It came as good news to fans when Freeform and Marvel Television announced the return of the superhero drama Cloak & Dagger for Season 2.
Marvel Television and Freeform shared the cheering news at the San Diego Comic-Con (SDCC) Cloak & Dagger panel on July 20, ahead of the penultimate episode of Season 1, which kicked off on June 7.
During the panel — which featured executive producers Joe Pokaski and Jeph Loeb, alongside cast members Olivia Holt, Aubrey Joseph, Emma Lahana and Ally Maki — Freeform announced that Cloak & Dagger had been picked up for a 10-episode Season 2 to premiere in the spring of 2019.
Marvel’s Cloak & Dagger is a teen superhero saga based on Marvel Comics characters Tandy Bowen (Dagger) and Tyrone Johnson (Cloak). Tandy (Dagger) and Tyrone (Cloak) have very different backgrounds, but they find themselves sharing the experience of unique challenges as they are gradually awakened to the mysteriously linked powers of their “Divine Pairing.”
They develop feelings for each other and quickly come to realize that they are able to channel their powers more effectively to face grave dangers by working together as a team
Cloak and Daggers Season 1 enjoyed strong audience approval and received rave reviews.
Tandy and Tyrone were able connect with their teenage and young adult audience due to their relatable life struggles based on current social issues, such as poverty, racism, date rape and sexism.
Both of them suffered painful experiences in their childhood and lost loved ones. Their past trauma continues to manifest in their lives and is complicated by the challenge of coming to terms with the unusual powers and abilities they later acquire.
Ahead of the highly-anticipated premiere of Marvel’s Cloak & Dagger Season 2 in the spring of 2019, we bring you everything you need to know, including release date, trailers, cast and plot updates.
Cloak & Dagger Season 2 release date
Although Freeform and Marvel Television have not confirmed a premiere date for Cloak & Dagger Season 2, they have confirmed that the upcoming 10-episode season will premiere in the spring of 2019, after the Season 1 finale aired on August 2, 2018.
We will update fans as soon as Freeform and Marvel confirm the exact premiere date for Cloak & Dagger Season 2.
Cloak & Dagger Season 2 teasers and trailers
The key art shown below was released in July at San Diego Comic-Con when Freeform and Marvel confirmed the renewal of Cloak & Dagger for Season 2.
Just announced at #MarvelSDCC, "Marvel's @CloakAndDagger" is returning to @FreeformTV for Season 2 in Spring 2019! Art designed by artists @Mike2112McKone and @aburtov. #CloakAndDagger pic.twitter.com/7nxO88Z2Re
— Marvel Entertainment (@Marvel) July 21, 2018
On August 7, 2018, the show’s official Twitter page released a poster featuring the two lead actors, Aubrey Joseph and Olivia Holt, and teasing the release of the show in the spring of 2019.
Season 2 is coming Spring 2019. #CloakAndDagger pic.twitter.com/TylSTaAaj8
— Cloak & Dagger (@CloakAndDagger) August 7, 2018
The poster also teased the Season 2 emergence of Detective Brigid O’Reilly (Emma Lahana) as Mayhem.
Olivia took to Instagram on October 22 to confirm that filming of Cloak & Dagger Season 2 had begun after Marvel TV and Freeform confirmed the series for renewal back in July.
Freeform has not yet released a trailer for Cloak & Dagger Season 2. But with the upcoming season scheduled to premiere in the spring of 2019, fans can expect the network to drop an official trailer very soon.
Meanwhile, enjoy the trailer for Cloak & Dagger Season 1.
Cloak & Dagger Season 2 Cast
Cloak & Dagger is a Freeform teen superhero drama set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU).
The cast of Marvel’s Cloak & Dagger Season 1 expected to return for Season 2 includes Olivia Holt as the teenage street-thief Tandy Bowen (Dagger), and Aubrey Joseph as Tyrone “Ty” Johnson (Cloak).
Emma Lahana plays Detective Brigid O’Reilly who later evolves into the green-skinned Mayhem.
Other cast members expected to return for Cloak & Dagger Season 2 include Gloria Reuben as Tyrone’s mother Adina Johnson, Andrea Roth as Tandy’s mother Melissa Bowen, Miles Mussenden as Tyrone’s father Otis Johnson, and Jamie Cevallos as Delgado.
