Power follows James St. Patrick, nicknamed “Ghost”, a drug kingpin who owns one of the hottest clubs in New York City as a front. As his nightclub gets more and more successful he finds it tempting to leave his life of crime and go legit, but that would mean taking a huge pay cut and leaving his best friend, Tommy, out to dry. He is also in a love triangle with his wife and the FBI agent, Angela, tasked to find out who “Ghost” is. The fourth season we find Ghost has been framed and arrested for the murder of an FBI agent that had been dating Angela before him.
Power seems like it is greatly influenced by the AMC classic Breaking Bad. Some of the plot devices are very similar, like being in close contact (very close in Ghost’s case) with the person trying to catch you, leading double lives as a drug dealer, the crazy distributor, etc. But it also goes its own way as well and expounds on some of the ideas not navigated by Breaking Bad, there’s more emphasis on Ghost wanting to quit the illegal activities but things outside of his power are keeping him in.
The fourth season of Power does a really good job of balancing many different television genres and keeping you interested in each one. Ghost is in prison, so that covers the “surviving prison” genre, He’s also going to court so you get the court procedural, there’s drama between his wife and Angela, and of course the drug runner perspective on the streets, so there’s plenty of diversity from scene to scene. Power is very well paced and keeps juggling every story so perfectly that you can stay invested in each one without getting confused.
The plot is also very gripping, it is definitely a “just one more episode” kind of show, and sitting at about 58 minutes an episode, the season can easily eat up your week. You will not be disappointed, however, because each episode is just as strong as the previous and keeps building until you are fully invested. You’ll make it to the end and wonder how you spent your whole evening binging the full season. There was always enough build up or pay off in each episode to keep you wanting to continue you on. If you start this, you will definitely finish it.
Seeing as Power was produced by Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson I expected a great soundtrack and was not disappointed. The club scenes are about what you would expect, but the emotional scenes and everything in between was spot on. You can tell the music was an important part in creating this series and it really shines in that regard. The music can walk you through the tough times the St. Patrick family are going through or make you feel the frantic energy in the nightclub while Ghost is away. There’s also a huge selection of genres to keep things interesting and each choice fit the situation just perfectly.
The only real problem I had with the show is that the acting can be a little dull sometimes. Not so much in highly emotional scenes, the actors handle high stakes very well, but in normal conversation, I found that they were not quite convincing, and sometimes the timing of casual conversation was just awkward. This wasn’t really much of an issue as Power tends to keep the drama ramped up to an 11 and the acting in those situations was phenomenal.
I would recommend giving this a watch if you’ve 10 hours to spare on a weekend. Beware that once you start it, you will want to see it to the end, and chances are you’ll want to start from the beginning. So there goes your next couple of weeks! It will be worth the ride.
