TRANSlating Everything Recaps The Power: Episode 2
The Progressive Base Is A Fickle Mistress
Boy, that first recap was a long one, eh?
They’ll get shorter. Maybe.
If you missed it, here’s the episode 1 recap.
TRANSlating Everything Recaps The Power: Episode 1
We open with Toni Collette delivering an "I Am Iron Man" press briefing. The only difference is she won't need an arc…cooltransmom.substack.com
If you’re ready to recap episode 2 and discover all kinds of stuff you missed, let’s get started!
Episode 2: “The World Is On ****ing Fire”
Directed by: Ugla Hauksdottir and Lisa Gunning
Written by: Claire Wilson and Sarah Quintrell
Margot: “Today is our anniversary.”
Margot returns from a run to wake up her husband Rob Lopez — played by John Leguizamo, who is settling into Charming Dad roles over the last twenty years, and I am here for it.
These two are in love and lust. Instantly, I want to root for them as a couple and as a family.
Margot tells Rob — through sweaty, smelly kisses that do nothing to diminish their raw comfort in each other’s company — that later, she’s coming home and they’re going to ****.
The show’s decision to expand the role of Margot’s husband into the full character of “Rob” and to cast him with such a charming tater transforms the audience’s perception of Margot. In the book, it’s far more immediately clear that she’s not exactly an ally for women. But she’s also not exactly an enemy. It’s just that having power in itself doesn’t tell a person what to do with it.
The show, however, has chosen to present Margot as a clear and mighty force for women. And I am here for that, too.
I can’t help but yearn for the lost footage of what Leslie Mann did with the role of Margot before they reshot all of her scenes with Toni Collette over a period of four weeks.
Toni said that she thinks the breathless pace of filming contributed to her performance. You know what? She’s right.
Jos
Downstairs, Jos accidentally shocks the microwave. It has burst into flames worse than the unwatchable scene from The Willies (1990).
Margot and Rob rush downstairs to help just as their bodyguard Frank races to see what’s wrong. Jocelyn’s brother and younger sister come to the bottom of the stairs.
Jos’s brother Matty has an explanation. “Teenage girl hormone rage, probably.”
There’s a DELIGHTFUL exchange between Rob and Margot where he’s speaking Spanish and Margot doesn’t understand a single word. He has the only appropriate response.
Rob: “Honestly. Respectfully. How long have we been married? Twenty years and you haven’t picked up one word? Didn’t I get you the Rosetta Stone??”
Jos: “She hasn’t the time to learn our language. She’s too busy kissing babies and cutting ribbons.”
Margot part 2
As pressing as this is, Margot gets a call from her assistant Helen (played by Edwina Findley!!!!!!!!).
Helen’s words are too big to ignore: “The world is on fire.”
Blackouts. Blown grids. Fuse boxes. No one knows what’s going on. They’re saying it’s not equipment failure.
We briefly see her meet with her team, then move to high school and some WTF developments for the kids.
Jos part 2
What do girls talk about in high school? Vibrators.
Jos walks with her friend Yuki (played by Ashley De Guzman). Yuki has their own theory about where the Power comes from.
Yuki: “I’ve heard that’s what causes it. Girls, you know, messing with themselves…with vibrators.”
LOL
If you look at each classmate scattered throughout the hall, you’ll delight in finding all kinds of gender non-conforming representation. Jos heads to speak with Quinn (played by Tiffany Alycia Tong). All brand new characters created to flesh out Jocelyn’s experiences at school.
Jos and Quinn are dreaded school obligations like homework and test. But though Jos is not quite yet sure how to control her ability, she’s good enough to get out of a test. She fries the fire alarm and sends everyone outside.
Jos: “Look at that. No more test!”
Rob
Doctor Rob Lopez checks out a girl exhibiting not just scars. They are in the Lichtenberg configuration, which comes only from electrical shocks.
No medications in any combination would cause this. There may not be a single source. A single cause. It’s possible it happened simply because girls had no other way to survive.
