Things get dicey as Luke fights for his life, and his freedom.
As Claire desperately tries to stabilize Luke after his gunshot wound, Shades helps Mariah cover up Cottonmouth’s murder to have it blamed on Luke Cage.
Luke refuses to go to a hospital, since it would put him in the system and wind up with him back in jail, so Claire calls in a favor from a friend to get an ambulance off the books and is able to keep Luke from dying. But the man that shot Luke returns with a rocket launcher to take out the ambulance. They survive and flee on foot, taking refuge at a local clinic. Claire discovers that Luke’s impenetrable skin is still impenetrable, or at least nearly so, and they can’t get through it to remove the bullet shrapnel.
Misty interviews Mariah about Cottonmouth’s death, and Maria brings out a witness, Candace, who works at the Paradise and claims that she saw Luke kill Cottonmouth. Misty is skeptical, but has no choice but to follow up on it. When she calls Luke to ask him to come in he tells her he is both innocent and busy, but she is able to trace his location. As she arrives and learns about Luke’s injury the man that has been tracking them breaks in to attack, and Luke realizes that it is someone from his past. The man takes Misty hostage in the scuffle and backs out away from Luke, forcing him to follow.
He decides that Misty is slowing him down and that he needs some time to gather himself after having been stabbed in the hand by Claire, so he knocks her out, promising to kill her later when it will hurt Luke more. Claire and Luke find her and a trail of the man’s blood, Claire stays to tend to Misty as Luke goes after him.
Luke tracks the man to a theater and calls his name, Willis Stryker, to lure him out. We learn that the two were friends when Luke was still Carl Lucas, and that Luke had betrayed him. Stryker tells him that he has been behind the scenes the entire time, orchestrating Luke’s downfall, framing him and sending him to prison, all for revenge over his betrayal. And we learn that he’s going by a new name: Diamondback.
Luke is able to hold him off for a while, even in his wounded state, but Diamondback gets away, and Luke chases him out into the street. When Diamondback comes at him with a rifle loaded with another Judas Luke asks him to reconsider and talk it out, saying that Stryker had been like a brother to him. Stryker responds that he actually is Luke’s brother, and puts another bullet in his shoulder, sending Luke falling backward into a garbage truck and being hauled away unconscious.
Elsewhere, Mariah pays off Candace for her lies to the police, and tells Shades that if it looks like Candace will talk, they will kill her and her entire family. And Shades lets everybody know that he’s now in charge of Cottonmouth’s operation.