The Power Recap Episode 6: "Sparklefingers"
HIS NAME...is Captain [REDACTED]
This week, I finally checked out the most recent installment in an electrifying franchise. It’s the ongoing adventures of a young hero suddenly gifted not just with the ability to generate and conduct electricity, but the capacity to share that ability with other worthy people.
This of course is a tongue-in-cheek reference to the shared electric powers of DC’s superhero Shazam and the other teenage male capable of generating and conducting electricity. His name is Ryan, and he single-handedly delivers the biggest twist of this week’s episode of The Power.
HIS NAME…is Captain Sparklefingers
In Amazon’s 9-part global thriller The Power, sustained and elevated estrogen causes people across the world to develop a new organ capable of producing and conducting electricity.
Younger people can awaken the Power in older people. Soon enough, most women can do it. Sooner still, non-binary, intersex, and gender non-conforming people reveal they’ve got the Power, too.
And with that comes a startling reversal in gender-based power dynamics — and the revelation that how the world responds may merely repeat the mistakes of the past.
Episode 1: written | podcast |
Episode 2: written | podcast | video
Episode 3: written | podcast | video
Episode 4: written | podcast | video
Episode 5: written | podcast | video
Bonus: Did John Leguizamo Just Spoil The Ending Of The Power?
Here’s our recap for The Power episode 6: “Sparklefingers”
Paul Jordan
Across the world, UrbanDox broadcasts all of your favorite white wing talking points: evolutionary psychology, separate but equal powers, Strict Father ideology.
Joselyn’s brother Matty—who I just realized is the gender-flipped version of Jocelyn’s sister Maddy from the book—watches UrbanDox with an obsessive gaze.
But the show lingers on a new character. That’s not Ed Sheeran with a beard. It’s Paul Jordan, played by Alexander Lowe.
UrbanDox: “Fellas, we can grab that spot at the top. And for the good of humanity, we must. We have to reclaim our rightful place. Whatever it takes.”
Paul is walking his dog. As UD says men must use whatever it takes, Paul picks a piece of shit off the ground.
UrbanDox: “I’m talking about real power. Not some magic trick. Not sparkle spirit fingers.”
It turns out Paul is walking along the coastline that serves as Margot’s backyard. From the waterline, he can see her walking back and forth inside her home.
UrbanDox: “So they have this Power. Good for them. We have real weapons.”
Margot
After that cool-as-hell logo for The Power, the show opens on Margot’s face, but when she steps away, the camera lingers on the window and the place below on the pier from which Paul was watching her.
He’s gone now.
Good, because Rob comes inside to get a different pair of pants. It seems he and Margot haven’t been sleeping in the same bed since Rob got drunk and dunked himself in the water.
They haven’t even been speaking. But now they talk—and it’s sweet. It’s romantic.
There’s a literal electric charge between them as Margot explores the potential of her new abilities. She recharges her phone by just holding it in her hand. Is it possible she can recharge her marriage?
Because these two have been trying to **** since the first episode. Margot told Rob she was going to work, she was coming home, and they were going to get busy. But ever since then, they’ve been fighting. Her job has come first.
As of episode 6, her job still comes first. She’s still furious that Rob risked their careers and their family by leaking the research on skeins to a reporter.
Rob insists the reporter is a friend. Margot insists it wasn’t worth the risk.
These two are definitely not ****ing anytime soon.
Helen
Helen can see it in the combat boots Margot wears to the office, but then Margot just tells her.
Helen: Margot, you didn’t…
Margot. I did. I did!
I am really digging the juxtaposition of Margot’s euphoric rise to power against literally everyone around her speaking the themes of the show to burst her bubble.
Margot is so excited to have an active skein that she nearly jolts Helen’s awake, too. She asks Helen if she wants it, and Helen’s response breaks open a drastically under-explored area of the show.
Margot: Do you want it? I could probably give it to you.
Helen: No. Hell no! I’ve had a target on my back since the day I was born. Last thing I need is someone else to look at me sideways.
