Editor’s note: The following article is an op-ed, and the views expressed are the author’s own. Read more opinions on theGrio.
I ain’t gon’ hold you but “Power Book II: Ghost” is frustrating me. We’re three episodes away from the series finale — not season, but SERIES — and instead of solving problems and taking Aaliyah’s advice (RIP) about needing a resolution, our principal characters are finding more trouble to get into.
Hey, Panama, whatever do you mean?
I’m glad you asked.
So dirty cop Det. Lewis (she goes by Felicia in this episode; I’ll toggle back and forth) stomped out Diana on a New York City street causing Diana to lose the baby. Of course, Diana wants revenge. This is the same Diana, mind you, who has spent the better part of several seasons telling us how she wanted NOTHING to do with the game. For her life that makes sense; the life that Monet has forced upon her family has cost her her father, her brother/cousin, her friends and her sanity. Diana wanted to go to Spelman; instead, she got stuck at Stansfield and knocked up by Tariq St. Patrick, which is literally fresh out of the frying pan into the fire. But the cop hurt her so she wants revenge. Except Diana sucks at the hardcore life; instead of shooting Felicia like she should have done straight up, she had to do that thing where you explain to the person you’re about to kill why they’re going to die. So instead of shooting her, Diana gets into a melee with Felicia, and then Diana takes a cast-iron skillet to Felicia’s head several times.
Job done. New problems created.
Of course, as you can imagine, the entire episode is about the Tejada family and Tariq trying to kill this cop who is tied up in Det. Carter’s task force. Yo, Det. Carter is literally the worst boss of all time. So he roped some of his folks into letting some drug dealers sell drugs and then killing others. But also, Det. Carter kills Congressman Rashad Tate’s brother, Det. Kamal Tate, and then pins the murder on some folks who couldn’t have done the murder, causing some minor friction within his own camp.
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Yo, let this be a lesson to anybody who has to Ponzi scheme their way into the top spot; the house of cards always comes tumbling down as is clearly about to happen here. I have no doubt that Det. Carter is going to get killed by somebody, I just don’t know who is going to do the murder.
Before I get to Dru Tejada, I kinda sorta see an end in sight now. So, Felicia (Det. Lewis) who sent Diana to go in and kill Zion in the last episode got footage (so so stupid) of Tariq and Brayden killing him instead. Diana, of course, passed the buck to Tariq who did the murder so Diana wouldn’t have to. Anyway, because it happened at a police safe house, Det. Lewis has the whole thing on camera. Det. Carter didn’t know she passed the buck to Diana OR that she had stomped out Diana so he’s rightly pissed. Well, he sees the footage and holds on to it. I’m guessing that little plot device there is going to come back and bite Tariq and Brayden in their hindparts eventually. I’m guessing Tariq kills Det. Carter but not before that footage finds its way into the police department’s hands, sending Tariq to the pokey for life. Though, in this twisted world, we would flash forward and Councilman Tate is now president and finds out that Carter killed his brother (from Tariq) and pardons Tariq who then goes on to open a string of car dealerships in upstate New York, but I’m getting ahead of myself.
Monet is a mess. Blah blah blah. Let’s talk Dru Tejada. When this show started, Dru was a good kid from a bad family who despite his willingness to go along with the family business really just wanted to be an artist and love on his various boos. Over the course of this who, Monet has turned Dru into a future movie franchise assassin. Seriously, Forget Jason Bourne and Jack Reacher, we need a Dru Tejada movie franchise where he’s an anti-hero who kills drug dealers as he tries to overcome the demons his mother basically fed him since he was a baby. Dru is out here killing people in prison like a professional. He does it so tactically, too — Dru definitely has a future in the mercenary game if he makes it out alive. In fact, Dru and Cane could do a buddy murder movie and while they’d spend as much time fighting one another. I’m just saying, it’s crazy to me the character arc of Dru Tejada. Everybody else is pretty much exactly who they were when the series started but in different situations. Dru is the one person who has morphed into the version of himself he least wanted to be. I hate that for him, but can we get a Dru spinoff? Probably not.
Effie is finally about to go to Stanford if she doesn’t end up dead first. Yay, success story…maybe.
We have three episodes left, we need some important bodies to start dropping soon — EVERYBODY cannot make it to the end alive.
Panama Jackson is a columnist at theGrio and host of the award-winning podcast, “Dear Culture” on theGrio Black Podcast Network. He writes very Black things, drinks very brown liquors, and is pretty fly for a light guy. His biggest accomplishment to date coincides with his Blackest accomplishment to date in that he received a phone call from Oprah Winfrey after she read one of his pieces (biggest) but he didn’t answer the phone because the caller ID said “Unknown” (Blackest).
