If you listened to Dave Chen and Joanna Robinson opine over Game of Thrones with their acclaimed podcast Cast of Kings, then you know the pleasures of a recap show with a host who is an expert on both the books and the show.
That’s where I come in!
My work in research, publishing, and activism recently earned me the nomination as the second-only transgender nominee for 40 Under 40 from University of Georgia.
With that attention comes it’s own kind of Power — and with great power comes great yadda yadda yadda…
So for the foreseeable future, I’ll be using my unique insight into the book and Amazon Studios show The Power to offer a recap series like no other.
For previous recaps:
The Power: Episode 4 Recap
The world’s governments are shocked — shocked, I tell you — now that Margot has let the electric cat out of the bag.
The Power is real. It has a scientific explanation. And it isn’t going away.
Episode 4 gives brief glimpses of events happening inside the United States, but the focus moves to Tunde, Allie, and Roxy. While you wait for the show to return to Margot, Joselyn, and Cat, just remember that everything you see in this episode is also happening in America.
As women, yet-to-be-revealed men, and gender non-conforming people awaken their skeins and thus their Power, the people who have only ever known privilege now feel as though these steps toward equality aren’t just oppression.
They’re an act of war.
But the tides are shifting. Suppression leads to revolution. Revolution leads to liberation. It’s only a matter of time before the gender paradigm swings a new direction — and woe to anything standing in its way.
For a brief video recap, check out the show’s Previously On The Power:
Episode 4: “The Day of the Girls”
Directed by: Shannon Murphy and Lisa Gunning
Written by: Sarah Quintrell
Ready to get started on the recap? Use Spotify to play “GO!” by Santigold and Karen O, the artists adding that electric spark to the hit TV show’s opening theme song.
Tunde enters Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia has just banned any use of the power.
The country doesn’t allow journalists any more, but Tunde sneaks in on a student visa by saying he’s just traveling for a tech conference. He nearly outs himself to a taxi driver by asking too many questions, but Tunde knows how to explain his interest.
Tunde: “Have you seen it?”
Riyadh Taxi Driver (played by Tamer Burjaq): “No. And I don’t want to. They banned it here. It’s not a problem for us. And it’s only girls anyway.”
The driver slowly takes Tunde into a place he’s never been.
This place is called Sulaymaniya.
Will Tunde see what the taxi driver described? Have all traces of skeins and Power been erased or restrained?
We’ll have to look closely. Very closely. But if we do…
Ah, there it is. The camera slowly pans into a brief flicker between trash cans, a passage of electricity from one hand to the other. It’s a small child. If you couldn’t tell from the bolts of lighting, you could definitely tell from the wonder in their eyes.
Her name is Amal. She’s played by Hani Ovadia.
And after a lifetime of oppression, she’s just found her Power.
Sister Maria
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We return to the Sisters of Christ Convent.
From a distance, Sister Maria watches the girls as they focus on a televised explanation for how the Power works. Where it comes from, how to control it, what makes it real.
This animation sequence was made just for the show and is 100% worth going into the bonus features and watching in full. It is AMAZING.
As shown with that animated clip and more, if you’re watching television, you’re hearing about skeins. In the wake of Margot telling the world that the Power is real, news programs now discuss it every moment of the hour.
Allie
Allie tends to chores outside with a bunch of other people taking refuge and asylum at the Sisters of Christ Convent.
These youngsters remind me of the teens from Sister Act 2, a movie I believe is a secret prequel to this star-studded series.
With Sister Act 3 officially on the way, we can look forward to the crossover we deserve. Will we finally discover Allie’s biological parent? Is there any hope it’s Sister Mary Clarence?
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Like the teens in Sister Act 2, this new batch of kids at the Sisters of Christ Convent searches for their place in a holy order free from nuns bound by patriarchy and tradition.
One of those girls is named Savannah (Emily Renee), who reminds Allie to:
watch for Veronica
go feed the chickens
Once alone, the Voice uses the silence to speak to Allie.
The Voice: “You can use your power in a way no one else can.”
Allie doesn’t necessarily have a skein that’s any better or stronger than anyone else’s — certainly no one’s is stronger than Roxy’s. But she has creativity, ambition, and a seemingly omnipotent Voice guiding her to new methods of use for this strange ability.
Case in point are the chickens she’s tasked with tending.
The Voice: “Dial it back baby. Remember the eels? They used their electricity to hijack their prey’s mind. Connect. Try to make it walk.”
Walk? On water?! Hoverboards don’t work on water!!! Unless you got…POWER.
I’ll be here all week, folks. Back to the show.
The Voice is just as much a comedian as I am. It encourages Allie to send a tiny jolt through that chicken’s body. A tiny shock of suggestion to the chicken’s brain.
