Editor’s Note: The following contains minor spoilers for ‘The Penguin’.The fifth episode of The Penguin was another packed installment, with Oswald “Oz” Cobb (Colin Farrell) continuing his quest to conquer Gotham City’s criminal underworld and Sofia Gigante (Cristin Milioti) starting to build her own crime family. Along with former rival Salvatore “Sal” Maroni (Clancy Brown), another of the notable recruits into Sofia’s developing organization is Julian Rush (Theo Rossi), her psychiatrist, who in the episode crosses the line between ethically dubious medical practitioner and full-blown gangster. And while this move sets up Rush to have a more influential role in Matt Reeves’ saga of DC Comics’ most infamous city, it also coincidentally recalls Rossi’s earlier Marvel role. In Marvel’s Netflix Universe, Rossi played Hernan “Shades” Alvarez, a conniving career criminal who became one of the highlights of the Netflix series Luke Cage.
Who Was Shades on ‘Luke Cage’?
In Luke Cage’s first season, Shades works for powerful crime lord Diamondback (Erik LaRay Harvey), who dispatches him to assist Harlem gangster Cornell “Cottonmouth” Stokes (Mahershala Ali), with whom Shades already shares a personal friendship. This leads Shades to reunite with the now superpowered Carl Lucas, better known as Luke Cage (Mike Colter), who Shades was incarcerated with in Georgia’s Seagate Prison, where Shades and other prisoners abused some of their peers, including Luke, on the orders of corrupt corrections officer Albert Rackham (Chance Kelly).
After a disastrous robbery sets Luke and Cornell against one another, the former’s superpowers allow him to begin causing significant damage to the latter’s organization, with Cornell eventually winding up in legal trouble. When his cousin, city councilwoman Mariah Dillard (Alfre Woodard) confronts Cornell about this, the pair argue, and when Cornell says that Mariah wanted the sexual abuse she endured at the hands of their uncle, she attacks and beats him to death. Shades arrives soon after and volunteers to help Mariah cover up the killing and take Cornell’s place at the head of the crime family in a scene very reminiscent of Rush’s loyalty pledge to Sofia in The Penguin (especially given that Shades and Mariah go on to share a twisted romance, similar to the one Rush and Sofia are implied to have or had at times).
In Season 2 of ‘Luke Cage’ Shades Looks for Redemption
Luke defeats Diamondback at the end of the first season but is then sent back to Seagate. Before his return to Harlem, Shades and Mariah solidify their position as the new leaders of the neighborhood’s criminal community. In Season 2, they become embroiled in a gang war against a Jamaican organization known as the Stylers, which is led by John McIver/Bushmaster (Mustafa Shakir), a man who obtains superpowers similar to Luke’s through the use of folk magic and holds a grudge against the Stokes family. Although this conflict initially leads Shades to continue committing heinous crimes, the second season also surprised by highlighting his humanity.
At the beginning of Season 2, Shades gets old friend and fellow former Seagate prisoner Darius “Comanche” Jones (Thomas Q. Jones) a job in the gang, but Comanche quickly begins to clash with Mariah. It is eventually revealed that Shades and Comanche shared a romantic and/or sexual relationship while in prison, with Comanche admitting that he still has feelings for the former. However, when Shades learns that Comanche is also serving as a confidential informant for the NYPD, he kills him. Doing so clearly begins to haunt Shades, and he also becomes increasingly disgusted with Mariah’s brutal tactics, especially her massacre of a restaurant full of Jamaican workers and patrons only loosely affiliated with the Stylers — one of whom she burns alive. Eventually, he breaks away from Mariah completely and helps the police arrest her in exchange for not being prosecuted for his own crimes. However, after Mariah is assassinated shortly into her incarceration, Shades is himself arrested as his deal no longer applies.
Theo Rossi Uses Similar Acting Skills in ‘Luke Cage’ and ‘The Penguin’
Strong writing and Rossi’s performance made Shades one of the best characters in Luke Cage. It was equally entertaining watching him weasel his way into power in Season 1 as it was seeing him deal with his guilt and more complex emotions in Season 2, so much so that a part of the viewer wishes he got away without going back to prison at the end of the latter (after which the series was cancelled). Rush seems set to follow an opposite trajectory in The Penguin, likely becoming increasingly immoral as the series progresses rather than shifting towards (partial) redemption as Shades did. But there are still major similarities between the characters that suggest that Rossi will be as effective at playing the former as he was the latter.
It follows the transformation of Oswald Cobblepot from a disfigured nobody to a noted Gotham gangster.
- Release Date
- September 19, 2024
- Cast
- Colin Farrell , Cristin Milioti , Rhenzy Feliz , Michael Kelly , Shohreh Aghdashloo , Deirdre O’Connell , Clancy Brown , James Madio , Scott Cohen , Michael Zegen , Carmen Ejogo , Theo Rossi
- Seasons
- 1
- Showrunner
- Lauren LeFranc
Luke Cage is available to stream on Disney+ in the U.S.
