'Cloak & Dagger' Star Emma Lahana Explains Why Mayhem Isn't Exactly a Villain

After a long offseason of waiting and speculation, Marvel fans are finally getting to know Mayhem, the new antagonist on Cloak & Dagger. After the surprising reveal at the end of the first season, last week's premiere delivered an even bigger twist when it showed that Mayhem wasn't an evil, evolved version of Brigid O'Reilly. As it turns out, Mayhem is a completely different person, born from Brigid's DNA after the Roxxon explosion. She's also got an insane mean-streak, set on bringing justice to the city of New Orleans on her own terms, which so far has meant a LOT of dead bodies.

Here's the thing though: While Mayhem may have a terrible way of going about things, she's not actually a villain at all. She sees a problem that needs fixing in her city, marginalized people in desperate need of help, and she takes care of everything. She's a hero. At least, according to Cloak & Dagger star Emma Lahana.

We had a chance to speak with Lahana about her new double-duty role on Cloak & Dagger this week, specifically about her transition into Mayhem in Season 2. She related the new character to an organization that goes to great lengths to do what they know is right: The marine life activists known around the world as Sea Shepherd.

"So one organization that is like the dearest to my heart at all times is called Sea Shepherd," Lahana began. "They go and put their boats in between a whale and harpoon to stop it from happening because, all the laws are in place, all over the ocean to try and protect our marine life, to protect whales in particular, but no one is on board with it. The only people that support it are Sea Shepherds, so it kinda reminds me of that in a way because you can sit back and wait for someone to do something and you can wait for all these things that are in place to align, but it doesn't work a lot of the time.

"These people that are not seen all the time and its exactly like they said [on the show]. If these girls were like white and blonde and pretty with a pretty white mother crying, they would be all over the news, but because we live in a society where we don't value people of color as much and you know loyal treat them as so much more worthless, then a white person per se. They don't get that justice, so Mayhem sees that because she. It's different from Brigid, but when they split, the moment before all that she has all of Brigid's life and all of Brigid's memories. So she has been a cop and a detective in New York where police brutality and rape is rampant and then seeing it in the New Orleans Police Department as well. So she is coming with those memories, she is coming with that understanding that if I sit back and wait for the cops to do this. It's not going to happen, so I am going to do it."

She might have dangerous methods, but Mayhem is going to constantly strive to do what she feels is the right thing. With the state of the world she's living in, can you really blame her?

New episodes of Cloak & Dagger air on Thursday nights at 8 pm ET on Freeform.

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