Episode 6 of The last of us saw Pedro Pascal’s Joel reunited with his long-lost brother at a commune in Wyoming, completing the part of Joel’s cross-country hike he’s actually been looking forward to. It was an emotional reunion: while the two brothers hadn’t seen each other in a long time, they started arguing almost instantly, with Joel bitter at Tommy for not being forthcoming but also seemingly happy.
It was good to see Tommy again, because actor Gabriel Luna is a talented actor that we don’t see enough of (his surprise reaction to his wife telling him that they live in a commune, and therefore are communists, is one of the climaxes of the episode). And it’s a good time to remind you that he was the better part of two other failed franchise projects that had their moments: Terminator: Dark Fate and shield agents season 4.
Luna was the wickedly funny main antagonist of the otherwise forgettable. dark fate, called “Rev-9”. Rev-9 has the usual scary elements of most good Terminators: super strength, super speed, shapeshifting, a complete lack of care for how many humans it kills, with an added twist: Rev-9 can split the liquid metal and exoskeleton. portions of his body into two distinct units, essentially doubling up when he needs two Rev-9s.
You can see that on display here during a car chase, as the Rev-9 exoskeleton stays in the truck to keep up the chase while the liquid metal Rev-9 lunges forward to attack.
The most memorable scene in the movie is when Luna’s Rev-9, posing as a Border Patrol agent, searches for Mackenzie Davis’ Grace Harper (basically this movie’s John Connor). A huge commotion breaks out, resulting in a fight scene in which Rev-9 kills many Border Patrol agents with his bladed hands. It’s a chaotic scene, but the action is still readable, and Luna’s intensity helps sell the terrifying nature of his character.
My favorite Gabriel Luna character is still his turn as Robbie Reyes/Ghost Rider in the first part of shield agents season 4, however. While it doesn’t rank high on our ranked list of MCU shows, shield agents it’s probably my favorite Marvel show because of how weird it was willing to get. What the show lacked in consistency, it more than made up for with wacky character arcs and story beats – there are moments like the big season 1 twist, sure, but as the seasons progressed (and the show got divorced more and more of the MCU), he was willing to give some bigger changes.
One of these changes was the introduction of Gabriel Luna’s Robbie Reyes in season 4. In the comics, Robbie is the fifth Ghost Rider (and a very different one from Johnny Blaze played by Nicolas Cage), and is the version of the character you see in the recently released. Marvel’s Midnight Suns. On the show, Robbie is a mechanic who was killed by gang members and brought back to life by the Ghost Rider, and now operates as a vigilante assassin protecting his brother, who was paralyzed in the incident. Robbie’s arc as a very violent vigilante fits well with what was also happening on the show at the time: protagonist Quake is also on the run as a (less violent) vigilante, and their different approaches to justice give the show a little more. he hangs the hat on him.
That’s great, but it’s Luna who brings Robbie to life. It’s not always an easy position to play a character whose primary role in the narrative is to provide room for the protagonist’s growth, but Luna was able to bring depth to what could have been a shallow character with her righteous anger, solemn eyes, and deep sense of cared for by his brother. She brings the same fiery intensity we saw in Rev-9, but with an uncertainty in her actions that she comes from the humanity of her character and her commitment to her younger brother.
It’s also really cool – the jacket looks great and Luna wears it well.
In 2019, Hulu announced a Ghost Rider show, starring Luna as Robbie Reyes. Unfortunately, the show never got off the ground, leaving us to imagine a better world. But he will be in the next Netflix spy series. FUBAR, which stars Arnold Schwarzenegger and Monica Barbaro as a father-daughter duo who discover that they are both secret agents for the CIA. Any new Gabriel Luna project is good news, so we’ll be looking forward to that one.
marvel season 4 shield agents Is available in disney more. Terminator: Dark Fate is available to rent digitally at Amazon and voodoo.