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ALIX LAPRI AS EFFIE MORALES POWER BOOK II: GHOST | 4. 02 To Thine Own Self
POWER (2014–2020): Moderately diverting, very soapy Starz crime drama, created by Courtney A. Kemp, about nightclub owner James St. Patrick (Omari Hardwick), who's secretly the drug kingpin known as Ghost, running powder with his volatile childhood friend Tommy Egan (Joseph Sikora). Jamie's plans to get out of the game go awry when he begins cheating on his wife Tasha (Naturi Naughton) with his one-time high school sweetheart Angela Valdes (Lela Loren), who is now an assistant U.S. attorney targeting his drug connect. Curtis (50 Cent) Jackson, who did the tedious theme song, has a surprisingly unsympathetic supporting role as Ghost and Tommy's ruthless mentor, Kanan Stark.
The gangster stuff often feels pretty rote, with SUPER FLY a too-obvious influence, but for the first three seasons, POWER works well enough as nighttime soap opera, with a good cast and lots of sex compensating for its dramatic lapses. Later seasons bog down with some tiresome plot threads that drag on far too long, and shifting the focus away from Jamie and Angie (while dialing back the sex) sacrifices more emotional immediacy than the story can afford to lose. The extended final season then foolishly writes off Angela while clumsily attempting to emulate the political complexity of THE WIRE. Aside from its very rough treatment of all its female characters, POWER's big problem is that Ghost isn't half as smart as everyone keeps insisting he is — he's prevaricating, credulous, and curiously slow on the uptake.
CONTAINS LESBIANS? Not until Season 3, a few after that, including Kanan's ruthless cousin Jukebox (Anika Noni Rose). VERDICT: Decent pulp fiction that runs out of steam before the end in its self-sabotaging determination to be taken seriously in ways the material doesn't really support. Sometimes quite brutal, and CWs apply for domestic violence, animal death, child harm (actual and threatened), and references to CSA.
POWER BOOK II: GHOST (2020–2024): Less-than-satisfying sequel to POWER finds James St. Patrick's corrupt teenage son Tariq (Michael Rainey Jr.) getting deeper into the drug game at his new Ivy League college. As federal law enforcement tries to burn his mother Tasha (Naturi Naughton) for Jamie's crimes, Tariq learns that the star athlete his school has strong-armed him into tutoring (Daniel Bellomy) is the nephew of Monet Tejada (Mary J. Blige), the wife and de facto shot-caller of an imprisoned drug lord (Berto Colon), and a ruthless control freak whose fixation on family loyalty doesn't stop her from turning on her own kids if she thinks they're defying her.
Too many moving pieces, and it never clicks, weighed down by lackluster characterization and some really clunky scripting (with the efforts to tie up loose ends from the original series particularly labored). Tariq is just not a strong enough protagonist to bridge the gaps: POWER made him a bleak mirror for his father's worst qualities — a treacherous, manipulative little shit with brains but no heart — so it takes BOOK II a long time to even make him tolerable, and he's neither sympathetic nor charismatic (which makes the number of girls throwing themselves at him seem absurd). Mary J. is a credible bad bitch, but her character is exhaustingly one-note; Method Man has an amusing supporting role as sleazy lawyer Davis MacLean. The show's best character is Tariq's sort-of girlfriend Effie Morales (Alix Lapri), but she rarely gets the spotlight.
CONTAINS LESBIANS? Effie is bisexual, and there are a few other wlw here and there, but if you blink, you'll miss them. VERDICT: Forced and seldom much fun. The only real reasons to bother are to see what happens to Tasha and a few brief guest appearances by Tommy Egan (Joseph Sikora) in advance of his own spinoff (POWER BOOK IV).
POWER BOOK III: RAISING KANAN (2021– ): Polished but very gloomy POWER prequel/spinoff, set in the '90s, about the early life of Kanan Stark (Curtis (50 Cent) Jackson), the malevolent mentor of the original show's protagonists — played as a teenager by Mekai Curtis, with Jackson narrating — growing up in Southside Jamaica, Queens, and learning the drug game under his hardbitten mother Raq (Patina Miller), an ambitious small-time distributor.
More dramatically accomplished than the clunky POWER BOOK II, with richer characters and less soapishness, but the pace is slow and the mood is grim, grim, grim, which Jackson's heavy-handed voiceovers don't help. (Bits and pieces of the story were inspired by his own early life.) The cast is excellent, but the only really sympathetic character is Kanan's gay cousin Jukebox (Hailey Kilgore), which is bitterly ironic, knowing from POWER how Juke ends up. Kanan himself remains a surprisingly peripheral character in the early seasons.
CONTAINS LESBIANS? Jukebox is a lesbian, as is one of the cops. VERDICT: Good character drama that could have used a stronger narrative hook. Characteristically brutal throughout; Season 1 also demands a CW for animal death (even describing it is upsetting), and there's CSA in Season 2.
POWER BOOK IV: FORCE (2022–2025): Second POWER sequel chronicles the further adventures of hot-headed roughneck Tommy Egan (Joseph Sikora) as he stops off in Chicago, discovers he has a gay Black half-brother (Anthony Fleming), and immediately starts some shit with Irish mob boss Walter Flynn (Tommy Flanagan) and his estranged kids Claudia (Lili Simmons) and Vic (Shane Harper).
No Chicago atmosphere to speak of and often quite mean, but more fun than the other POWER spinoffs, simply because it has a sense of humor that BOOK II and BOOK III sorely lack. Tommy's short-fused but genial bluster does a lot to balance the sometimes turgid B-plots; Tommy can be a bit of a cartoon, but he remains surprisingly likable despite his enormous body count and a temper that often makes him his own worst enemy. BOOK IV also wins some points by having more respect for its female characters than the original series ever did, but don't get attached to any of the supporting cast.
CONTAINS LESBIANS? Claudia Flynn is a Mean Rich Bitch Femme; Tommy Egan is not a lesbian, but continues to look and vibe like the kind of hot fuckboi butch that TV desperately needs more of. VERDICT: Pretty good of its type, and unlike BOOK II, it would stand well enough on its own.
POWER UNIVERSE MASTERLIST
FANFICTION
Effie Morales X Reader
(coming soon...)
Headcanons
(...)
Power Book II: Ghost 3x8 | “Sacrifice”
