Power seasons 1 and 2 recap with Sunshine

When Game of Thrones was popping last summer, Power was also the talk of the town during its fourth season run. Since its premiere in 2014, the 50 Cent produced drama series has increased in ratings as more people become drawn to the crime underworld of the big, rich town. Power returns this Sunday with its 5th season. Because it’s been a while since we’ve seen Ghost, Tommy, Angie and the rest, my wonderful girlfriend and I here to bring you up to speed on all that’s happened. 

Season 1  

Power follows James “Ghost” St. Patrick, a drug dealer who aspires to leave the drug game and fully invest in his career as a New York nightclub owner. Unfortunately, this is a desire that nobody in his life shares with him. The closest to him being his wife Tasha, who is the mother of his three kids and has been down since Day 1, and his best friend and drug dealing partner, Tommy. 

Throughout the series nobody appears more determined to keep Ghost as a drug dealer than his own wife Tasha. She sees Ghost as the biggest drug dealer in N.Y. and nothing else, and she intends to keep it that way. Honestly, if she wasn’t this way, maybe I’d be more supportive of their marriage. From their very first interaction we can see that Ghost is not that into Tasha.

Tasha: “Tell me I’m beautiful”

Ghost: “You know you are”

And that was that. For the rest of the night, Ghost proceeded to ignore Tasha as she did everything she could to get his attention. Even in their intimate moments he has his mind on other things. With all that said there is little reason to be invested in their relationship or believe it’s rooted in anything beyond the grit and glamor of the drug game.

One night Ghost sees his high school sweetheart, Angela Valdes, and he falls in love with her all over again. To Ghost, Angie represents the life he wants to live. Because unlike Tasha, she sees a lot of potential in him *rolls eyes* *throw up emoji*. It’s sad seeing Ghost trick himself into believing he can live a life he can’t have. And this is made even more impossible in the fact that Angie is a U.S. attorney. So throughout the whole show they play a Cat and Mouse game while carrying on a liaison that gets them both out of focus. They both have their heads so far up each other’s asses that they can’t see anything in front of them.   

Meanwhile while all of this is blossoming, Tommy begins a relationship Tommy with Holly, a bottle service girl at Ghost’s nightclub Truth. She stops working there once they’re together and personally, I don’t like this because at any moment things could go wrong and she’s not going to have any money. Luckily, Tommy is head over heels for Holly, so she’s secured.

On the business side of things, somebody robs Ghost’s people during a supply shipment and Ghost tries to figure out who it is. To further add to his worries, a pink sneaker donning assassin is making hits on some of the turf leaders, and everyone is suspicious as to who she is and who she works for. 

Ghost seeks guidance from Kanan, his former mentor who is days away from finishing his jail sentence. It turns out that the assassin is working for Kanan, who plans to have Ghost killed by the time he’s out of jail so that he can take back his spot as the top drug dealer.   

In the season finale the assassin fails to kill Ghost in his nightclub, but instead shoots Holly who reveals that she knows about Ghost’s double life. 

Season 2

Kanan is back on the street and he’s bent on revenge. Because Ghost wasn’t killed, he decides his best course of action is to sabotage Ghost’s operation from the inside. Kanan quickly becomes my favorite character, not only because he’s badass, he’s the most consistent character. There’s no love interest that causes him to lose focus (although he unsuccessfully tries to get with Tasha). He sticks to the plan and will eliminate anybody who threatens or gets in the way. 

One of my favorite Kanan moments is when he cuts off a guy’s tongue, literally duct tapes it to his hand, stuffs him in the trunk of a car, and has Dre—Kanan’s newest mentee—kill him as part of a lesson in keeping his men in line. Let me paint the picture again: this guy was running his mouth, so Kanan cut his tongue off and made him hold it to teach him a lesson in holding his tongue. He turned an expression into a literal demise. What a boss. 

