Critic’s Rating: 4.8 / 5.0
4.8
Wow. Wow. Wow.
Deep down, we all knew we were heading toward something major since Power Book II: Ghost will bow out for good in one short week.
But knowing that and bearing witness to a death that knocks the entire series on its head are two different things. The entire Power Universe has now been changed.
Power Book II: Ghost Season 4 has not been as strong as prior seasons, and that’s not a controversial opinion.
There have been some stronger hours, or at least ones that were entertaining, but if you had to grade the overall season up to this point, anywhere from a C- to a B- sounds about right.
But THIS hour. THIS one? This was easily the best hour of the season and one of the best ones of the entire season.
Now, what do all solid episodes of Power Ghost have in common? They typically follow the Power model, a solid mix of humor, drama, action, and plot lines that may have felt all over the place but intersected dynamically.
That’s precisely what happened here, as the lead-up to Noma and Cane’s sham wedding featured a plethora of surprises and a hell of an ending.
Noma and Cane’s domestic partnership was always borne out of need, as the two have gotten further away from romance. Noma needed an American husband, and Cane needed the connections Noma could give him. And just like that, a mutually beneficial partnership was born.
But Cane and Noma never trusted one another, and Monet would always be the biggest obstacle to a fruitful and seamless partnership. Noma knew that she could never control Cane the way she needed to as long as Monet still had his ear.
Teaming up with Carter was a way for Noma to take back some control, and for Carter, it was surely a payday and a way to get rid of his problems.
Noma’s plan didn’t fully compute with me at first because she seemed so hellbent on making sure everything was perfect, insisting that Monet come to the rehearsal dinner, even when things started to spiral out of control.
But it was ingenious because she knew how Monet would react and behave. She knew that Monet would not come in happy and supportive of her son’s marriage, which would later give her a reason to play pretend with Cane and use her past actions as the reason she didn’t attend the wedding.
Cane would think Monet truly didn’t support him and his actions, while instead, she was dead somewhere on Staten Island.
But Noma overplayed her hand, as we’ll get to. She also had no idea what the bond between the Tejadas was because she’d only ever seen it from the perspective of them trying to take one another down.
But that family spends a whole day plotting one another’s demise and still shows up for family dinner. They’re built differently.
I had a bad feeling about Monet’s fate when she started going on an apology tour; that was sweet but still tinged with the realness only Monet can deliver.
This season has been about redefining and reshaping Monet in many ways. The look into her past, and even those interactions with Lorenzo and Mecca, the two great “loves” of her life, did wonders in shading in who Monet is and what got her to this point.
Monet has always prioritized family, but much of that was not rooted in a real need to prioritize her family. It was to prioritize herself.
Monet isn’t the worst parent we’ve ever seen on Power, but she wasn’t a good one either. She did what she thought was best for the Tejadas, but only if it benefited her. She forced her children to follow her lead, even when it was far from in their best interests because it was what she needed.
This season has been perhaps the first time she’s shown herself to think truly beyond her own needs and desires. She’s asked of them instead of demanded. She’s met them in the middle rather than forcing things upon them.
It’s been a fascinating change for Monet, who’s changed subtly while still staying true to herself.
Her apology to Cane felt out of place in the moment because she’s been all over him all season. So, for her to suddenly throw down the gloves and just tell him he’s a good son certainly came across as a bit awkward.
But you also knew that at this point, they were going to throw things out that may not make sense because of how close we were to the finish line.
Monet and Cane have always been the closest within the Tejada circle, mainly because Cane stepped up in a way for the “business” once Lorenzo was gone that Dru and Diana weren’t capable of and didn’t want to do.
Their bond was permanently cemented with loyalty to one another, and you could tell in that conversation that their loyalty to one another would never shake.
They could be estranged and drag each other from sunrise to sunset, and it wouldn’t really matter because if there was a choice to be mad between each other and anyone else outside the family, there wouldn’t really be a choice.
When you think about it, the Monet and Cane dynamic, more so than Monet with Dru or Diana and the siblings with each other, was always at the core of the family. So, it being on full display in those closing minutes was fitting and heartbreaking all at once.
But the lead-up to that moment only came about because Noma and Carter got a little too cutesy with their plans to remove the thorns in their sides.
Sending Monet and Tariq to Staten Island so Vadim could kill them was a clever idea, but it should have been something no one else knew. Why did the random men who gave Dru the money know about Tariq going there? What are we doing here, Carter? I thought this was a serious operation.
Monet mentioning to Janet in passing that she was going to Staten Island was obviously the biggest blessing in disguise, as was Diana and Dru conveniently being in the right place to overhear Effie and receive the information. But it’s Power!