So if you’re listening to this or for some reason can’t see this picture of Helen, played by Edwina Findley, she is a woman of color.
Now y’all, I’ve been through some shit. You know, like some cult shit. Trans conversion therapy. Worse. But the show just reminded me that as a white woman, even I need to check my privilege.
Executive Producer Jane Featherstone had this to say about the scope of the story’s message:
It’s not just about gender. It’s also wherever there is an imbalance of power in the world. Whether that’s oppressed people giving everyone a chance to rise up and have a voice—represented in this case by women.
Margot represents women like me. She says hey, don’t worry, no one is getting fired for having an active skein. This is just good news all around.
Except it isn’t. Helen shows her footage from The Morning Show with Tom and Kristen.
Kristen was fired for “having it.”
Margot says no way. That’s discrimination. And Helen’s reaction says it all. That didn’t stop it from happening.
This moment is a little different than in the book. I had the pleasure of a brief conversation with one of the moderators of the subreddit community for The Power in which we discuss the significance of these changes.
Y’all, they did Tom and Kristin wrong.
Here’s what you need to know from the book, what the show changed, and why it’s important
Tunde, now 27, arrives in Tucson, Arizona due to a tip that something was happening there today. Tunde isn’t entirely sure why he’s here, and he thinks that perhaps after what happened in Delhi he’s been “running away from the story, not towards it.” Today, he finds a group of men who are protesting at a mall in the name of “Justice for Men”. It’s a viewpoint that has grown in popularity online, with someone going by “UrbanDox” who has been championing the men’s rights movement.
Then, there’s an explosion as a bomb goes off. The mall is on fire and the front of the building is gone. Tunde tries to save a pregnant woman who is trapped under some debris. The pain of it causes the woman to send spasms of energy out of her palms. As Tunde attempts to remove the debris, the woman discharges a jolt into a wire that sparks and causes a fire around her. Tunde has to leave her behind, grab his camera and run.
Afterwards, a group called Male Power claims responsibility for the attack, which also destroyed a women’s health clinic next to the mall. On television, two television presenters — Tom and Kristen — report the attack. However, Tom starts to get worked up about how men aren’t being protected and starts cursing at Kristen. Tom is FIRED—not Kristin. A little change the show made with a big impact.
Later, Jocelyn recites her story on the news. The news casters, Kristin and her new co-anchor Matt, also report on the war in Moldova, which the South Moldovans initially got the upper hand on, but the North Moldovans are currently winning with the help of the Saudis.
Maybe they will bring in Steve Carrell as an anchor in season 2 for some OMG Morning Show vibes.
I would be okay with them taking small arcs like that from the book and using them to inform flashes of what's happening to lots of different people in those industries throughout the series. As long as we get multiple seasons!!
The way shows sometimes develop as a reaction to audience critiques, you never know. They may pull a Zack Snyder and bring those characters back in season two with a message that they were DISGUSTED by how little coverage their story got last year because here's what happened... Then the whole episode is their untold story from season one.
To tell you the truth, they could do an entire episode (or entire second season) that's just retelling season one from the POV of side characters or brand new characters.
Back to Tunde
This guy has major PTSD.
I’d say he probably has CPTSD by now. Because he hasn’t gone through a single trauma. He’s gone through dozens. Hundreds. Sometimes an even number by virtue of simply walking up the driveway to his brother’s wedding.
A gunshot fires—and he flinches. Was it really a gunshot? It’s a party. Lots of people are popping bottles. But people are also firing guns.
Especially here, Tunde is probably in exactly zero danger. But like the book says: the body keeps the score. It remembers all he has been through. In this, Tunde continues to represent the show’s analog for the gender-flipped experience of cisgender women.
Another expression of his PTSD is his compulsive rush to P-A-R-T-Y. I don’t just mean the wedding. I mean he calls his old friend Ndudi.
Tunde: Hey listen, Mr. Ojo is back home. I hope I’m seeing you at this wedding, eh. I need my—I need my “zanku” partner.