The Voice: “Make that chicken fly.”
Which goes about as well as you’d expect.
The Voice: “LOL girl you know chickens can’t fly.”
Except it isn’t just a failure. It’s a colossal failure. Allie accidentally kills the chicken. And she does it with an unseen witness.
Sister Veronica.
Roxy
Roxy may as well be Batman. Or Batgirl. Or Batwoman. Or whoever isn’t getting canceled or shelved by Warner Bros in the next twelve months.
Roxanne Monke barely survived a hit on her mother. She suspects the hit was meant for herself, too. And yet her dad seems bizarrely resistant to her using this new Power to finally force justice on her mother’s killers.
Her dad, for example, shows her a dead body and says this is the man who killed Roxy’s mom.
Roxie: “But there was two of them.”
When she refuses to drop it, her dad tells her to get out, forget this, stop causing trouble. This is messy enough as it is.
Darrell
Darrell cares about his half-sister Roxy, but even he has got to admit this is getting bigger than he can control. For Bernie and his vision for the Monke family, it’s a shame it wasn’t Darrell who ended up with a skein.
Bernie asks Darrell take Roxy out for the night. Cheer her up.
Bernie is trying to figure out how to control the daughter who never felt like she belonged to him. She’s always just been a loud voice in the background, but now that her skein is awake?
It’s only a matter of time before she stops listening to his commands.
She was never a real Monke. Not like him. Not like her brothers.
For Bernie Monke, power of any kind is only meant for men.
Tunde
In Riyadh, Tunde records his initial reports on the state of things. He won’t have to look long before he finds violence waiting to explode.
Just by looking out the window, in fact.
Remember the girl he saw in between the trash cans when he first came into the city? That girl’s name is Amal.
Maybe it’s because Amal can’t restrain herself, maybe she just doesn’t want to, but elecricity zaps between her fingertips with delight and abandon.
But then Mahmud sees her. He’s played by Adam Ali. And as you know, all use of the Power is banned in Saudi Arabia. He beats the hell out of her.
Why doesn’t she resist? Why doesn’t she fight? Why doesn’t she use the tool that’s now literally a part of her body?
The girls who watch from the windows say the answer for us. If you’ve ever been abused for extended periods — I was raised in a cult and then abused by my twin brother until my thirties, so I kinda have an idea — then you know it’s never as easy as simply choosing to fight back.
We are all strong in different ways. We are all strong at different times.
Fatima
Fatima, played by Aimee Ntuli, rushes home to tell Amal’s grandfather, grandmother, uncle, and the rest of her family that a boy caught Amal using the Power.
He beat the hell out of her.
And now the police are coming.
Tunde
Tunde gets out of his taxi as people rush past him. He follows and sees how many of the girls are now crowding around Amal. But the police don’t want the girls to take Amal. You may have seen this sort of thing before. If given the chance, they’ll just quietly let her die.
The girls shout: “Justice for Amal! Justice for Amal!”
The police tell the girls to stop filming. Stop shouting. Stop!
I heard the same principles in the cult in Mississippi: Don’t think. Don’t speak. Don’t feel.
These girls are tired of the same shit.
One of them lays hands on the back of a policeman — and down he goes.
Suddenly, the women understand. These are powerless people intent on abusing powerful women. But it is THEY who have the Power.
Suddenly, the women take back what always belonged to them.
Suddenly, the women take back Amal, and with that act, they take back their city.
And with that act, they spark a global revolution.
Sister Veronica
After watching Allie kill a chicken, Sister Veronica is SHOOK. Does it matter whether it was an accident?
Sister Veronica: “This Power is the Devil’s work, Maria.”
Sister Maria: “I feel something different about her. Something special. She reminds me of you. She could lead.”
Allie
I’m telling you, this series is either a sequel to Sister Act or owes a significant debt to it.
Allie is at the door, listening to Veronica and Maria discuss her fate as though she’s a thing to be picked up and discarded.
She came here thinking everything had changed, but it feels like nothing has changed.
Allie: “The good ones never let you stay.”
But the Voice reminds her that things are different. She has resources now to balance the scales. Just depends on how she chooses to do it.
The Voice: “You can stay if you want to. You just have to own the place.”
Roxy
As usual, the doorman at her dad’s club won’t let her in. But things have changed, haven’t they? Roxy reminds him now she isn’t just Bernie Monke’s daughter. She has Power.
Roxy: “Smile for me. Oh, you look nice when you smile.”
It’s a little on the nose, but this is the exact kind of nonsense that happens in the real world every day. Maybe it only feels so on the nose because it’s, well, hard for it not to be.
