“Cloak & Dagger’s” latest episode, “B Sides,” takes some serious creative risks and goes in a decidedly brutal direction, which while certainly one of the most uncomfortable moments in Marvel history, makes for one of the ballsiest episodes of Marvel TV to date.
Tandy inexplicably experiences multiple versions of her life, each one progressively getting worse, until she comes face to face with a shocking truth.
Perfect Life | In this “Legion”-esque episode, Tandy’s life is presented in three different ways: First up, is her perfect life, as her parents are happily together, she and Ty couldn’t be closer, and Ty has just become a police officer. All seems well, until the pair go to a convenience store and a racist clerk assumes Ty is trying to rob them. When Tandy tries to pull Ty out of harm’s way, their powers activate, just as we go to reality #2.
[adinserter block=”1″]
Fractured Family | Now, Tandy’s working at the Roxxon oil rig after her father left her and her mother. She runs into Ty and his brother, along with Mina, all working on the rig somehow, as Tandy sees an error in the rig’s system that makes everything go wrong. Once again, Ty and Tandy’s powers activate, but once again, we go to another reality as scam artist Tandy swipes a wallet from none other than Liam, who in this world is with Mikayla.
Jam Session | Tandy suddenly realizes that everything she’s seeing is not real and ends up in the record store again, where none other than Andre is there. He confesses his backstory- he was trying to commit suicide the night of the oil rig incident and ended up with the power to get in people’s minds and drive them insane from showing them hallucinations and this is how he’s been convincing the captive girls to submit.
Tandy wakes up in the back of the ambulance and goes to find Ty as they team up to confront Andre. Andre pulls out a gun and outright murders Ty, but it turns out to be another illusion created by Andre. Seeing Ty die in her arms is enough for Tandy to submit to Andre and surrender all of her hope to him, as in the real world, Andre takes her to a motel. Yikes! How many superhero shows end with our heroine about to be raped?
“Cloak & Dagger” airs Thursdays on Freeform.