INTERMISSION FOR STEPHENIE TO LEARN SOMETHIN’
Zanku: A new, energetic dance that has taken the Nigerian social life by the storm. It involves the asynchronous thumping of the feet on the ground and eventual kick out to complete the steps. It originated from Nigerian musician Zlatan Ibile's Zanku (Leg Work) music track.
Here is a tutorial from Chop Daily:
Here is a video from Legendury Beatz with some dancers showing off their advanced moves.
And here is a competition compilation from Burble Entertainment:
Suffice to say, I am definitely looking forward to seeing what kind of dance moves Ndudi and Tunde get up to whenever they reunite.
But before then, Tunde’s brother Dami lets him know there’s a big problem.
Wale wants to call off the wedding
Wale—that’s the groom—wants to call off the wedding. He’s beside himself now that his fiancee has an awakened skein.
Tunde’s brother Dami calls the groom an “ashawo.”
The Guardian Nigeria describes “ashawao” as:
Ashewo, originally a Yoruba word, is our local street word for a prostitute. Of course, it connotes debauchery, sex for money, loose character, a woman of easy virtue. In modern parlance, we call them ‘runs girls’, or ‘commercial sex workers. I first encountered use of the word in St. Augustine’s popular highlife tune of the 1970s titled ‘Ashewo no be Work! Ironically, that track was very popular in the brothels and hotels that dotted the murky districts of Sapele where I grew up!
Note that Tunde specifies for the audience how much time has passed since the world first learned of skeins and the power: three months.
Wale says he is afraid of what it means for women to have this power. Tunde shares with him what he’s seen across the world. This thing could lead to real equality.
This is a neat reference to Naomi Alderman’s original premise, which was not that women would suddenly develop an electric skein, but that they would suddenly have the same proportionally superior strength to men as men often have to women.
Tunde offers dramatic symbolism for gendered violence
Over on the Front Page of the Internet, moderator for r/ThePower u/Helstar-74 left this comment:
Naomi stated that she wrote this book in order to be read mainly by men, but how many men will change their attitude/behaviour after reading this (assuming they read books, which I doubt)... how many of them, used to the non-fictional/real world we live in and always acting in a sexist way, if not flat-out aggressive, towards women, will see the "light" by reading or watching this work ? If you ask me, next to zero.
From all the book reviews I have read and the reactions to the tv-series (which is admittedly a little bit inferior compared to the book, unfortunately), this is probably the reality of it. Then add even a good chunk of women hating it, and you have the whole picture. It's sad, but can't be helped. I think Naomi is right in her nihilistic view.
My response: Yes to that comment about her writing it with men in mind.
To that end, I think it's like the comment Tunde makes to Margot about why he is reporting on the Power despite being a person without a skein. In truth, his response speaks to Margot and why she later chooses to activate the skein she knows she already has.
Tunde says that he believes the Power could lead to real equality. He believes that's something other men are more likely to receive if they hear it from another man. We then see that in action when he meets with his relative and convinces him that his fiancee having the Power is no reason to break off the wedding.
She sees that as a man, Tunde has a Power of his own.
She sees that as a woman, she could have her own power beyond the limited role as a Powerless mayor she has already outgrown.
But in the real world...the book was written by a woman. The show was deliberately made and written by women and non binary people. And so the people who instead fit the default for "man" are posting stuff as though they want UrbanDox to be a real person lol
To that point: Wale!
Tunde tells Wale how easily a man with arms like the groom’s could destroy a woman like his fiancee.
Wale says wtf? Like he would ever hit a woman.
And there’s Tunde’s point. Just because a woman has the power to hurt a man doesn’t mean she can’t be trusted with it.
Wale is not quite convinced, so Tunde’s brother Dami calls Wale a “mumu.”
Hause Language Hub on Twitter says:
I don’t know the origin of “mumu",” and this is why I’m curious to.
Anyway, the “mumu” I know in Nigerian Pidgin means “fool/foolish/stupid/daftness” (never heard of it being used to mean “wrong”)
Eg:
-The mumu don loss the bet again
-Our mumu don do
-You be mumu?