Former Disney star Olivia Holt’s previous credits include her role in Ultimate Spider-Man (TV series 2012-2017) as the voice of Petra Parker the Spider-Girl, while Aubrey Joseph appeared in Run All Night (2015) as Curtis “Legs” Banks. He also portrayed Simba with Judah Bellamy in the Broadway musical version of The Lion King.
Cloak & Dagger, co-produced by Marvel Television and ABC Signature Studios, is based on teen superhero characters from Marvel Comics.
Cloak & Dagger Season 2 characters
Marvel’s Cloak & Dagger focuses on two super-powered teen characters who have complementary powers. Tyrone Johnson (Cloak), played by Aubrey Joseph, controls the concealing powers of darkness. He is able to engulf others in darkness and tap into the energy of the Darkforce dimension. He also has the ability to access people’s darkest fears.
Tandy Bowen (Dagger), a street thief portrayed by Oliver Holt, is able to hurl deadly blades formed from pure light. She is also able to access other people’s hopes and desires when she touches them.
Brigid O’Reilly, played by Emma Lahana, is a detective from Harlem, an ally of Tyrone and Tandy, who later evolves into the sinister vigilante Mayhem.
Adina Johnson, played by Gloria Reuben, is Tyrone’s mother and Roxxon employee dedicated to her son’s future success.
Melissa Bowen, played by Andrea Roth, is Tandy’s drug-addicted mother who has hopes for her daughter.
Otis Johnson, played by Miles Mussenden, is Tyrone’s father.
The characters Tandy (Dagger) and Tyrone (Cloak) were originally created by Marvel Comics writer Bill Mantlo and artist Ed Hannigan. The superhero characters made their debut in the March 1982 issue of Marvel Comics’ Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man #64.
Tandy and Tyrone have very different backgrounds. Tandy is a 16-year-old girl who ran away from home due to issues with her stepfather, while Tyrone is a 17-year-old African American boy whose brother was shot and killed by Police Detective Connors.
Tandy and Tyrone began exhibiting opposite but complementary superpowers after they were caught in an explosion at the Roxxon facility. While Tandy is able to form sharp blades of pure light that issue from her palms, Tyrone exhibits the ability to hide anything in darkness. He is also able to teleport.
The pair team up as vigilantes.
One of Tandy and Tyrone’s main antagonists in the comics is Mayhem, the alter ego of Detective Brigid O’Reilly (Emma Lahana).
O’Reilly first appeared in the comics in Cloak and Dagger #1 (1983) as a Manhattan police detective. She was killed, but Tyrone and Tandy used their powers to resurrect her, and in Cloak and Dagger Vol. 2 #5, she assumed the identity of the super-powered vigilante Mayhem.
As Mayhem, Brigid is able to paralyze criminals with a mysterious green gas she secretes from her body. She is able to use the gas to hypnotize victims and extract information from them.
She has claws which she uses to infect her victims’ bloodstream with the poisonous green gas that oozes from her body. The gas also empowers her to counter Dagger’s light blades. She is able to fly or levitate.
The super-powered character is set to feature in Cloak & Dagger Season 2, but her portrayal in the TV series might deviate from her representation in the comics.
Fans are also looking forward to seeing Mr. Jip — one of Cloak and Dagger’s best-known antagonists in the comics — make an appearance in Cloak and Dagger Season 2 or in subsequent seasons.
After Pokaski hinted that a darkly mysterious figure that appeared briefly in a creepy scene from episode 6 of Season 1 might have been a classic villain character from the comics, delighted fans began speculating that Season 2 could introduce Mr. Jip, who is portrayed in the comics as the villainous student of the Ancient One (who appeared in Dr. Strange).
Mr. Jip tricked the Ancient One into taking him as his student and imparting arcane secrets and powers to him. Due to his obsession with becoming immortal, Jip became a demonic being who sustained his life indefinitely by possessing and transferring his spirit from one body to the other over centuries.
He soon became convinced that Tyrone’s body would make an ideal vessel to possess, and this brought him into conflict with Cloak and Dagger.