Tatiana Donici
Tatiana is the wife of Viktor Moskalev, the President of Moldova.
This is not exactly a brand-new character, just one that has been expanded for the show. In the book, Tunde’s questions about the Power lead him to Moldova, the sex-trafficking capital of the world. The Moldovan president is determined to quash any signs of power in women — both before and after the awakening of their skeins.
After a brief shot of Tatiana as an adult married to a corrupt Romanian politician (see above), the show cuts to a montage revealing Tatiana was once a gymnast who rose to the TOP. She hoped to go to the Sydney Olympics.
Tatiana: “I want to make my sister proud.”
Reporter: “And your mother?”
Tatiana: “Sure.”
LOL
In the present, Tatiana is now very successful. She thinks with a kind of fondness on all she overcame to get this far. It is a sign of her power. All she already has and all that she has yet to cultivate.
Tunde
He visits his friend Ndudi in the hospital and promises he will find out what happened to her.
Allie
After killing her foster father and running, Allie is now hitchhiking with varied success.
In fact, it keeps going poorly. Men abuse her, and she shocks them to escape.
The Voice: “This world had done nothing but kick you in the teeth.”
Allie visits a diner and sits down at a recently abandoned table. She eats the food they left and takes the tip they left too. It’s easy when everyone is distracted by footage on TV of the death of Allie’s father.
Roxy
She wakes up in a POSH bedroom. Last night was awful, but at least she’s alive…right?
She puts on her shoes. Washes her face. Tries to make sense of last night. Her power is so raw, so plentiful that it’s bleeding out of her.
She goes to see her dad and gets told by the doorman she has to leave her bike outside.
She says, “I’M BERNIE MONK’S DAUGHTER!!!” But that gets her nowhere. She can only climb so far on her father’s shoulders.
She confronts her dad about who killed her mum. She saw their faces.
“Was it your business that got her killed? Payback or something?”
“They said the girl wasn’t supposed to be here like… Like they knew who I was.”
She now has POWER. She can help. These Primrose people will PAY.
But he won’t let her. He’s too worried about exposure. Let him take care of this.
Allie: “You made me look like a crazy person!!”
Allie visits a pawn shop and tries to sell a necklace. The pawn shop owner immediately accuses her of being a drug addict, but that misperception is part of the Voice’s plan.
The Voice: “Remember those eels? They made the fish swim right into their mouths.”
So while Allie can’t (yet) make fish swim into her mouth, she uses a kind of mind control anyone can use: manipulation. She gets food, more money than originally offered for the necklace. And all without having to kill anyone.
The Voice: “What you have is way better than any gun.”
Tunde
He reviews his footage of what happened with his friend Ndudi when she defended him and got shocked from the other girls.
His mom says Ndudi is now branded a witch. Don’t look into this, she wanrs. Juju is dangerous.
Tunde says sure, then uploads it straight to the internet anyway LOL
Margot: “The Progressive Base Is A Fickle Mistress”
Margot is watching Tunde’s videos. They could be fake…but are they?
Jos
She rides in the car with her father. It’s such a charming scene with Leguizamo daring to body his own daughter with an elite rap battle. Any Mario/Luigi reference will do.
The whole thing is full of wonderful expressions of a multi cultural childhood.
But then Jocelyn’s Power shorts the radio, and her dad can’t deny that the thing he saw at the office is the same thing that’s happening to his daughter.
Allie
The vagabond meets two young desperate girls and a desperate family stuck on the road. Now aware of the various uses of her ability, Allie sends shocks through the engine to “start” it. She fixes their car, but a stray lick of lightning touches one of the daughters.
The presumption is that while this hurt the girl, it also awakened her own skein. The daughter will now be just like Allie.
Roxy
Roxy leaves in a fury, only to be hit off her bicycle by a truck. The owner gives her mad shit, and she sends a righteous zap his way.
Here’s one thing the show hasn’t told you yet explicitly but has made abundantly clear through each gender non-conforming character who has a skein. It’s kind of a spoiler, but I think this is too important not to mention.
