10 best shows you slept on in 2018

Marvel’s Cloak and Dagger

To say that there are a lot of superhero and/or superhero-adjacent programming on television this days is something of an understatement. But Cloak and Dagger is something different. Yes, it’s about two teens who mysteriously acquire superhuman abilities. But the thing is that Cloak and Dagger focuses a lot more on the two teens part of the story than the superhero bits, and proceeds to do it so well that you won’t mind the occasional (regular?) lack of powered up battles.

The heart of this show is the story of Tyrone and Tandy, two kids who are realistically struggling to figure out who they are at difficult points in their lives. You could honestly remove most of the superpowers stuff and still have a compelling series, simply because Cloak and Dagger takes the time to build this duo into characters whose lives and relationships – with each other and those around them – that we care about. Where they’ll go in season 2 is so exciting to contemplate precisely because the show has taken the time to lay the groundwork so that those stories will matter on multiple levels.

The show is exceptionally thematically rich, folding in heavier and more mature stories about racism, sexism, police brutality, and broken families around its comic book thrills. And everything is seasoned with a uniquely New Orleans flavor – it’s one of the few Marvel properties (particularly beyond the slowly dying Netflix Defenders series) that really make atmosphere and sense of place a key part of the story.