Tunde is calm and collected, but his brother doesn’t know when to let off the gas. He turns his jokes toward Tunde. He reminds his brother of Ndudi and what happened to her face. He pops a bottle of champagne, and the sound—like a gunshot—sends Tunde over the edge.
Tunde: Ma binu.
It means “I’m sorry” in Yoruba.
Now as far as what’s left to take away from this scene
I’m going to defer to comments from u/writerchic, a user from The Power subreddit.
u/writerchic:
I love that the implications and social commentary about power as a broader concept deepen with each episode. I loved in this episode, for example, that Margot shows the enormous power women have to endure pain and manage it. I mean, they endure childbirth, and Margot channels that endurance into this moment that’s meant to take her power away. And the man who wants to take her down seethes with anger that he doesn’t have that power.
I also loved when Tunde told the groom that EOD would equalize men and women, and when the groom said that it wasn’t equal if she could shock him and that men and women were already equal, Tunde responded that the groom had more strength and could knock her down. When he said, “But I wouldn’t do that,” it was such a great moment of him realizing that women always have to trust they won’t be hurt or overpowered by men and that now he would just have to trust she wouldn’t shock him. He was getting a small taste of what it feels like to have that fear in the back of your mind, like what if they snap? And all the men are having this sudden experience of vulnerability and power reversal that women have had. They do not like losing their power.
I really hope more people start watching this show, because it’s great.
Roxy
Roxy at the cemetery.
Her dad Bernie at home.
Her half-brother Darrell at school.
They’re all mourning the loss of Roxy’s mom.
Roxy meets Darrell at school, where we learn why they share a dad but not the same mom.
The show here takes a major divergence from the book. Darrell declares that once he’s out of school, he’s out of the business. He doesn’t want any more of the violence. Not after it got their brother Terry killed.
But there is one hint of his arc from the book. He asks Roxy what it felt like to use her skein to kill the man who killed their mother.
Roxy: Felt good.
Joselyn and Ryan
Joselyn and Ryan make out in the car, and this was when I decided the show had better deliver on Ryan’s original arc in the book or I would write about it in this recap.
If Ryan has a skein, he’s choosing a very vulnerable moment not to use it. But if that’s the way the show is going, I kinda like it. Sometimes, simply flipping stereotypical gender roles is all that’s needed for thematic resonance.
In this scene, Joselyn pursues sexytimes with him with a newfound confidence.
Except she doesn’t listen when he asks her to stop. She doesn’t listen when he tells her to stop.
He pushes her off of him so hard that her lip busts open.
Margot
Margot and Helen discover Senator Daniel Dandon has instituted a state of emergency.
He can now test all people for EOD.
Daniel’s test for our “safety” is like schools checking under someone's underwear. Ripping teens out of the gym to see the shape and function of their genitals—just as teens like Joselyn were ripped out of class if they too had an organ that marked them as something other than cisgender.
Margot, like her daughter, is not cisgender. Her new organ has been awakened. She has the Power. And as long as she Passes, she will be safe.
But if she for a moment forsakes the disguise that helps her pass as cisgender, Daniel will rip her from her political position. He will make sure she never sees office again. He will use that victory to squash any other women who would dare challenge him.
Margot meets with Helen in the bathroom, where they review what little information is known about how to defeat the EOD test.
One woman already beat the test using the Lamaze Method. And Margot has already given birth three times.
In the book, this is really quite something because we’re inside Margot’s head. I desperately wish we’d gotten a voiceover from Margot, but the show can’t do that without violating the one rule it established in that early scene with Allie.
The only voiceover we will ever hear in this show will come only from whoever is possessed by The Voice. That’s not Margot—not yet.
Click here for a delightful comparison of the book to screen adaptation of this scene
u/Helstar-74, a moderator for r/ThePower, described the book-to-adaptation like this:
In the book the more the machine ‘’cycled’’ through the 10 steps, the more deep calm long breaths she made, felt not much pain (if any at all), and she notices that the machine was trying to obtain an ‘’echo’’ feedback from the EOD, which she succeed to prevent in a way that it’s more or less like trying to hold the pee (which is not such a big task… or at least, not for that short time).
