All season I have enjoyed the drama and dark and “twistiness” of “Cloak and Dagger”, but it hasn’t really felt like a super hero series. Yes, the main characters have some kind of powers that they don’t yet understand, but they haven’t really used them but a handful of times. There haven’t been any distinctive fight scenes, even though each main character–Tandy and Tyrone–have these amazing powers. It has been a lot more back story, anger issues, attempts at resolution, and introduction of the entire repertoire of characters. It has felt like a drama series. However, in the season finale we finally get to see these two fully embrace their super hero side, work together and essentially “save the city”, from complete destruction!  Its pretty awesome.

Up until this episode, Tandy has been kind of obnoxious to me honestly.  She is selfish and cruel, and pretty much a jerk to everyone.  Tyrone is definitely the more likable character with his positivity and desire to be a good person, but he has a darkness lurking inside of him as well.  It has been interesting to see their characters and their relationship evolve.  In the season finale, they both finally trust each other and are willing to sacrifice for the other. If you haven’t been following this season, the back story has been extensive.  We have learned how Tandy and Tyrone both lost someone they loved the night of the Exxon chemical plant explosion and how their plunge into the ocean at the same time as the explosion, miraculously gave them powers which never emerged until they met each other as teenagers.

We have seen them battle their inner-demons–drug addiction, abandonment issues, buried rage, anger at everyone and everything for the “unfairness” of it all.  We have learned more about their parents and their living situations and how vastly different their personal worlds are.  Tyrone at his private school with wealthy parents and Tandy living in an abandoned church with a drug addict for a mother. It has definitely been an appealing “drama”, but I have not felt that “super hero” jolt I have been craving.  The fight scenes, the tense decisions between personal life and the calling of a being a super hero—none of the same vibe that we have gotten from “The Flash” and “Arrow”, and definitely not anything close to “Daredevil”, or “The Defenders”.

But the season finale does deliver.  Things come to a head and suddenly all of the pieces align and come full circle.  Tandy gets over her selfish nature and starts to embrace that she has a calling and Tyrone steps up and is willing to sacrifice himself to save the city.  The evil company Roxxon that is responsible for the explosion and has continued to mine a harmful substance that basically turns people into rageful zombies, which they call “terrors”, is finally exposed.  In the ending scene of the show, we even see the creation of the first villain.  There have been bad guys up to this point, but not a super natural villain.  Sadly, she is created from one of the good characters, a female detective, that I have liked all season.  Someone who has worked alongside Tyrone, so now it will be interesting to see where here allegiances lie.

Probably my favorite part of this finale is the flashing back and forth between the sequence of events, and a high school English class where the teacher is expanding on ‘The Hero’s Journey”–mythologically speaking.  He talks of the the hero’s birth origin, and then their struggles, their need for a mentor, their moments of trial, and finally their acceptance that they are something more.  He does this in little snippets throughout the show that mirror exactly what Tandy and Tyrone are going through.  It was a very powerful story telling tool for this episode.  Especially for those viewers who do not know what “The Hero’s Journey” is, or any of our modern day super hero’s connection to it.

If you are stuck in this series and not sure if it is worth finishing the first season, trust me that it is worth it!!!  It may have taken them a while to get there, but the acting, story plots and interesting characters in this series have laid a good foundation for what I hope will be a powerful teenager super hero series in the future.  So go check it out before fall shows begin!!!