It’s impossible to watch Luke Cage without noticing two things. Everyone’s way too chill about New York getting ripped apart by aliens just years before, and that there’s no swearing in Pop’s barber shop. Turns out there’s a reason behind that, beyond creating a family-friendly space to get a haircut. Showrunner Cheo Hodari Coker wanted to use the swear jar bit to convince Prince to appear on the show.
The late legend famously kept a swear jar inside his Paisley Park Studios after he became a devout Jehovah’s Witness. Coker said on Twitter that he’d hoped the inclusion of the swear jar would hook the singer and bring him in for a late-in-the-season episode.
The "Swear Jar" was for Prince. I was going to show him the first two episodes and convince him to play in episode 13.
— Cheo Hodari Coker (@cheo_coker) October 5, 2016
“The ‘Swear Jar’ was for Prince,” he said. “I was going to show him the first two episodes and convince him to play in episode 13.”
If you weren’t already sad about the potential that the world lost when Prince passed, just think: we almost lived on an Earth where The Purple One is part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe canon.
Prince’s purple outfits and wildy expensive yellow guitar would have gone nicely with that bright Bustelo can. But just because his appearance wasn’t to be, that doesn’t mean there aren’t some other serious Easter eggs buried in Netflix’s latest hit. For example, did you catch this ultra-quick Back To The Future reference? If that doesn’t convince you, this breakdown of how Gang Starr song titles expand on the show’s plot will.