When the tester says her ‘’ok it’s done”, she’s actually surprised to hear it was already over, she thought it should have been more challenging. And she thinks “how in the hell so many women are failing the test ?”. Read my comment above with the spoiler if you are curious to know what kind of epiphany she has in this exact moment :)
Margot passes the test—but did she really?
Now here is something very important. Margot passes the test, but did she really?
Daniel’s expression lets us know that his reaction, at least, is genuine. But the woman giving Margot the test sure seemed eager to disengage the voltage the moment she turned it to MAX and Margot looked like she was going to explode.
That’s the way the test works. It fills your skein with power until the subject cannot help but express the excess energy. The show describes it like filling a bladder, but it’s more than that.
It’s like eating a bag of sugar. Sniffing a line of cocaine. Drinking three Rock Stars and taking your lawnmower into orbit.
It is not just a full bladder—it is an abundance of POWER. An abundance of energy. It’s like a runner who needs to run six miles a day just to calm down.
And thanks to the test, the subject is suddenly full of energy. They can’t help but express it.
But Margot beats the test, or so the show wants us to believe. I feel like the person giving her the test stopped it just in time.
The second piece of evidence for this is how quickly Margot rushes out of that building. She has to leave and be alone. If you remember from a bunch of the previews, there was a woman sitting on a bench with the “roots” of power spreading out from her hands and through the wood.
That shot came from this scene, and it is a delight to finally see it.
But of course it doesn’t end there
This is what we call in the romance biz “a false victory.”
Margot is a world champion when it comes to self-control, restraint, disguise. It’s gotten her further than almost any other woman in her circle.
What do you think Margot will take away from this experience?
Helstar-74 again brings us insight from the book on what the show will do if sustained through multiple seasons.
Naomi wrote a very specific passage which gives us an big hint of her incoming modus operandi. Margot thinks that women who can't self-restraint while being tested are a danger for everybody, even themselves. And this is when she puts in motion the idea of training camps for girls and women.
Rob
Rob goes to a bar to meet with Declan.
Declan is planning on going to Carpathia for a follow-up investigation.
Margot keeps warning Rob that his friend may not be as friendly as he thinks, but Rob doesn’t listen.
He drinks. And drinks. And talks.
He tells Declan that he believes in Margot and what she’s doing—but he didn’t sign up for this. His family is getting death threats so she can act as a political champion. Joselyn can’t even open her own birthday cards.
Declan assures Rob that this is temporary. Things will go back to normal. Margot’s fifteen minutes of fame will wean, Rob and Margot will go to couple’s counseling, and everything will return to the way it once was.
But if you remember last week’s recap and those book spoilers, you know things are most definitely never going back to the way they once were. Not for Joselyn, not for Rob, not for Margot, not for anyone in this story.
Remember how often I’ve gushed about the show changing Margot from a bitter divorcee to a happily married woman? I kinda wonder now if the show just chose to show us how the family eventually split up.
The scene ends with a guy named Mike confronting the bartender. He wants a drink, she won’t give it to him. She warns him off with sparks between her fingers, but as the voice of UrbanDox echoes on the TVs behind them, the guy takes out a stun gun.
Bzzzt.
He’s willing to use whatever technology it takes to even the score. He’s bigger, he’s stronger, and a stun gun evens the odds.
Mike: “Y’all gotta learn your place. UrbanDox knows!”
Author Naomi Alderman and Executive Producer Naomi de Pear on UrbanDox and the real-world parallels
Speaking to Fandom, Executive Producer Naomi de Pear said that for vulnerable listeners like Rob’s son or this aggrieved man at the bar, “it’s hard for them to differentiate who they should listen to and who they shouldn’t,” she said. “And that sort of radicalization is happening all the time.”
Unfortunately, radicalized groups like UrbanDox are not works of fiction. Naomi Alderman, author of the book on which the show is adapted, said that she based UrbanDox off her experiences working in the video game industry during 2014 and the peak of Gamergate.
