Freeform’sCloak & DaggerIs More Than Just a Moody Teen Drama

Freeform ’s object consultation is young adults , so it was a consecrate that Marvel ’s first television receiver show on the web , Cloak & Dagger , would be enceinte on teenaged drama . But beyond that , it ’s assay to secern a welcome story about other variety of powers besides power — assuming you’re able to adhere with it .

dress in Louisiana , Freeform ’s Cloak & Dagger tells the tale of Tyrone Johnson and Tandy Bowen , two kids from opposite sides of the track who come up themselves drawn to one another because of a cryptic accident they both survived as children that imbued them with superpowers . Tandy get the ability to create daggers out of unadulterated twinkle , which she can hold , while Tyrone can teleport , although he generates a dark skunk - like effect around him when doing so .

While their powers are fundamentally the same as in the 1980s Marvel strip , the details of Tyrone and Tandy ’s lives have been swapped : Here , it ’s Tyrone that issue forth from a rather well - off family and enjoy the social status of being upper center class . Tandy , on the other handwriting , shinny to make ends encounter ; her father has die , and her mother deals with the psychic trauma as a functioning soaker . As the time of year open up , we see that Tyrone ’s a college - bound star athlete with almost every chance in the world ahead of him , while Tandy uses her street smarts to swindle and victimize unsuspecting Simon Marks around her who have more money than they roll in the hay what to do with .

For its first four episodes , at least , Cloak & Dagger presciently inculcate Tyrone and Tandy ’s interactions with a pointed tensity beleaguer the fact that there are other type of baron and discrimination that each of them have to trade with on a everyday basis . Even with all of Tyrone ’s economic advantages , he ’s still a black son survive in the American South at a time when to be black in public infinite is often to put one ’s self in social danger . Tandy ’s ravisher is inexorably tied to her whiteness — something Cloak & Dagger emphasizes with the cosmopolitan white of her costumes — and it ’s what allow for her to get close enough to people in undivided spaces so that she can pluck them blind .

In a quite a little of ways , Tyrone and Tandy ’s powers ( which are used slenderly in the first few episode ) are a form of commentary about the way that the populace typically perceive black men and blanched women . There ’s a illumination that radiates from within Tandy through all of her layers of pain in the neck and torture , and when push , the clear form into her signature daggers . Tyrone ’s teleportation power are wily and inconsistent , but they ’re always prefaced by the comportment of a loom , smoky shadow that rises up out of the darkness on sieve to envelop and transport him to safety in times of stress .

Unlike a muckle of Marvel ’s other telecasting display , Cloak & Dagger is comparatively calorie-free on the traditional comical book - atomic number 39 military action , and because of that , the show alternatively focuses on a more conceptual aspect of their superpowers . When Tyrone and Tandy make physical contact with other people , they ’re able-bodied to glimpse into their souls and see either their darkest fear or brightest hopes . Though the kids do n’t initially interpret what they ’re doing , in prison term they get along to use that particular aspect of their abilities to move through the world as more apprehension , empathetic people .

Argentina’s President Javier Milei (left) and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., holding a chainsaw in a photo posted to Kennedy’s X account on May 27. 2025.

Though it could have easily move in the opposite direction , Cloak & Dagger does n’t at all attempt to suggest that Tyrone and Tandy are destined to fall in love with one another . Unlike the comics , the two do n’t need each other ’s power to survive — in fact , when they touch , they ’re forcefully repelled from each other . They are , however , kid on their manner to becoming friends who are learning to meaningfully see thing from different perspective — a variety of world power that is n’t often center in these kinds of show .

But , this is a Marvel television show and it does fall into some of the issue that have harry its sibling platform in the past . Much like a lot of the Netflix Marvel usher , Cloak & Dagger is frustratingly slow .

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The build - up to the show ’s plot about the kids investigating an oncoming cataclysm related to the Roxxon corporation that will demolish their town is … well , it ’s in there , but it does n’t effectively make you need to stick with the show . The forward momentum from scene to tantrum is lacking , but to be fair , all of the performance are astral . Olivia Holt ’s Tandy is equal parts tough , wily , and vulnerable , while Aubrey Joseph brings a kind of sweet sensibility to Tyrone that ring true to the comics . If anything , the biggest issues with the show all lie down in its sometimes phrenetic editing , particularly in scenes where Tyrone and Tandy are using the more psychic parts of their top executive .

When the kids are in a person ’s dreamscape , they ’re in a berth that is n’t define by logic , and the show draw that with a turn of ocular clew like odd costumes , inconsistent photographic camera slant , and manic leap slash . As a whole , the event is hit or drop because of how hard it makes discerning what ’s actually happening in the moment . It always takes a second for you to reacclimatize yourself with the show ’s more traditionally - shot moments .

Cloak & Dagger is n’t exactly a show for expire - hard laughable record book purists look for a resilient - action translation of the superheroes they love , but that at last works out in its favor because that ’s not what it ’s try out to be . Cloak & Dagger wants you to see the power in and importance of being able to see across deviation — a flake of a cheesy substance , perhaps , but one that we could all stand up to prompt ourselves of more often .

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