Power season 4 episode 2 review: Angela’s regrets

Power season 4 episode 2 on Sunday night was an exercise in many different things, but for Angela Valdez, one of them was regret. The biggest one? That she ever walked back into Truth that night in the first place. She wanted to see Jamie St. Patrick in prison for the rest of his life.

Yet, she didn’t want things to go this deep. She didn’t want to see Jamie die for his crime. This is what John proposed and was planning as prosecutor. (Technically, New York does not have the death penalty, so this part of the story was a little bit jarring and requires some suspension of belief. Update: Actually, a commenter points out, this is a federal case, hence why it’s on the table. Stand corrected!)  Anyway, this seemed to cause a visceral reaction from Angela, as did one of the other big reveals of a gun found in Truth: She knows Jamie, and knows that he wouldn’t be so obvious in disposing of his evidence. All of a sudden, the pieces are starting to be put into place to suggest one thing above all else: Something else is going on here. Angela may not have fully vocalized her concerns as of yet, but that doesn’t make them any less there, floating around somewhere in the ether.

For now, the prosecution does seem to be putting together their plan ever so elegantly when it comes to finding a way to incriminate Jamie, and that includes using him to help set up a narrative in which Tommy is Ghost and that the murder of Greg was a way to protect the truth from getting out to hurt him. That phone call between the real Ghost and Tommy in the closing minutes was heartbreaking because of all the history there, and that Ghost is the guy who can still break Tommy on some level.

As the case progressed, there were two different ways to look at it — the political and the personal.

The political

How do you get the jury on your side? That’s something that Joe Proctor worked tirelessly in order to ensure, and much of that started when he first put it out there that the case had racial implications. John tried to block off Proctor using the media for the sake of his case, but the judge wouldn’t allow it. From there, we saw a debate as to what evidence could or could not be used, and then to follow that up further, precisely whether or not Ghost or Angela could have to take the stand. Tonight, we got a sense of what that looks like, and through that Ghost realized that he absolutely cannot go up and testify. If he lies, he’s committed perjury and is no use to anyone. If he’s honest, then he reveals that he has killed a man before … certainly a rather serious problem that derails the case in front of the eyes of the jury.

The personal

Here, Jamie the father and family man is trying to protect his family from the various demons that come with such a case. Unfortunately, there is only so much that he can do on the inside given that Kanan is out there influencing Tariq, the case has become public at his school, and Tasha’s getting accosted by photographers, causing her to understandably lash out at them further. All of this is causing some chaos, and in turn, Jamie’s life is far from stable.

The one thing that is interesting now is that Tariq heard the word “Kanan” for the first time from his mother, and that is causing some tension in the ranks of him and Dre. If Dre starts to have some deep resentment towards Kanan, imagine him ratting out the whole situation for Tasha or someone else. Kanan’s playing the long game, but the one thing that made that effective was that he was able to bottle up his secrets. There’s a reasonably good shot that he’s not going to be able to do that anymore coming up.

Final Verdict

This Power episode brought to you a lot, and was a strong episode that tested characters on so many levels, including how intent Angela is on destroying Ghost and also how tight Kanan and Dre really are. There was no conclusion, but there was certainly more of a strong dramatic foundation for most of the events still to come. Grade: B+.

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