“Unfortunately, every time there’s a liberation of any group actually — not just women — there’s also a pushback from people who feel like that is going to take something away from them,” she explained. “There’s always that line where people go, right, so you’re afraid that the world is going to treat you like you’ve been treating these people in whatever group it is.”
Echoing those points and which recent real-world scandals echo the decisions they long ago made for the story told in the fictional world of The Power, Executive Producer Naomi de Pear added, “In terms of Andrew Tate recently, and there are all sorts of people I could name and won’t but, the scary thing about this sort of rhetoric is that sometimes it can come in a very comforting form that seems very well-informed seems like it has humanity’s best interests at heart.”
Back to Tunde
Usually, it’s Tunde uploading footage, then the show revealing which character is watching what he uploaded.
This time, it’s Tunde who’s catching up with global news. He scrolls through comments that range from a woman exclaiming “This is a gift. Inshallah we will have justice and equality” to one super angry dude saying “just give me ONE grenade.”
One of the comments says to check out an article with the headline: “How Rich Governments Got Away With Murder”
Tunde opens the article. It’s the one written by Rob’s friend Declan Blease.
“How Rich Governments Got Away With Murder: Clean hands and skein labs, an analysis”
In the heart of the Carpathian countryside lies a dark secret that is only now being unearthed thanks to one leaked document. Somewhere, in one of Europe’s poorest countries, women are being experimented on, tortured, and ??? for the sake of skein research. This is an atrocious violation of human rights.
The full excerpt is obscured by Tunde’s hand, but the lower section confirms that the show is following a few details from the book.
Here’s what we covered in our episode 5 recap about the ongoing global research into skeins (book spoilers):
Bessapara is running experiments on boys born with skeins. In order to understand and control the Power, they are cutting open boys with skeins in order to find out what’s happening to them.
Then they’re feeding them big glops of Glitter. That’s the drug that some say is like cocaine. It seems to fix or enhance a person’s skein, but you quickly become dependent on it. Others, of course, say that’s patriarchal bull shit. Gender-affirming medical care is simply what some people need to be whole.
It’s UrbanDox or sites like that who tell girls that the purple-white powder makes girls with skein abnormalities worse. It increases the highs and the lows, they say. Your system becomes dependent on it. But that’s the kind of bull shit a man would say to keep you from accepting good medical care.
No one knows for sure, but people are pretty sure the North Moldovans are funded by the House of Saudi in exile. They think this war with Bessapara may be a proving ground for an attempt to retake Saudi Arabia.
Tunde
Hooray! Tunde convinced the groom to go through with the wedding.
Now in the glow of a successful union, a bridesmaid attempts to seduce Tunde, but guess who got his voicemail? It’s Ndudi, and she has already decided to deflect the competition for this man.
They’ve both come so far since they last saw each other.
Here’s a clip of the pair working through their issues as they work their way to the bedroom.
They get busy.
Remember Tunde earlier telling Ndudi he missed his dance partner?
Well here’s the actress who plays Ndudi. In this video, she dances as she reveals the music playlist she created to get herself into the mood for this sex scene.
Personally, I’d have just binged every available episode of Ted Lasso, but hey, you go with what works.
Ryan
HERE WE GO!!!!!!!!!
After that disastrous make-out session where Joselyn most definitely violated Ryan’s consent, he’s come to explain why he acted so weird.
He reveals he has a skein. He is intersex, born with a non-standard configuration of genitals, but he since then had the same kind of gender-affirmation surgery that many gender non-conforming, non-binary, and cisgender people pursue in order to make their bodies whole.
Andy/@Pearson252 from Twitter shared, “I love the fact that you included an Intersex character in this story, it’s a community that is often overlooked, most people have no knowledge and often completely erased them in anti trans argument.”
Ryan didn't use his skein to defend himself in the car from rape in the same way not all women who do not defend themselves are defenseless. They don't "stop" the abuser for complicated reasons.
Joselyn is mad. If you don’t remember, here’s a clip from that earlier episode where she was ripped out of class and put in a cage. She just wants to know why Ryan didn’t step up to defend her.
