Power - Season 4 (Real-Time) Review - Part 1 (Spoilers!)
This is the first part to my real time review of Power's fourth season, I watch an episode, I document my findings immediately and that's what a real time review is, of a TV show at least! Let's not dilly dally, here it is, enjoy!
Episode 1 ''When I Get Out''
This felt like the most well rounded episode so far, nothing felt forced and I think the dynamic change between characters worked really well! We've had to sit through this awkwardly executed relationship in Ghost and Angela for three seasons and now we're finally free. I much prefer the dynamic between Ghost and Tasha, there's actually a sense of something real there, something to be invested in, she's really grown on me since the last season. The woman playing Angela isn't a good actress and I've just never felt sold on the character, there also isn't any chemistry between her and Ghost at all as opposed to Ghost and Tasha.
With Ghost behind bars, Tasha's forced to figure out how to get a couple million dollars, apparently it's hard for her and I choose to believe that, it's the fourth season, clean slate! Last season she gave away half a million to Kesha and it didn't seem that financially impactful but forget that! Kanan releases Tariq back to Andre in exchange for $15k a week, or a month, I forget, and Tariq, who doesn't even know he'd been kidnapped, lies to Tasha about Kanan's existence who seems to show signs of actually caring about him. It's interesting given his history, he killed his own son for choosing Ghost and now Ghost's son chooses him.
I'm a big fan of stories set in prisons, Oz is one of my favourite T.V. shows and The Shawshank Redemption is one of my favourite films so I'm enjoying Ghost's time in prison. I hope we get to see the guard bullying him suffer to his last breath! Refusing bail was bullshit on the judge's part as well, I don't know what changed her mind but fuck her and fuck the whole system! Angela, having fucked the victim and the defendant, should know full well that she shouldn't be on this case and I can't believe she turned up at Tasha's apartment to search the place, I'm with Tommy now, I can't wait to watch that bitch suffer slowly and hopefully die for good!
Episode 2 ''Things Are Going to Get Worse''
Ghost is now facing the death sentence, which is a bit extreme, in my opinion killing a cop should be considered less of an offence than killing a regular person, or at least equally! In Power though it seems as though anyone can get the death sentence for anything which all in all lessens the impact of the idea. That last scene where Ghost calls Tommy and asks him to look after his family was pretty touching, this is definitely the best season so far, nothing feels as forced as it usually does and the tension feels earned, as in more realistic, I hope they keep it up.
Sandoval plants the murder weapon he used to kill Greg in Ghost's club, making his exoneration even harder to reach, it's what led to the death sentence being a possibility. Andre seems to have everything running like clockwork at Truth in relation to both the club itself and the drugs being sold within it, his only problem right now is Kanan. Speaking of Kanan, with Tariq planted firmly under his wing, he continues to teach him the ways of the criminal, showing him how to easily break into apartments and such, and Tariq's just lapping it all up, I ponder his fate.
After the disrespect displayed by whoever that goon was, I very much enjoyed watching Tommy teach him a lesson by running him over with his own car but it's yet another case of why didn't they just run to the side instead of a straight line, which is irritating, but I still found it satisfying. I also like the idea of Tommy and Kesha being together, Kesha's just been sitting there as a character doing nothing for three seasons and this gives us a reason to care, I like her and I like them as a couple, I'm already more invested in them than him and Holly!
Episode 3 ''The Kind of Man You Are''
I really hope Tariq wakes up and realises that Kanan isn't good for anybody, it would be kinda poetic if he ended up being the one to kill Kanan, I enjoyed the fact that he had the bully kid's house robbed though. Angela continues to be a piece of shit, I hate the very site of her smirky little face, she's an idiot and the show wants us to think she's slick, she's not slick, she can't even fucking act! She's just a jealous ex-girlfriend throwing her toys out of the pram for being dumped like the fucking trash she is, I hope Tasha gets to kill her!
Ghost brings up the fact that Greg pulled him over prior to the murder and for some reason it's taken him this long! How could that pertinent fucking information have slipped his mind? Proctor, his lawyer, for some unknown fucking reason brings another lawyer onto the case and this guy's the worst fucking lawyer you could ever hope for, he's bitching with Proctor, complicating the entire situation and he even gets in Ghost's face and judges him for his choices, basically saying that he's nothing but a street thug, that he belongs in prison and that he actually believes he's guilty, who is this guy? Why's he on the case?
