Power Book II: Ghost‘s Tariq Passes the Point of No Return — Read Season 4 Premiere Recap
At one point in Power Book II: Ghost‘s Season 4 premiere, in between shootouts and running for their lives, Tariq and Brayden muse about how nice it would be if they were just normal college students, engaging in normal college-student stuff.
And if that sounds familiar, it’s because Ghost said it roughly 4 million times during Power‘s original run. Tariq, you had one job!
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The Season 4 premiere makes it abundantly clear that Tariq St. Patrick is now the person his father (and mother) desperately wanted him to avoid becoming: someone so entrenched in the drug trade that his life — and that of his family and loved ones — is constantly in danger.
Speaking of which, there are a lot of shootings in this episode, right? When Tariq and Brayden manage to escape the Noma/Tejadas team-up they ran into at the end of Season 3, they quickly formulate a new plan: Kidnap Noma’s college-age daughter, Anya, before Noma can toss her on a jet and get her to safety. Brayden and Tariq get really close — and they kill a lot of Anya’s security team — but one SUV manages to spirit the young woman back to her mother’s place. An incensed Noma turns down Obi’s suggestion that he become her main man, slapping him and ordering him instead to place a hit on Brayden and Tariq. The price? $100,000 apiece.
Knowing that he’s in deep trouble, Tariq calls Davis MacLean for help. Davis is unwilling to engage, because a) he’s in the shower with two ladies at that moment, and b) he’s under investigation and no longer Tariq’s lawyer, which means he no longer can offer attorney-client privilege. Later, though, after Noma visits MacLean and offers him the cash in exchange for Tariq and Brayden’s whereabouts, the lawyer calls his former client. “Get the f–k outta New York,” he advises, letting Tariq know about the bounty on their heads.
Meanwhile, Effie helps Cane — who was shot during the shootout at the end of Season 3 — and kisses him. That doesn’t stop her, though, from giving Tariq a heads-up later to let him know that Cane and others are closing in on him. There’s also a subplot where Dru and Diana kidnap Brayden’s sister, Becca, to lure him out of hiding. But Dru bails on the plan so she can go be with Monet at the hospital (more on that in a minute), and an increasingly unhinged Dru has to deal with Brayden and Tariq when they show up to rescue Becca.
Realizing that he can’t depend on his family anymore, Brayden lets Tariq know that he’s the only family he’s got, and he’s going to stick with him. (How very Tommy of you, Brayden!) Then they go to the Stansfield campus to retrieve some drugs to sell… and that’s where everyone descends upon them. Bounty hunters. Cane and Effie. Dru. And an unexpected player: Paz’s son/Angela’s nephew/federal agent Junior. There are a lot of bullets and some negotiating, but a violent interlude in the campus parking garage leaves Junior dead by Tariq’s hand — in large part because Tariq is really angry about the havoc Angela wreaked (not singlehandedly, I might remind him) in the St. Patricks’ lives.
Tariq also manages to strike a deal with Noma that makes her call off the assassins. Live to die another day, dude!
While all of this is going on, Monet is in surgery to remove the bullets she sustained during the shooting. Diana is having second thoughts about trying to take her mother out, but Dru tells her to quash them — and to smother Monet with a pillow if she happens to wake from her coma after the operation. While she’s under, Monet dreams that Mecca (!), Lorenzo (!!) and Zeke (!!!) show up to yell at her about what a bad person she is. Eventually, she wakes up to learn that Diana now says Tariq wasn’t involved in the shooting, and she was mistaken.
At the end of the episode, we see a man (Stumptown‘s Michael Ealy) in a church confessional. We learn that his name is Don Carter and he’s a recent widower whose wife, Denise, was murdered. He’s also part of a law enforcement taask force. On his way out of the church, Carter runs into a bereft Paz, who sobs as she begs him to prove that the St. Patricks killed her son.
Now it’s your turn. What did you think of the episode? Grade it via the poll below, then hit the comments with your thoughts!
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