In her outstanding book Healing Sexual Trauma: a Workbook, author Erika Shershun offers insight into why we freeze in times of excess danger.
There’s even a parallel suggestion of why the human body had to develop skeins in the world of The Power.
Everything your body-mind did was a normal reaction to abnormal circumstances. Yet sexual assault survivors are often misunderstood and judged for what they did or did not do during and following the trauma. It’s easy for people to say they would have fought or tried to escape if it hasn’t happened to them (and they’re unaware of how the body responds to trauma).
Most survivors are even harder on themselves, experiencing deep feelings of guilt and shame for not having done something differently preceding, during, or after the assault. This is a tragic mirroring of society’s victim-blaming and victim-shaming that adds yet another layer of pain to an already open and raw physical, psychological, and soul wounding.
It’s important to understand that if you froze, your inability to act was not your fault. It was your nervous system doing what it has biologically evolved to do.
In this case, the author is referring to a sexual assault like what Ryan experienced from Joselyn earlier in the episode.
But you have to remember that Ryan is also intersex. Despite his story that he had gender-affirming surgery to confirm that he is a man, it would be an outright miracle if he made it that far without experiencing violations from romantic partners and medical professionals.
Even well-intentioned people make mistakes. Was it obvious Ryan was a boy since birth? It wouldn’t be a huge surprise for him to reveal that before he had genital surgery, his parents raised him as a girl.
Roxy
This is Roxy’s one chance to prove herself to her dad.
He brings her with him to be the muscle for a guy who won’t pay up. He no longer needs to rough anyone up. Roxy can shock them into compliance.
Except Roxy is a gun that won’t fire. At least not at whatever her dad points it at. He’s furious that she won’t do as told. He has the balls to shout her down in an alley, but that’s not going to work any more.
Roxy shouts right back.
Margot
At dinner, Margot announces to her family she is running for Senate.
Matty is full of it. “The male voice isn’t important any more.”
Here’s a clip if you forgot why Matty is so angry. Joselyn nearly blinded him a few episodes ago.
Rob stays mum on what Declan is doing. He knows Margot doesn’t trust Declan. So Rob doesn’t tell her that he is still involved with Declan and ongoing investigative journalism.
The investigation into Carpathia is eventually going to bring Margot and Rob to a fierce confrontation I fear their marriage won’t survive.
But lots more “WAIT WTF” stuff to happen in season two before the big blow up.
Margot is a hero—for now. But it’s like they said in The Dark Knight. You either die a hero or see yourself live long enough to become the villain.
Margot’s once chance to die as a hero comes at the end of the episode.
Joselyn
At the start of the show, Joselyn and Margot couldn’t get along.
Now they are outside against sharing a joint to relieve the day’s stress. That was one awkward dinner with Matty quoting UrbanDox. Do you think he threw out a Jordan Peterson quote, too? Maybe that would have been too on the nose.
Some recaps describe what Joselyn and Margot share as a cigarette, but y’all need to remember that the previous episode established Joselyn does not smoke—cigarettes. She smokes joints prepared by her friend Cat.
Here’s a clip of the two exchanging the power of good medicine—then the power of electricity. Makes me curious how casual Margot was about weed when she was Joselyn’s age.
Margot tells Joselyn about getting tested today. And she passed! Exciting, right?
But Joselyn gives her the real questions.
What happens when they find out she has it? Margot doesn’t know.
Has she even told her husband? She has not.
So what is Margot doing in the meantime? She’s lying to everyone.
And Margot is ready to make that sacrifice. She’s a superhero! But she’s facing the same problem as Clark Kent (born Kal-El) in Superman and Lois. It’s one thing to tell the lie on your own. It’s another to force your entire family to lie for you.
Joselyn: So you’re asking me to [lie]?
Margot: Jos… I know this is gonna sound bad, but sometimes you have to lie to the people you love. To protect them.
The two share a mother-daughter handshake. Do they agree? Maybe. What’s important is that they are now allies.
Paul the UrbanDox Acolyte
Yikes. Here we go. The end of the episode and Margot’s one chance to change the timeline and die before she goes off the deep end.
