Cloak and Dagger’s second episode, “Suicide Sprints,” begins with Detective O’Reilly walking down the street to a crime scene. I only know her name from IMDB, since the detective goes the majority of the episode without speaking. She also has a slight connection to the second season of Luke Cage, showing now on Netflix. She does come across as very determined and focused, which isn’t good news for one of our two main characters.

To further illustrate the differences between the two leads, we see them starting their day. Tandy is dealing with injuries, blood-stained clothes, and starts panicking, shoving all her possessions into a duffle bag, clearly about to leave her abandoned church. Tyrone is at home with some family issues, getting advice from his father and a different perspective on his mother. Mr. Johnson is also worried about what Tyrone is going to say when he sees his coach for the first time since the disastrous basketball game in the first episode.

Tandy meets up with her partner, Liam, who can tell she’s rattled. She gives him a very abbreviated account of her meeting with the man they robbed. Liam is shocked, but rolls with it really well. After the briefest moment of surprise, Liam immediately begins doing what he can to help her and get more information about what’s going on. He’s a smart kid, and seems like a good guy. You know what often happens to that combination of traits on shows like this. Tandy is lost in confusion about what she should hope he discovers.

Tyrone has a meeting with Delgado, a priest/therapist for the young man, and they cover a wide range of topics. The concept of bad emotions as poison gets brought up in this discussion, and recurs, a LOT, through the rest of the episode. Tyrone is also brooding on the concept of revenge. This slides into a scene of Delgado holding a service and most of the kids fairly blatantly being on their phones during it. Either the adults involved are stupid, or they don’t care. Tyrone ends up in a text chat with one of his classmates about his run-in with Tandy. The conversation doesn’t tell us much about Tandy, but speaks volumes about Tyrone and his friend.

After a brief montage checking in on several characters, most notably showing Tyrone’s mother, Adina, hunting critters with a huge revolver, and Tyrone spying on the crooked cop who killed his brother, we see the wordless detective in interrogation dropping files in front of the two idiots who were backing up the man hunting down Tandy. Liam brings Tandy to one of his contacts and they find out what she wants is going to be a lot more expensive than they hoped. Without missing a beat, Liam offers a lot of his money to help her out. Tandy takes off to check her hidden stash at her mom’s place.

Tyrone brilliantly managed to doze off during his half-assed stakeout, and wakes to a flood of text messages from people wondering where he is and telling him he missed practice. Tyrone takes off running, desperate. Tandy goes home for a very unpleasant scene with her mother, who sure as hell isn’t winning any parenting awards. Tyrone gets to the gym and gets one of the worst punishments possible for someone who cares about their teammates. Coach is clever, I’ll give him that.

Tandy and Liam are desperate with her recent setback. Tandy comes up with a plan that gambles everything on them pulling off one slick job. While Detective O’Reilly slowly closes in on Tandy, she and Liam case their job, getting set to really ruin someone’s day. Tandy blends in with this crowd decently while Liam is clearly nervous. As they set up their hit, Tyrone punishes himself harshly. Tandy has a very emotional reaction to someone’s speech and her powers kick in again. It’s kind of unbelievable no one notices this.

Tyrone meets up with his teammates, who express their displeasure at his recent performance. He tries to use his powers, which don’t kick in. O’Reilly keeps getting closer to Tandy with some impressive persistence. Tandy and Liam share a moment that triggers Tandy’s powers. She learns something she didn’t know, and didn’t want to know, and kind of freaks out. Tyrone, now very late, covers himself at home with a phone call and does something really improbable, although no powers are involved.

Tandy has a mini-breakdown in the bathroom. She meets someone who is nothing but nice to her, and Tandy takes horrible advantage. She’s in a bad place, but Tandy is pretty far from a hero. Tyrone stalks his crooked cop. I’m not sure how he keeps finding the man, but I wonder if it is some kind of subconscious use of whatever lets him teleport safely. Tandy and Liam make their play and flee in style, while we see Delgado has his own flaws.

Tyrone finally gets home and has a touching scene with his mother. His powers also kick in, giving him a dark glimpse inside Adina’s fears. It’s a very understandable fear. We also see that Tyrone’s power doesn’t work quite like Tandy’s does, going by Adina’s reaction. Tyrone very lovingly takes care of her afterwards, again bringing up the poison idea from earlier.

Liam and Tandy celebrate their score and he makes a very heartfelt offer to her. Tandy is as nice as she can be, especially how she treats so many people, but leaves a saddened Liam in her wake as she takes off. Her mom is a mean, selfish piece of work, but she does seem to have Tandy pegged pretty well. His night gets worse when we finally hear Detective O’Reilly speak.

Tandy gets a desperate phone call, and coldly ignores it. Tyrone goes after his vengeance, almost gets it, and then his powers finally kick in again, saving the corrupt Detective Connors, and unexpectedly endangering Tyrone and someone else. It’s a very interesting place to end the episode.

What I liked: Tandy and Liam are good at what they do, I’ll give them that. Liam is a good guy in a bad place and I really feel for him. Tyrone’s parents are really impressive people. I’m intrigued by the subtle, not obvious, differences in Tyrone and Tandy’s powers. O’Reilly is a woman of few words but has some good presence.

What I didn’t: It’s getting really odd how almost everyone both Tyrone and Tandy deal with are jerks. I mean, I know New Orleans has a reputation for corruption, but this is getting ridiculous. I’m not clear on how Tyrone got out of the situation his teammates left him in. I admit it, I can’t stand Tandy’s mom.

These two are developing, but are a long way from heroes, super or otherwise, by every measure. I’ll give this a 3 out of 5. I’m interested enough to keep going for now.