So, yeah. There are parts of me that feel gut-punched or angry at larger corporate forces, but the biggest feeling I have in my heart right now, by far, is pride. I’m so fucking proud with what we got to do on #Cloakanddagger.
This was the first pilot I’d ever written, i was very green, and I put my heart into it, and then it was put in a drawer. When I got the call five years later that they wanted to make it, I wasn’t surprised. Because you can’t keep Tandy and Tyrone in a drawer.
This is who #CloakandDagger have always been, since kid-me first met them in the pages of Spiderman comics. They show up and then they go away and they have a way of showing up again. Even on the comics page, you can’t keep Tandy & Tryone in a drawer.
This time around, there was no reason to pull punches. We found a force of nature director like @gpbmadeit to help tell this coming of age story that put #Marvel characters and situations on the screen that didn’t look like what we had seen before.
We were blessed to cast the perfect actors for Tandy & Tyrone. I’d love to think that I passed on crazy knowledge onto these two kids as they grew into adults, but I learned more from @aubreyomari and @olivia_holt than they ever could from me.
They were but two of a troupe of amazing actors, heroes and villains, and sometimes both (I’m looking at you, @emmaklahana ) who brought their own truth to our fiction and pulled me into stories I knew were made up.
We filled the writers’ room with a beautiful (and beautifully messed-up) people, from very different backgrounds, all with stories they wanted to tell they hadn’t seen before. All digging deep to find the heroes in themselves and give them voice.
We put together the best crew in television. The amount of art, sweat, and tears poured into every frame, with a limited amount of resources, and a dedication to diversity and justice. We did the impossible. And became a family and I hope we remain as such.
And together, as best we could, we told a story of the world we are living in. This era of real life villains, who live by abuse of power. And through Tandy & Tyrone, we got to look them in the eye, and we said, as best we could, “not on our watch”.
Most importantly, we had a strong group of fans picking up what we were putting down. Who took conversations about privilege out of our church and into their lives. Who knew what it meant when we put a man in a refrigerator.
When we stepped out on a ledge to tell stories of human trafficking, in a way that exposed this modern-day slavery, some of our fans shared their real stories of surviving after we shared our fictional ones. Thank you all for trusting us.
There is no human better at second-guessing himself than me, I swear. And while my imagination is active, I can’t think of what I would have done different with this great power and great responsibility in our corner of the Marvel Universe. I’m so proud of what we got to do.
So, yeah. Right now Tandy & Tyrone are on a bus. They’re going to hang out with some super-kids in a couple months. And from there it's up to higher powers. But don’t be surprised when these two special people show up when you least suspect it…
…because you can’t keep Tandy & Tyrone in a drawer.
