It’s hard to keep a cool head in the Power universe. If you can’t remain calm and collected under pressure, you’re doomed to unravel at the seams. Luckily, that’s not a problem for James, who once again shows he’s a master of composure, despite the many forces hoping to figuratively or literally take him out.
Knowing that Lobos is alive and secretly in jail, James asks his lawyer, Joe Proctor, to dig up with more intel. He even calls inside the prison, just to tell the hitter he hired to off Lobos to keep an eye out. It’s not that James is worried; even if Lobos is alive, nothing can link them. Lobos only knew Ghost the drug dealer, not James St. Patrick the respectable businessman.
Besides, James has bigger problems. He wants to ensure that his new club is a smashing success, and hires a douchey-yet-popular EDM DJ to be the entertainment on opening night, but the DJ gets taken from under him by the two guys running a club across the street. They had shown up at Truth earlier, under the guise of spending big to have a good time. (They had an automatic gun that made cash rain and everything!) When James found out, I briefly wondered if he would get this Ghost on, especially with Dre goading him on. But James remains James: Instead, he considers a plan of attack for his new club rivals.
Tasha also keeps it cool throughout the episode, mostly for the good of her family. She lets the kids spend the night at Angela’s apartment. Of course, she makes a surprise visit to check things out — childproofed crib? Check! — and even gives Angela some parting words of advice. It’s an obviously tense moment, and Tasha handles it with class. (I suspect a lot of viewers would’ve preferred to see her drag Angela’s ass all over the place.)
This whole episode is basically Naturi Naughton’s Emmy submission. (See: Tasha’s loving moment with her kids before they left, her heated sit down with Tommy, how she walks around her apartment before sobbing.) Naughton excels at showing how solid Tasha has to be, even when she’s ready to collapse on the inside.
Tasha is definitely more cucumber-cool than Tommy, who’s becoming a coked-up wreck. Of course, he has to deal with a lot of problems. He’s gotta kill James, or else Lobos will kill him and Holly like he did their dog Belle in last week’s episode. (The dog did have a name.) He also has to solve his distribution issues with the new primeras, who are beginning to doubt him. (Still, the scene with Tommy and the Chinese is amusing: A pitiful Tommy, who thought they were Japanese, keeps putting his foot in his mouth.)
But Tommy can’t hold off any longer, especially since he’s been dodging Ghost’s calls. They agree to meet, and Tommy’s all ready to shoot him from afar. But after a brief bit of shaking and facial tics (tone it down, Joseph Sikora), he can’t go through with it. He eventually goes on a coke bender, and beats the snot out of a henchman for busting his balls. After that bit of nuttiness, he finally tells Holly everything, prompting her to stand by her man and encourage him to finish the job for their safety.
Meanwhile, the Feds are stuck sorting through a confusing web of deceit and lies and videotape. Sandoval looks as fidgety as Tommy these days, as he tries to protect Lobos while keeping both Angela and Saxe in the dark. Saxe wants to find the prisoner who shanked Lobos so he can flip on Jimenez. (He still thinks Jimenez was the one who signed off on the hit.) Of course, Sandoval wants to get to the assassin first, so he won’t finger Ghost and Ghost won’t testify against Lobos. When Saxe finds the assassin, Sandoval notifies Lobos’s crew, who finish the guy off in prison before Saxe can reach him. After Saxe texts Angela about the death, she starts to wonder if Jamie did it. (He had to go somewhere, after all.) Although he went out to see Tommy and had no idea what was happening at the prison, it doesn’t stop ol’ girl from quietly thinking things.
As usual for Power, a whole lotta stuff gets packed into a single episode. “It’s Never Over†has some captivating aspects, like Tasha and Tommy’s plots, and others that feel far too convoluted, like the stuff with the Feds. It seems safe to say that things will get a lot darker for these people. Even a sensible cat like James knows that it’s only a matter of time until fires start burning.
Stray Thoughts:
- A lot of you want to hate Holly, but you have to admit she’s trying. She wants to be in Tommy’s corner so badly, she tries to put that check in the bank behind his back. But a criminal with no legit ID should know better. (Also, is she still Monica Moore?) She even calls Tasha, who shows up at Tommy’s apartment to help with the books.
- Dre certainly falls in the hothead camp. He’s always ready to leap into action, despite reminders from James that they’re not in the ‘hood anymore. I almost wanted to see him slap the taste out that DJ’s mouth. (The look of disgust on his face when the DJ says he doesn’t use his hands before a gig is priceless.) Also, I hope he doesn’t take the advice his boys kept slinging to him about robbing James’s clubs. If he’s really the hustler he claims to be, he’ll hustle up a plan to fight those guys across the street.
- The family stuff with James, Angela, and the kids is cute. James shows his soft, sensitive side, while Angela awkwardly (and earnestly) tries to get in good with the little ones. However, the cuteness is short-lived after Tariq snoops through Angela and James’s closet, then finds the gun from Angela’s briefcase.
- So, Angela likes to sleep butt-naked with no covers or nothing? She’s gonna catch her death! Â
- No BBQ Kanan yet.