Fuck Teddy. Fuck the CIA. And fuck the government that supported them. This declaration from Cissy to Franklin at the end of the premiere succinctly sums up the energy Snowfall’s final season is ushering in. At the end of season five, Franklin’s world came crashing down when Teddy wiped out his bank account and Jerome and Louie officially broke off on their own. Franklin went fully Machiavellian and, with the help of Dallas and Black Diamond, goes on a murder spree at Louie and Jerome’s clubs to steal their coke and their money. Season six picks up immediately after Franklin’s violent play, and we find out that he made off with $3.4 million in cash and product and is determined to rebuild his empire.
Still believing there is a chance to eventually get out of the game with his riches in tow as he rides off into the sunset with Veronique and the baby, he turns to the mother of his child for help cleaning the money he stole. His plan of action is to clean the money, regain his clientele by offering lower prices than Jerome and Louie, enact revenge against Teddy and Peaches, and return to focusing on the real estate plans. Veronique, against her better judgment, agrees to use her contacts in Miami to clean the money but urges Franklin to make it right with his uncle (not that Franklin is in the right state of mind even to consider this option). He puts a quarter million dollar bounty on Peaches, promising an additional finders fee, and asks Top Notch to look into information about Teddy’s family.
Snowfall’s resident Bonnie and Clyde are reeling from Franklin’s retaliation. Left with no product to distribute for upcoming drops, no money to buy more product, and no warehouse to facilitate business, Jerome calls his nephew. Franklin obviously ignores him, busy trying to secure back his clientele, starting with Deon. A true man about his business, Deon is candid about his lack of loyalty to anyone and agrees to buy at the lower price, but emphasizes that he’s not interested in being tied up in the family drama. Franklin arranges for Dallas and Black Diamond to make the drop later in the day, instructing Deon to tell Jerome he got a better deal. Next, he goes to the hospital to speak with Kane. Ricky informs him that Kane has been sedated again, but that doesn’t keep Franklin from offering to provide product in Leon’s absence, stating that messing with Jerome and Louie’s business is the best way to get back at them. Once Franklin is able to talk to Kane himself, Kane demands that Franklin get back at the people involved in his shooting, adding one more thing to Franklin’s to-do list.
When Deon tells Jerome that he’s copping from Franklin, Jerome and Louie arrange an interception of the drop, taking advantage of Buckley’s ties to the LAPD. Jerome reaches out to Franklin one more time, demanding his money back, but Franklin blatantly refuses and hangs up on his uncle, which is an official declaration of war. Intentionally throwing salt on Jerome’s wound, Louie tells Jerome how Franklin pulled a gun on her, causing Jerome to abandon his soft spot for his nephew. He shows up with LAPD and stops Dallas and Black Diamond after the drop with Deon. He beats Black Diamond repeatedly, asking where Franklin keeps the product. The girls don’t know, as Franklin refuses to tell anyone the location. Jerome’s violence toward Black Diamond is jarring — he beats her unconscious, the internal bleeding leading to her eventual death in the hospital. Honoring their pact to give up everything if one of them lost their life, Dallas takes their kids and flees, leaving Franklin with an even smaller circle of allies.
Teddy is also trying to clean up the mess he made since we last saw him. No, this doesn’t include maybe, I don’t know, seeking therapy and seeing his child. But I should know better than to expect that from Teddy, who, like Franklin, allows his ambition to destroy anything that gets in his way. First, he tries to get intel on Avi’s enemies from one of the arms dealer’s associates, trying to track down who killed Avi and who kidnapped Parissa. This leads to a dead end because he’s officially burned that bridge, leaving him without an arms dealer or any leads to Parissa. Later, he meets with Louie while she attempts to re-up without any money, explaining that they were robbed by Franklin. Knowing he’s the one who set off this chain reaction by clearing Franklin’s account, Teddy agrees to front Louie the bricks. Despite no longer having a gun connect, Teddy’s handler says they can talk about getting his badge back and that the government is very interested in his $73 million.
