Editor’s note: The following article is an op-ed, and the views expressed are the author’s own. Read more opinions on theGrio.
If you’ve managed to make it this far into this show then you are most likely watching it just to see who ends up dead by the end of the series. We have a whopping TWO episodes left, and I have no clue how it might end. I don’t even have an inkling anymore. The amount of bad decision-making happening from every principal cast member is astounding.
For instance, Cane is going to marry Noma so he can be the frontman for her American business interests. That can’t possibly end badly, can it? Honestly, for the majority of the show, Cane has mostly been the one whose moral compass has never wavered — he’s a soldier who is in this to win it until he’s dead. He kills who needs to die and moves purely by the code of the streets. His motivations are clear. Everybody else, though, is really up in the air.
But Cane marrying Noma is just … weird. I get it from Noma’s perspective, but for the life of me I can’t truly understand what Cane gets out of this deal short of trying to show Noma that he is ride or die for her, but he’s never seemed to need that validation. Monet and Tariq are equally confused (as is Davis) and I have to say, I’m right there with them. Effie is righteously done with Cane at this point because he keeps trying to play both sides with her and Noma. (Also, Effie’s mother randomly showing up on Stansfield’s campus asking for money? In episode eight? New plotline? WHY!?!!) Again, for a cat who has mostly always seemed to be on the right side of the game, this marriage to Noma is odd. Maybe the wedding gets shot up or something, but Cane, bro, do better.
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Speaking of people who need to do better, Brayden needs to be put out of his misery. He is a bad decision MAVEN. So he already got coked up and ruined his girlfriend’s band night, forcing her band to end the relationship that allowed them to sell drugs at the shows. The dude Stokely said it right, “I don’t know if we have fans or if we have fiends!” Anyway, Brayden’s girl overdoses on some fentanyl-laced cocaine and ends up in the hospital, setting off a CHAIN of bad decisions by Brayden. First, he calls Tariq so they can find the dude who sold her the bad coke … “to scare him.” They make a run to scare the dude, and Brayden ends up shooting him. Obviously, bad idea. But to make it worse, he goes back to the hospital where his girlfriend wakes up from the coma AND HE TELLS HER THAT HE EFFECTIVELY MURDERED THE DUDE.
Le sigh. Tariq is going to have to kill Brayden at some point and frankly, it would be the right thing to do.
Poor Diana is out here trying to get knocked up again by Tariq to fill the void in her heart now. Like, I’m not even sure what else to say about that. She is, of course, going through a very traumatic point in her life so there is grace at her disposal, but Diana, you in danger girl, just stop! Especially because Monet and Tariq are coldblooded; while talking about Diana struggling, they were both like “She needs to get over it, but what about Carter!!! How do we take him out?!” They both seem to have gotten over the loss pretty quickly.
Carter turned Felicia’s murder into a car accident somehow and that isn’t sitting well with the rest of the unit. But, if there’s one thing Carter has shown us it’s that he will take one bad situation and turn it into more. His solution to most things seems to be shooting his way out of it all. Forget cleaning it up, just kill people. Which is why Brayden suggested that Tariq not go to war with the NYPD, since, ya know, NYPD has tens of thousands of cops and Tariq has … Brayden? I hate them so much. Well, mostly Brayden.
Speaking of Carter and the drug game, Dru is running point on some things now and stepping up quite nicely. I don’t see this ending well for him. I don’t know why but he can’t possibly make it to the end of the last episode, right? Carter has the drop on Noma courtesy of Davis, Tariq and Monet and is about to get all the information he needs to do MORE damage. Davis comes through in the clutch and puts Noma on high alert, which is setting up what could be an epic battle between Carter and Noma, but, I mean, maybe? Nothing makes sense and everything is still on the table.
Look, by this point, I can’t decide what I want to happen with Tariq. It seems like he might go to prison because of the video that Carter is holding but I suppose there’s a universe where Tariq hits a lick on millions of dollars in cash or something, goes to scoop up his mother and Rayna and then they move to Mexico forever.
I don’t know, but I love this ridiculousness. It’s not that I won’t stop watching this show, it’s that I can’t stop watching this show. Whew, chile.
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).