Anyways, Kanan’s son, Shawn, is Ghost’s driver and secretly a mole for Kanan, however Shawn doesn’t know this. It could be because he’s too busy creeping with Tasha to realize anything. That’s right, Tasha is having an affair as well. Towards the end of season 1 Shawn tells her about Ghost and Angie and she sees them for herself. She confronts Ghost and tells him to shut it down, and he said he did, but in actuality he did not.

In fact, he and Angela go on a vacation to Miami. It’s really a business trip for Ghost, but he invites Angie and they live it up as if they are a couple. They even go as far as referring to Angie as Mrs. St. Patrick, which pretty much does it for me. He has a whole wife and children, told that same wife that this affair was over and now is on vacay with his side piece? Yepp, he’s trash. Throw him away.

During that vacay Ghost confronts the assassin but is unable to really talk to her because Dre kills her before Ghost can reach her. In her dying words she leads Ghost to suspect that Kanan was behind the hits and he’s out to get him. 

Angela finds out Ghost and Jamie are the same person...does she do anything with this? Not really! She just tries her best to not believe it. At the same time, her department gets wind of Ghost and try to bring him and Lobos, Ghost’s supplier, down. The most zealous one in Angie’s department is Greg Knox, Angie’s jealous  ex-boyfriend who discovers that she’s with Ghost and vies to bring them both to justice. 

Meanwhile Tommy is conflicted because as Holly tries to get involved in the business, she makes Tommy choose between her and Ghost. Ghost sees that Holly is a threat and tries to pay her to leave without a trace. Tommy finds out about this when Holly returns and he unfriends Ghost for a while. 

Things are lowly unraveling for the worst in Ghost’s personal life but he is convinced that he has things under control. Tasha wants answers (why Angie?) This is a GREAT question. Not really great, but very interesting. You want to know why your husband/boyfriend/ lover/ spouse/partner chose this person. What about this person is SOOO great that you would throw away everything we’ve built with no regrets and no turning back? For me this would be an emotional scene. Like how could you? Why would you?

She initially wants a divorce, but her mom slaps some sense in her. She has no money, no job and no place to go. Shawn tells her that they can leave with the kids and start a new life together, but those plans are soon foiled. Shawn, in his infinite naivety confronts Ghosts with the intent to kill him as part of Kanan’s plan. 

Instead he nearly gets himself killed and Ghost spares his life. Shawn then confronts Kanan after learning that he was being used this whole time. Kanan, not being as compassionate as Ghost, kills his own son and he and Ghost duke it out. Ghost emerges as the victor and leaves Kanan to die in a burning building, however, it is revealed that he managed to escape.  

Movie Review: 'Superfly' makes its fortune by and by

As the upcoming rappers get younger and younger, Scarface and New Jack City references are bound to become archaic. Oddly enough, you’re more likely to hear a Rick and Morty reference, or some homage to a Nickelodeon show than a mafioso shoutout. 

With a new generation of rappers who were yet to be thought of during the time when so many of these gangster legends were popular, who will the kids have as their Nino Brown? 

Have no fear, the new Youngblood Priest is here!   

Superfly is a remake of the classic 1972 blaxploitation film Super Fly directed by Gordon Parks, Jr. and written by Phillip Fenty (no relation to Robyn.) Both films follow Youngblood Priest, a drug dealer looking to make his last big score which will make him rich enough to quit the drug game. 

Should you watch the original to understand the remake? Not really. A skim through of the original’s Wikipedia page should do. All you really need to know about Super Fly is that Curtis Mayfield produced the soundtrack which includes the title track and “Pusherman,” both of which appear in this movie.

I was apprehensive about seeing a movie directed by a music video director (Director X), but Superfly exceeded my expectations. Upon seeing the trailer, many would expect the movie to be one long music video or a corny BET TV film with a big budget. Superfly is neither of the two. It’s actually a pretty good crime film in tune with the hip hop culture and what’s going on in society.    