The aftermath of the season five finale has left every man to himself, including Gustavo. After his attempted escape that the DEA thwarted, Gustavo strikes a plea deal with the organization, agreeing to help them take town Teddy in exchange for immunity. He still has to explain his brief absence to Teddy, so he claims one of his nephews had to go to the hospital. Anxious that Teddy will try and get proof of his nephew’s time at the hospital, he demands security from the DEA. They tell him they’ll forge the documents but give him an ultimatum — for continued protection, he needs to cough something up, specifically access to the tunnel he was building to help Teddy smuggle drugs across the Mexican border. Gustavo takes them to the tunnel the next day and receives a call from Teddy, who has found Parissa in jail after police found her wandering the streets with a head injury she sustained trying to escape Rubén. Parissa was able to provide enough of a description of her kidnapper for them to create a sketch of Rubén. Gustavo recognizes the face from Louie and Jerome’s wedding and calls Franklin to meet him at a wrestling match to ask about the sketch. Franklin warns Gustavo that the subject of the sketch is dangerous, but agrees to reveal his identity if Gustavo can bring him to Teddy.
All of Snowfall’s characters are experiencing a sense of urgency as the show wraps up in the final season. Gustavo has the DEA on his back, Rubén has the KGB waiting for answers, Teddy is eager to return to the CIA, Franklin is in severe debt, Louie and Jerome are meeting roadblocks around every corner, and there’s a literal countdown happening in Veronique’s womb. But Cissy, perhaps, is feeling the most pressure. She’s lost so much to the game with Alton’s disappearance but still has so much to lose while her son continues to make plays. After promising to help Franklin burn everything to the ground, she asks him to meet with an impatient Rubén. Franklin hesitates, the thought of treason leaving a bad taste in his mouth. This is when she says Teddy, the CIA, and the government can fuck off. Who can blame her? America has treated her and her people like they were less than human. She points out how Teddy couldn’t even be bothered killing or “disappearing†her like he did Alton because her existence means that little to him. This is a striking parallel to the opening scene, where the daughter of one of the victims of gang violence is able to move through the crime scene invisibly, not stopped or seen by anyone, to find her father lying dead on the ground. Like Cissy said, Black people are merely pawns in a game run by white men.
Back from Miami, where she met with her mother’s ex for help cleaning the money Franklin stole, Veronique tells him to listen to Cissy and repair things with Jerome and Louie. While mediating Franklin’s familial issues, Veronique deals with some of her own when she recruits her mother, Cassandra, to help get Franklin’s $73 million back. This is our first time meeting Cassandra, a woman fluent in many languages, including scamming, and it’s clear the mother and daughter have deep-rooted unresolved issues. Regardless, Cassandra and Franklin convene over barbecue and agree to work together since Cassandra is the only person he knows with the skill set to get his money back.
Franklin takes in Cissy’s words and agrees to meet with Rubén. He tells the spy everything, starting from the moment he first met Teddy under the condition that Rubén delivers Teddy to him … alive. After the meeting, Cissy urges Franklin to make amends with her brother, to maintain a united front against the white people trying to tear them apart. She invites Jerome to dinner and pleads with him to stop the fighting, as he and Franklin are the last two Saint men standing. Jerome feels unsupported by his sister, who will protect her son at every cost, but understands the problem is greater than his pride. They have a sit-down at a diner where Franklin proposes a truce. Jerome, seeing the image of his baby nephew transposed on top of the face of the ruthless adult Franklin, questions where they went wrong raising him. He calls Franklin scandalous, cut-throat, and bitch made, to which Franklin retorts, “Another way of seeing it is everything you have, is because of me.†He goes on to say before him, Jerome wasn’t doing shit but selling dime bags. Yikes.
Things quickly escalate between Jerome and Franklin, and after Franklin says his uncle got played by “that trick†he married, Jerome swiftly punches Franklin across the face. Franklin leaps out of his seat and pulls a gun on Jerome, but is ultimately unable to pull the trigger despite Jerome’s taunting. He leaves the diner infuriated, retreating to what he knows best: plotting his next move.
Final Forecast
• Cassandra and Veronique are so mysterious and intriguing — learning more about their past will be nice. Like, what did Cassandra mean by Veronique breaking the rules? Does this have to do with what Veronique told Franklin last season?
• When Louie and Jerome need advice on how to keep the business afloat, they turn to Skully. Skully, Snowfall’s most spiritually devout gangster, reminds them of the importance of karma and family. Is it weird to say I want a therapy session from Skully?
• While on his way to check on Dallas and the kids, Franklin offers to buy some of the children on the street something from the ice cream truck. In a full circle moment from season one, the kids refuse Franklin, distrustful of him, showing just how much has changed since we first met him.