The movies of the Marvel Cinematic Universe had Nick Fury to bring Earth’s Mightiest Heroes together and link the different sub-franchises, and so the Netflix TV arm of the MCU has Rosario Dawson’s Claire Temple. The brave, pragmatic nurse has befriended all four Defenders so far- Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage and Iron Fist – and has become a firm fan favourite. Sadly, though, the character’s future in the franchise has now been cast into doubt.
Dawson attended MCM Comic-Con in London this past weekend and dropped a big bombshell during a Q&A panel. The actress revealed that she doesn’t know if she’ll do any further Marvel/Netflix shows beyond Luke Cage season 2. Though she’s had an “amazing” time so far, she cited a fair enough reason for wanting to say goodbye to the franchise: to be closer to her family.
“Yeah, its pretty wild actually. I don’t know if I’ll be back after this, to be honest, but it’s been an amazing few years. I’ve been on a lot of different shows. I mean, I don’t know if maybe they do a third season of Luke Cage potentially, or maybe if they figure out some kind of way for me to be on The Punisher – just so I can feel like I’ve done every show. But it’s been like, my daughter is high school, so I kinda wanna’ not be 3000 miles away for work.”
As great value as Dawson is as Claire, you could argue that she’s an inessential element of three out of four of the Marvel/Netflix shows. However, she is a major part of Luke Cage’s life, as the pair are currently dating, with Claire pretty much acting as his rock. As comic fans know, though, she isn’t necessarily the one for Luke, as he and Jessica have a grand romance in the source material.
So, maybe we should expect Luke and Claire’s relationship to come to an end in the upcoming second season of Luke Cage when it lands on Netflix on June 22nd? We’ll have to wait and see what happens, but even if that’s it for Dawson in that show, hopefully she’ll still complete the set by appearing in The Punisher at some stage.