Cloak & Dagger Season 2 details
Cloak & Dagger is created by Joe Pokaski for Freeform in partnership with Marvel TV. The series is based on the Marvel Comics’ characters of the same names, and is the latest Marvel TV series set in the Marvel Comics Universe (MCU).
Cloak & Dagger is produced by ABC Signature Studios, Marvel Television and Wandering Rocks Productions. Joe Pokaski serves as showrunner and co-executive producer with Peabody Award-winning writer/producer Jeph Loeb.
Pokaski co-created Underground (TV series 2016) with Misha Green. His writing credits also include Heroes (TV series 2006-2010), while Loeb’s credits include Jessica Jones (TV series 2015-), Luke Cage (TV series 2016-2018), Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D (TV series 2013- ) and Legion (TV series 2017-).
Marvel Television first announced plans for a Cloak & Dagger TV series in April 2016, and Joe Pokaski signed up as showrunner in August 2016.
In January 2017, Holt and Joseph were cast as Cloak and Dagger, staring alongside Gloria Reuben, Andrea Roth, J. D. Evermore, Miles Mussenden, Carl Lundstedt, Emma Lahana, and Jaime Zevallos.
The series eventually premiered on June 7, 2018, on Freefrom and met with generally positive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic.
Cloak & Dagger scored an 88 percent approval rating based on 51 critical reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, and a “generally favorable” Metascore of 68/100 based on 15 reviews on Metacritic.
Our gift to you. Presenting the #Marvel's #CloakAndDagger Season 1 Blooper Reel.
Season 2 premieres Spring 2019 on @FreeformTV. pic.twitter.com/08f5CsvR2r
— Cloak & Dagger (@CloakAndDagger) December 25, 2018
Cloak & Dagger’s premiere episode was Freefrom’s #1 series debut in two-and-half years, and the same network’s most-watched series episode (4.4 million viewers across all platforms in Live+35) since the Season 7 finale (Till Death Do Us Part) of Pretty Little Liars, which aired in June 2017.
The critically-acclaimed show was Freeform’s #1 cable drama of the summer in the key demographic of women 18-34 and females 12-34, and the network’s best-performing debut ever in the male 18-49 demographic.
Overall, Marvel’s Cloak & Dagger Season 1 averaged a 0.20 rating in the 18-49 demo and 572,000 viewers.
It was also Freeform’s #1 scripted cable series on social media, generating more than 1.5 million engagements across multiple social media platforms, including Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Tumblr.
Cloak & Dagger was renewed for Season 2 on July 20, 2018, and filming began in New Orleans in mid-October. The new season is scheduled to premiere on Freeform in the spring of 2019.
Cloak & Dagger Season 2 plot
Cloak & Dagger Season 1 was set in New Orleans, and follows Tandy Bowen (Olivia Holt) and Tyrone Johnson (Aubrey Joseph), teenagers with vastly different backgrounds whose lives become intimately intertwined after they meet and develop a romantic relationship. The series follows the two teenagers just discovering their powers and learning how to control them.
They also discover that their powers are uniquely complementary and more effective in tandem.
In the Season finale, the two team up as a “Divine Pairing” (scroll down to read more about the Divine Pairing plot device) to test what they can accomplish when their powers operate in synergy to save the city of Orleans.
“The tone and the pace are going to be off to the races,” Pokaski said while commenting on what fans can expect of Cloak & Dagger Season 2. “The training wheels are off, and our kids are going to be thrown into the thick of it pretty quickly.”
Having come to full knowledge of their powers and abilities, Season 2 will see them acting more as superhero vigilantes.
“Tandy and Tyrone are going to try to figure out what kind of vigilantes they want to be,” Pokaski added.
“They both have their powers and they both kind of understand that they have a certain responsibility that goes with it,” he continued. “They’re going to slowly try and figure out how they can use these strange and particular things they can do to make the world a better place.”
“What’s going to be fascinating for people to see is how strong they get,” Holt, who stars as Tandy Bowen, said.
“Not just with their powers but with their mentality, their heart and their soul. Hopefully, in this next season, we’ll see a lot more of that, and dive deeper into who they are and where this new life is going to take them, and where these powers are going to take them.”