NONE of these people would still be alive if luck weren’t on their side now and then.
Dru and Diana have turned themselves into solid soldiers. We’ve seen from Dru all season that he’s more than prepared and ready to get his hands dirty and step up, but Diana has also shown that she’s brave.
The conversation between the two in between body shots and lap dances was too short, but both needed to just let themselves be honest about how they were feeling.
Dru has embraced the side of himself that Lorenzo always saw. And Diana. Well, Diana is confused, and she’s trying to make sense of her life and what she wants. That’s normal coming off a loss and what she did, but it’s not easy to put a voice to that.
These stories will be wrapped up so soon, and it sucks because there’s still so much story to mine there. There is still so much story for so many of these characters.
But anyway, before this gets depressing (that will come next week!), knowing there was a bounty on their heads, Monet and Tariq had no choice but to take out Carter and Noma before they could make good on what they had started.
I still don’t know if their plan was good or not, but I do know that they were all prepared to do what was necessary.
Davis getting his hands extra dirty, FINALLY, felt like such a long time coming. He’s been teetering on this line for seasons now and he was always going to have to make a choice. And when the choice was to kill or be killed, he chose himself.
Again, what would the ramifications of that be for Davis? And where could he go from there?
We won’t know because there’s just no time.
Why does everyone have to make a big show before killing people? With Effie there to wipe the tapes or whatever she was going to do, why didn’t Tariq just shoot Carter through the confessional window and be on his way?
You never give someone a chance to talk themselves out of being murdered. That’s like Power 101.
Of course, Carter got into Tariq’s head and dropped the bomb on him, which set everything else in motion that would happen later at the wedding.
I knew the Zion video would come back one way or another, but Carter has to go. And somehow, they compounded their problems by not killing him but injuring him and tying him up in some abandoned location.
Everyone has been ragging on Brayden this season, and I do get it, but at least he comes ready to do something. Maybe it’s stupid, but he’s the first to declare himself available when a war gets going!
I don’t know what they do with Carter now, but if he survives this season, that would be the biggest surprise in Power’s history.
I’m exaggerating, but he simply can’t live, and we lose others. I won’t allow it.
You know who else has got to go? Noma.
I’ve actually had enough of her, and everything that’s happened falls on her shoulders. I hope Cane and the Tejadas bring hell down upon her.
Why in the world she thought Cane would ever choose her over Monet is beyond me, and going through all the trouble she went through for that messy ass end result was incredibly dumb.
I would say that getting in a shootout during your very fake wedding that you need to help keep your business afloat would be her demise, but she won’t make it out of this series alive.
Tariq has enough information from Anya to know how Noma will move next, and the Tejadas will take it from there.
Noma getting the pleasure of killing Monet, even if she can only revel in it for a little while, shouldn’t upset me, but it does. Noma finally got her revenge for Mecca and everything else, and it sucks.
Monet sacrificed herself to do whatever she could to save Cane, which was the right way for her to bring her story full circle.
She was the one left behind by Lorenzo when he went away, who took her family to new heights but, in the process, fractured them beyond repair.
They may never have found a way to be the picture-perfect family; their lives would never allow that, but they all knew what it meant to have loyalty and unconditional love.
Cane, Dru, and Diana loved their mother for all their words and actions. Monet, for all her various faults, which were plentiful, loved those kids deep, deep down. She just never knew how to be in the life and be a mother.
It was as if she couldn’t be both. It’s a shame it took her so long, up until her final moments, to realize it was possible to protect her babies differently.
It never had to be like it was, but if there were ever a group of people ready to burn the whole city down in revenge and get away with it? Well, that would be the trio of Tejadas.
It’s hard to imagine there won’t be more significant, painful deaths before it’s over, but this one hurt more than even I thought possible.
But Monet went out as she lived, shooting straight on behalf of her family.
Everything Else You Need To Know
- I’m going to miss Tariq and Brayden’s bickering. They really know how to get under each other’s skin like only brothers can.
- Diana calling Effie Cane’s mistress got an honest chuckle out of me.
- Effie and Tariq going back and forth like they weren’t both terrible to each other also made me laugh.
- Before it went to crap, that was such a BEAUTIFUL wedding.
- My kill list for the finale pretty much only consists of Carter and Noma. Oh, and Nico. He can go, too.
We’ve reached the end of the road, guys. I’m not ready to wax poetic yet because I’m still upset, but while we wait for that final hour, let me know all your predictions about how it will end.
Flood the comment section with ALL the theories. We’re in this together!
Watch Power Book II: Ghost Season 4 Online