The dude she shocked? He might have a skein, too. One that was awakened by Roxy attacking him.
Will he ever admit he has one? Will he repress it to the degree that he’d rather die than admit he live and admit he’s not cisgender?
Most men don’t have a skein. And the ones who do don’t want it. They’d rather die than be gender non-conforming.
Sounds a lot like the real world!
Jos
Jos vapes with Cat, the character who deserves a spin-off ASAP.
Cat encourages Jos to go flirt with Ryan. Give her time. Jos will discover what makes Ryan just as special as her.
Margot
Margot visits her enemy Daniel “Danny” Dandon, played by Josh Charles from The Good Wife. He’s at home playing poker with the boys.
“Yes, the guys who fund your literacy programs,” Daniel says.
Margot is concerned about what’s happening with girls across the world. Daniel, of course, says lol you women are so emotional.
She tries showing him Tunde’s video.
Daniel: “Margot…that is a video on Yoozer… I will have a team look into this. In the meantime, you will wait patiently and quietly.”
If he’d left it there, maybe he’d have left it there. Instead…
Daniel: “You do this as long as I have, you learn not to get your panties in a bunch.”
Margot: lots of fun reaction shots from Toni Collette
Margot part 2
She returns home to Rob.
Margot: “All I wanted to do tonight was have a nice meal and fuck my husband.”
Neither person wants to admit the crazy electric shit they encountered today. The audience however knows they are both hiding different pieces of the same secret.
“I can see that something’s up, and you’re bottling it,” Rob says, a huge counter to Dandon’s misogyny.
To help her release her pent-up rage, he encourages her to break shit.
She breaks one of their most hated but precious possessions. It feels good to break stuff that’s only ever brought you harm and shame.
Tatiana
Fucking. Lol. In that order.
Tatiana is having the most boring sex you can imagine with her husband. Or maybe she’s just distracted. She’s watching the TV while he goes at it, and the footage is of girls awakening across the world to Power.
She pretends to orgasm, which instantly sends her husband into his own release. She tries to talk to him about what’s happening in the world with women. Heck, with herself.
Tatiana’s husband: “You think I don’t know what’s going on in my own country?”
A brief flashback for Tatiana reveals what she’s fighting against on the inside. We see her at home with her poor family. We hear the much-older Bunny, played by Dana Voicu, and all Bunny sacrificed to get Tatiana through the training for the Olympics.
Why won’t Tatiana just do what she’s supposed to do?
Bunny: “Of course be ambitious, of course. You must be ambitious, but you mustn’t show them you’re ambitious. They won’t like it. A sweet little girl is all you have to be.”
Tatiana p2
Guess what? Bunny has now come back to beg Tatiana for generosity.
Tatiana: “I will help you as you helped me all those years ago. Not at all.”
Roxy: the Awakening
Good thing Tunde uploaded those videos. Roxy is watching one of them. She’s beginning to understand what is happening to her. She reveals to her father she has more Power than anyone.
This is a majestic expression of her ability. She takes him to a field and lets these bolts of electricity spread from her like Storm unleashing her full power.
There is a kind of implied symbolism that as Roxy openly expends this power, she helps awaken it in all girls across the world.
Allie
In the wake of all the violence and fear, she takes a moment of peace and serenity.
She kneels down.
She touches the earth.
She feels her power. Speaks to The Voice. Accepts what she is and has always been: a woman ready to explore a bountiful exchange with Power.
The Voice: “Because the world is in need of a revolution. And you are going to be its voice.”
She slams her fist into the earth once, twice, each time releasing her anger and discovering it is righteous and pure.
The Voice: “A better future is in your hands.”
Jos
There are signs everywhere. You’ll know them when you see them.
Jos is making out with Ryan outside when —
A plane falls out of the air!!! Everyone at the creek party watches in wonder.
Is this show secretly a prequel to LOST??!
Margot and Rob
Margot receives a call about the crashed plane. Any hope she and Rob had that this would evolve slowly is gone.
The world is on fire.
Catch up with our ongoing exclusive coverage of The Power
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