a Roxxon Corporation oil rig explodes. As Tyrone sees his brother get shot down by cops and fall into the water, he dives in to help him. In another part of town, Tandy and her father get into an accident which sends their car plunging into the same body of water. As Tyrone and Tandy attempt to save themselves a blast of energy from the aforementioned rig does something and Cloak & Dagger is born… at least that’s the impression. Fast-forward a handful of years later and the roles seem to have switched. Tandy (Olivia Holt) is living in an abandoned church and hustling money from douchey rich kids while Tyrone (Aubrey Joseph) is living a well-off life under the eyes of his successful parents and attending private school life. Tandy tends to run away from problems and hide while Tyrone, although he seems like a good student on the outside, he has some serious anger issues brewing in his soul. The two live parallel lives and it’s clear that they are both suffering from “I feel isolated and no one understands me” syndrome. They are finally reunited when Tandy attempts to steal Tyrone’s wallet at a party only to have their dormant powers bond them. They both freak out, but they recognize each other from the accident years ago. She runs away while he is left flabbergasted. Freeform/Alfonso Bresciani It should be noted that the socio-economic roles of the characters from the comic book were switched. Although both are runaways, she maintains her wealth while he is still a street hustler. They both meet when Tyrone attempts to take her purse only to have someone else beat him to it. He attacks the robber and they form a fast friendship. In an effort to switch things up, the series tinkers with this origin story and they are anything but fast friends.