The truth about Power is that for multiple seasons it has failed to define its purpose or identify the main character. The most obvious main character in this series thus far has been Jamie “Ghost” St. Patrick. However, Ghost has slowly become an important recurring important character. He’s become more Tommy than top billing. On the opposite end, Tariq St. Patrick has become much more of an important character in this evolving series. In this week’s episode of Power, Tariq ushered himself in as the most important character of this series.
The most memorable scene of this week’s episode, “A Friend of the Family“, is undoubtedly the scene in which Kanan ends up dead. Tasha seemingly plants the murder weapon from Reina’s death in Kanan’s car. She then calls the cops and tells them that Tariq is missing and he may be with Kanan. From there, the cops pull Kanan and Tariq over and things go from there. As one could imagine, 50 Cent probably made the call for Kanan to go out in a blaze of glory while killing four cops. However, that’s not the important part of the scene. The most valuable portion of that scene is Tariq’s decision to lie to the cops to get revenge on Kanan for killing his son, Shawn. Mort importantly, that moment shows that Tariq is willing to let anyone die including his mentor.
The most valuable scene in this week’s episode revolves around mentoring. When Ghost calls in Dre to get him to play ball and kill Jason, Dre lets him know that he has surpassed his mentor, Ghost, in terms of knowledge. There’s one weird thing about this moment. A case could be made that Ghost is not Dre’s mentor. Ghost is Tariq’s mentor. For this entire series, Tariq has had the opportunity to learn from Tommy, Kanan, Shawn, Tasha and many more about how to play the game. For the entire series, everyone around him has tried to protect him. Tommy has tried to protect him. Kanan opted not to kill him when he had the chance. Dre treated him like a little brother. Above everyone else, Ghost has dedicated his entire life to his kids staying away from the life he lived. Nevertheless, his son has become a worse version of himself. Ultimately, this series is headed down one path that leads to Tariq and Ghost going one on one. The only question that remains is whether or not Starz is prepared to build a plot based around the most hated character in the series.