Tommy frantically runs the drug empire and keeps things moving to appease the Serbians while tension begins to surface between Andre and Julio, I'm going with Andre on this, Julio seems like a dick. They're both called in for questioning and remain loyal to Ghost, revealing nothing. The paparazzi snap a picture of Ghost's daughter crying at school and it gets put on the front page of a newspaper much to everybody's dismay. Lee Tergesen, Tobias Beecher from Oz, Greg's random friend who turned up that time, Power as a show is weakest when it's introducing characters, anyway, he's on to something with Sandoval, I look forward to seeing where that leads, probably his death though.
Episode 4 ''We are in this Together''
Tommy, the fucking idiot, kills Beecher and leaves the body with Proctor who seems strangely prepared to deal with it because he ''knows a guy'', Beecher was just about to reveal his info on Sandoval as well, Tommy, you fucking moron! Proctor gets kicked off the case due to having represented Tommy in the past which constitutes a conflict of interest and he turns up at Angela's drunk. It doesn't take much for Proctor to convince Angela she might be wrong and it doesn't take much from Angela to realise Ghost's innocent and Sandoval's the leak, Jesus, it took like five fucking minutes as well!
Tariq continues to help Kanan burgle his rich friends houses and Kanan invites him over to a house party where he seemingly helps him get laid. Andre schemes against Julio so that he can replace him as Tommy's right hand man and he does it pretty well, Julio's an idiot though. The FBI close Ghost's club and Kesha's salon down, putting more pressure on everyone. Angela skulks around like a rat, this time going straight to Tasha to stir up more shit and Tasha gives Ghost a headache about not including her in his decision to not be a snitch which she herself has always been against any way.
I feel sorry for Tariq's sister, she's got a dickhead for a brother, an inmate for a father and Tasha's falling apart! Kesha gets jealous that Tommy spent the night at Tasha's and we have to put up with another awkward sex scene, the sex scenes in this show are terrible, they're always set to corny fucking RnB music, they hardly ever serve any purpose to the narrative and all the main female roles are forced to get their tits out in almost every episode! If it was tasteful and pertinent to the story fair enough but that isn't the case at all, and it's so soft core it's even worth masterbating over either!
Episode 5 ''Don't Thank Me''
Ghost gets into a scrap with the prison guard who'd been picking on him all this time and ends up smashing his face into mulch, which, if discovered would secure his time behind bars forever, lucky for him though the inmate who'd intended to blackmail him decides to help him instead, it was a pretty satisfying scene to be fair but it also felt like a bit of a reach. It turns out that the very inmate who helped him is actually Tommy's father as well which is a little too much down the soap opera lane for me, but, you know, it happened.
Tommy confides in Tasha about having murdered Holly and she seems surprisingly cool with it, she's more concered about him keeping up appearances with Kesha to make sure she doesn't squeal on them all. Andre meets Kanan out in the open for everyone to see and surprisingly someone, namely Julio, sees it. I'm assuming Andre has some sort of plan because if not, he's an idiot and everything he's done these past few episodes was a lie! Tariq only goes and gets himself kidnapped again by Kanan's crooked cop cousin and Kanan seems on board but I'm assuming he's at least somewhat conflicted about it.
Angela finally realises she's a fucking moron, or wrong about Ghost being guilty at least and she takes the stand, fucks her career and gets all charges against Ghost dropped, he's free! I appreciated the judges reactions in the court scenes, I had the same reaction as him to all this ridiculous bullshit, who the fuck in their right mind would include someone in the case who'd literally fucked both the victim and the defendant!? Angela swears to still work the case and even though that's ridiculous I'm sure it will ultimately reignite her career because, well, because it's a TV show.
So far the fourth season's shaping up as possibly the best so far, it's taken a while for them to find their rhythm but they're getting there, I'll post Part 2 up very soon! Thanks for reading and I'll see you for the next one.
What are your thoughts? Let me know in the comments.