The costume designers probably deserve the biggest round of applause. Everything was on point from the cars, guns and clothing. It really made Atlanta look like a world where luxury and the underworld are entangled. Priest’s perm may not be a fashion for most men this Summer, but it definitely serves its purpose in giving his character an iconic look. The Snow Patrol had the best costume design hands down. The all white everything ensemble from their guns to their Air Forces made them look intimidating and silly at the same time. 

The cameos were great too, there were plenty of people in Superfly that made you go “wait, isn’t that…?” Some of the cameos are done so subtly that if you aren’t up on who’s who then you won’t think anything of it. In the words of Pusha T, if you know, you know.  

Superfly’s writing also deserves an applause for its authentic dialogue and consistent pacing. Nothing was forced or felt exaggerated. There were also some moments in the movie that had what I like to call “tight writing,” which is essentially when a potential plot hole is plugged before it can appear. 

For a while the movie keeps you in the blind about what’s to come of Priest and his right hand man Eddie, and I was curious to see where they would end up. It was a fun ride to experience, and like any good ride, I only wish that it was longer. 

!! WARNING !! mild spoilers ahead. To read my concluding thoughts on Superfly you can skip ahead to right about…

My biggest issue with Superfly is in the way it wraps up. With about 20 minutes left in the movie Priest has this eureka moment where he realizes that all his adversaries set themselves up to play themselves, and it’s pretty much over from there. For all that we went through for the past hour and a half, to see it all tie up so swiftly was a bit disappointing. I felt robbed of a well written ending. 

The movie could’ve been 2 and a half hours and I would’ve been fine with that, just give me a great ending. It was like Alex Tse was writing the script and somebody—could've been Director X or Future—barged in and in a Chris Tucker voice said “Alex, you’re STILL writing the script?! Dayyyum! C’mon man, hurry up! Whatchu trying to win, an Oscar?! Wrap it up, man, the soundtrack been finished!” 

For what it’s worth, with the way things ended, it was hard for me to really believe anything was at stake for Priest. Which sucks because there were so many possibilities in which this movie could’ve ended. Even with the way it ended, it still could’ve came to that conclusion in a different way. 

Oh, and since you’re still here, let me get one last thing off my chest that isn’t so much about this movie as it is about media depictions of drug dealers in general. 

There’s a popular crime trope when it comes to drug dealers and their public image. This is most popularly seen in moments when he asks his significant other what she sees of him. 

“When you look at me *breathes in and broadens chest* what do you see?”

“Well, you’re not freaking Santa Claus!”

A lion is a lion and a drug dealer is a drug dealer. It doesn’t matter how many people are employed because of him, how many soup kitchens he opens or how many fur coats he owns. Superfly teased this topic into the mix, but it didn’t go beyond its initial conversation. 

No matter the good that may come from a drug dealer’s wealth the bottom line is this: you sell drugs. Drugs can hurt people. Drugs can make people hurt people. So no matter what, as long as you’re selling drugs, somebody is getting hurt, even if you’re making somebody else smile. 

Power has made this a running theme of the show and it’s kind of ridiculous. But the biggest difference between Priest and Ghost is that Ghost actually wants to venture into something legitimate. Priest just wants to cash out and dip. Which isn’t bad considering that Priest isn’t a family man like Ghost, and therefore doesn’t have the extrinsic motivation to reinvent himself into an honest man, but at the same time, I’d rather root for a guy who wants to do more than sip martinis on a yacht for the rest of his life.  

The “Drug dealer image” trope was recently best addressed in Moonlight during a powerful scene where Juan, played by Mahershala Ali, realizes the impact his business has on people in his own life. It puts things in perspective as he’s clearly deeply affected by this revelation. 

I get it though, Moonlight isn’t trying to tell the same story as Superfly or Power. But there’s something to be learned in the way Moonlight handled that part of the story that can be used in future crime films and shows to come. 

… HERE!

Superfly is a pretty good movie that’s worth the full price and guaranteed to generate plenty of discussion. The only thing I hold against it is that it ended too quickly. 

If you want something a little grittier than The Incredibles 2, Superfly is your best option for this weekend. 

3.5/5