Margot gives a press briefing.
Paul returns. That’s the guy listening to UrbanDox outside of Margot’s home at the start of the episode.
While Margot gives a speech announcing her run for Senate, Paul stands up, steps forward, and reaches inside his coat.
Security worries it’s a gun, but it’s just a bottle of water. Except he pours it on himself, and that’s definitely not water. It’s some sort of flammable liquid. With one spark, he sets himself ablaze.
What does it mean for Paul to self-immolate instead of send violence directly to Margot? Well, this is the show’s secret connection to Batman, Christopher Nolan, and Zack Snyder.
The Power’s secret connection to Batman, Christopher Nolan, and Zack Snyder
By self-immolating, by becoming a martyr, Paul is saying that one death means nothing, just like one Batman means nothing. The way you inspire change is through martyrdom.
You must become more than a man. You must become a symbol. Yadda yadda yadda.
Speaking to the r/ThePower subreddit, u/freetherabbit said:
I’ve been thinking about the guy self immolating and why a lot. And something that occurred to me is if he actually tried to attack her he’d almost certainly be stopped by a woman with EOD and likely used by the proponents as an example of why women need EOD.
He’s still be seen as a martyr by the extremists, but it could easily gain support for the side against legislating EOD from the people in the middle who don’t have strong opinions yet and could go either way.
Immolating himself makes him a complete martyr, not just something extremists can use an example for why EOD is bad, but for politicians like Dandon to use to gain support from middle America.
Commentary
And that’s the end of the episode.
It’s wonderful to see the show fulfill the intentions of the author of The Power.
The show has been explicit about the science behind skeins and why it also goes to trans men, trans women, intersex people, non-binary people, gender non-conforming people, as well as a variety of cisgender people. It’s also clear why there are TONS of cisgender women who do not get the power.
A skein is a biological manifestation dependent on lots of different factors. People who say “it only goes to women” missed what the author made clear first in the book, then what she makes even more clear in the show.
Trans women are women, and they get the Power. Intersex people get the Power too. It depends on a bunch of biological factors independent of a cultural concept of a gender binary. In actual nature, no living creature is simply “male” or “female.”
We have a ton of biological factors that we group together according to social, cultural, and medical concepts. But like the author says in the book, “man” and “woman” are just shell games. The words only have whatever meaning we give to them.
The people involved with the show, including the author of the book upon which the show is based, have given interviews confirming and explaining these aspects. The show is very deliberate about expanding representation for who the power goes to and to be explicit that is it NOT divided according to women vs men.
Speaking to Cinemablend, Naomi Alderman said:
So, in the book, as readers have pointed out to me, fans have pointed out over the past few years, I have an intersex character, but I don’t have any trans characters. And I started writing the book in 2011. And I just didn’t think of it and subsequently, I’ve had many wonderful conversations as fans of the book were just like ‘Come on.’
So I’m extremely delighted that we have the wonderful actress Daniela Vega, who is a trans actress who is playing a trans character, Sister Maria, in the show, and we get into her story.
It’s not a spoiler to say that in the show, it’s explicitly clear that you get the electric skein if you’ve got estrogen in your body. So trans women are women.
I wish the show had a way to be more obtrusive about the science behind skeins and why it also goes to men, trans women, intersex people, non-binary people, etc. It is very obvious to me, but I am obsessed with the book and the show so some stuff stands out to me.
That’s one reason why I’ll keep writing these recaps at TRANSlating Everything.
Thanks for joining us. We’ll see you next time.
Click here for a preview of what’s next on The Power…
Other stuff I read this week
'The Power' actor Daniela Vega on her transformative role as a transgender rebel nun
The Power Creator and Stars Break Down Episode 6’s Horrifying Ending
Prime Video’s Globetrotting The Power Finds Action in Gender Analysis
TV-Talk: ‘The Power’ season 1, ‘Dave’ Season 3, ‘Up Here,’ ‘Schmigadoon’ Season 2 & More
Other video clips from The Power
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