“There’s gonna be a lot of action this next season,” Holt concluded, “and a lot of mayhem.”
The reference to mayhem teases the emergence of a possible villain character.
The Season 1 finale had ended with a cliffhanger which teased Tandy and Tyrone’s ally Brigid O’Reilly as her green-skinned alter-ego, the super-powered antihero Mayhem.
After Connors (the cop who shot Tyrone’s brother) shot and killed Brigid, we later see her emerging from the water with “evil-ish” reptilian-like eyes.
Showrunner Pokaski had previously teased that the Season 1 finale would end with a cliffhanger which, by leaving key issues unresolved, defines the direction of the Season 2 storyline.
“We see someone that looks a lot like O’Reilly coming out of the water so that’s obviously something we’re leaning into from the ‘Cloak & Dagger’mythology,” Pokaski said in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter.
“It’s been interesting for us to set up Brigid O’Reilly as the friend to Cloak and Dagger in Season 1 and then in Season 2 she will be something slightly different.”
Although we know that O’Reilly (Emma Lahana) will become Mayhem in Season 2, fans and are still looking forward to learn new details about her transformation.
Pokaski had shared in an interview with Vulture that although her reptilian eyes in the closing scenes of the Season 1 finale might suggest she will be an evil villain, he hinted that she might not be the archetypal Marvel villain, but an “evil-ish” antihero character.
“The Cloak and Dagger lore is kind of scattershot, but one of the most interesting things is the idea of a friend and confidante that turns evil-ish,” he said.
Pokaski also teased that although Tandy and Tyrone will face Mayhem in Season 2, she would be a villain that viewers will be able to relate to because her character as a vigilante is “kind of what we wish we all were if we didn’t face consequences.”
This implies that like Tandy and Tyrone, Mayhem will also be a vigilante, but the differences that lead to conflict between Mayhem and the pair of Cloak and Dagger are essentially in disagreement over methods.
Tandy and Tyrone will apparently disapprove of Mayhem’s “evil-ish” approach to vigilantism.
“The thing that excited me, in the most general sense, was the idea that if Tandy and Tyrone are choosing to be vigilantes, how do they react to the way that Mayhem operates? And how do they calibrate their own vigilantism, either away from or towards her?” Pokaski mused.
The apparent suggestion that Mayhem may not be the main villain for Season 2 raises the possibility that the “Divine Pairing” will face the sinister Mr. Jip.
Fans are also looking forward to the evolution of the romantic relationship between Tandy and Tyrone which was complicated in Season 1 by the literal spark between them. We learned that the two were unable to touch because touching would generate a massive amount of blast energy between them. But fortunately, this provided a means to solving the threat to New Orleans in the Season 1 finale.
Fans will also recall that Tyrone’s’ ability to engulf others besides himself in a cloak of darkness was first featured in the Season 1 finale. According to Pokaski, Tyrone is a “doorway to something,” and fans are going to “step into that doorway a little more” in Season 2 of the series.
In an interview with TVLine, Pokaski warned fans to expect a lot of surprises in the Season 2 storyline focused on Mayhem.
“Everything we do with Mayhem, particularly in the first three or four episodes, is going to surprise the heck out of you,” he said. “I don’t want to say too much, because I’m really excited about what we’re doing.”
“It was a tease about how we’re turning up the volume in Season 2. Now that we’ve worked with Emma Lahana and we know what she can do, we’re going to present Mayhem — and a character — unlike you’ve ever seen.”
Cloak & Dagger Season 2: The Divine Pairing
The “Divine Pairing” refers to the plot device that Marvel’s Cloak & Dagger adopts from the divine duality principle in Vodun. It centers on the mystical tradition which suggests that at times of crisis a divine pair is appointed to save the people or community and that one of them is destined to die as an act of self-sacrifice to avert disaster.
We learn in the series that there have been such pairs in the history of New Orleans, including two Choctaw children, one of whom died to save the nation from famine in the distant past.
The series presents Cloak and Dagger in the context of this ancient tradition as the latest Divine Pairing in the history of New Orleans, destined to save the city from disaster engineered by Roxxon. However, they were apparently able to break the curse that requires one of the divine pair to die when the two combined their powers at the last moment to save the city.