This post is about the season finale for Cloak and Dagger on ABC’s Freeform. If you haven’t seen it yet, you should walk away from this post because it contains spoilers.
Let me cut to the chase: The comic, Cloak and Dagger is a love story and the TV series finally hits its stride in telling the love story of Tyrone Johnson and Tandy Bowen in the final episode. To appreciate the fan service the last episode, “Level Up” provided, it is necessary to re-watch the first episode of the second season, Restless Energy because, in hindsight, that episode didn’t just drop bread crumbs; it dropped huge loaves of bread.
So before I start, know that I will spent more time talking about the first episode than the last because it all ties together. If that bothers you, then know that Cloak and Dagger do kill the bad guys and leave New Orleans looking for opportunities to do more good. So, there it is.
Restless Energy established that the “divine pairing” were suffering from a lack of focus. Tandy Bowen (Olivia Holt) was in group counseling with her mother as Tandy comes to grips with the legacy of her late abusive father. She’s in counseling to support her mother, but hasn’t come to grips with the fact that she has unresolved issues with her father. This unresolved conflict forms the basis of Tandy’s season 2 hero’s journey.
Tyrone Johnson’s (Aubrey Joseph) journey is different. He has been accused of being a cop killer and is hiding out in the abandon church that Tandy used as her hideout in season one. Tyrone is still trying to be the brightest guy in the room and is failing miserably. He knows that he had so much potential to succeed in life, but it has all now been tossed aside by the murder charge hanging over him. Accepting who he is versus who he could have been is Tyrone’s hero journey.
So let’s talk about bread crumbs. In Restless Energy, Tandy and Tyrone watch an old Zorro episode during their “movie night.” Tyrone explains to Tandy that Zorro is about “…folks in trouble, he rises up and the bad guys get all ‘Z’d.” When Tandy fights the memory of her father in the finale, she marks her father’s memory with a ‘Z’ just as Zorro had marked the bad guys.
As Tandy states in Restless Energy when they are about to go to the club to spy on the gang leaders summit, “I like this. You and me going out doing good. Best we can.” This? This is the creed of Cloak and Dagger in the comics and it struck the right note at the right time. It is a line that Tandy and Tyrone will repeat to each other in the finale almost as an affirmation.
Finally, the last bit of dialog in the finale was a call back to Tandy asking Tyrone in Restless Energy how he holds hands with his girlfriend – waffles (interlaced fingers) or pancakes (palms flat)? Tyrone answered with ‘waffles.’ When he asks her, waffles or pancakes, as they sit on the bus in the finale, her answer of waffles lets viewers know they both are prepared to take their relationship to the next level.
While the finale sets the stage for a possible crossover with Marvel’s Runaways, a third season of Cloak and Dagger hasn’t been confirmed yet. That said, the last two seasons of Cloak and Dagger have not disappointed and I look forward to a third season where our now fully formed heroes do good the best they can. However, if we don’t get anymore Cloak and Dagger, we know that Tandy and Tyrone will make it work because that’s what heroes do and Cloak and Dagger have proved they are heroes.