Roxy gets extremely hammered. Her brother almost stops her, but why stop her when you can join in?
Tunde
Tunde films the protest after more and more women come out to reclaim their city. Any man who fights back faces their EOD —
Until a car bomb explodes.
Until someone breaks out a gun and shoots several girls.
Note from Stephenie: Ahhhhh this is a great part of the book!!!!!!!
This is deadly. They need to be prepared to fight back. But as explored in a classic episode of the West Wing, what merit is there in a Proportional Response?
Keep that question in your mind. Remember that there are other countries and global powers considering how to use skeins for their benefits.
On the way out, we connect properly with the character Nourah (played by Amina Ben Ismaïl).
Nourah shocks a man nearly to death before departs from the chaos LOL. Get it girl!
Tunde exits with a large group of girls. They witnessed as much as him. They saw that he is on THEIR side, not that of the men.
Nourah talks to him as he leaves. Helps him keep the gas and powder from his clothes getting in his eyes and face. She will help him out.
The Review Geek offered this description of Tunde’s exit:
“When it’s time for him to leave the country, he returns to get his stuff to find it’s been rummaged through. Noura thinks the government wants his footage and has likely put him on a no-fly list. They’ll have to find another way out, but it won’t be easy with the fights going on in the streets.”
“Noura houses him in her friend’s apartment for the night. He tells Noura he’ll help her if she needs to get out of here, but she’s irritated he thinks he knows this place after 24 hours. She’s fighting for freedom, but she doesn’t want to leave. She loves her country. Tunde was thinking he could be her savior when, in reality, she’s been his.”
There’s a fantastic overhead shot of the protest winding its way through the entire city.
There aren’t enough bullets to stop every women in existence — because that’s what it will take.
Roxy
Outside the club, Roxy is shaken by flashbacks and PTSD. She’s traumatized, can’t stop thinking about the moments in which her mom died.
Her other brother Terry finds her outside. He really wants to help her, but this girl is beyond his power to save.
Roxy: “I miss my mum.”
Terry: “…what?”
Roxy: “I miss my mum. I WANT MY MUM.”
Terry helps her the best way he knows how — by giving her cocaine. And if I’ve learned anything from the stories of cocaine users, the only thing you want more than a little more cocaine is for someone to please God stop you from doing more cocaine.
Watch out for how the coke amplifies Roxy’s abilities. This is where she gets the idea to make Glitter, a specialized drug that enhances a person’s Power.
Roxy goes back into the club reinvigorated. Terry is scared so snorts some coke to catch up with her LOL. He’s committed to taking care of his sister at any cost.
Allie
At the Sisters of Christ Convent, Allie comes upon a group of girls standing around a dead bird.
The Voice: “This is your chance. Show them what you can do, Allie… Bodies run on electricity. It just needs a jumpstart.”
So Allie kneels down to perform her first miracle.
It’s a great visual sequence of her sensing everything about the body and how to send a jolt through the heart and resurrect that bird as smoothly as Lazarus.
There is, as usual, a witness. One of the nuns is watching, but this time, it’s the trans nun Sister Maria.
The Voice: “Make them want you. Make them want to follow you.”
I felt the spirit move in me just like the old days in the cult in Mississippi — except this time the power feels good.
[majestic music]
But Sister Maria appears VERY concerned. She now sees what Veronica was saying. This is not just leadership. This is consequence.
Every revolution brings collateral damage. Will this revolution be worth it? Or will it simply bring them more of the same?
If you read the book, you already know the answer, but I suspect the show is going to interrogate the story far beyond the novel’s final pages.
Case in point is what happens next with Tunde.
Tunde and Leen
Tunde records as the women gather for resurrection. For me, it’s a kind of baptism.
As Allie awakened that bird, she sent a new Power out into the world.
Woman across the world now awaken each other. They send shocks into each one to give Power to all women. To pass freedom to each one.
Tunde has a great voiceover speech worth listening to on its own.
“A sleeping giant has been awakened,” he says. “Today will forever be known as The Day of the Girls.”
The girls at the Sisters of Christ Convent are about to prove him right.
Allie
Allie’s new friend Savannah is a welcome source of genuine connection, and just like Brene Brown teaches in The Power of Vulnerability (these puns will be here as long as the show is on the air), our deepest insights come from our bravest moments of vulnerability.
Savannah confesses that she wants to get rid of her power. She found it when a boy raped her. That violation was like flipping her ON switch. She got in trouble for defending herself.
Here’s where Naomi Alderman takes what Margaret Atwood started in The Handmaid’s Tale and takes it to the next level. What if Offred has manifested the Power at the moment Fred was gonna prove how hard he sucks?
Allie: “You treat us like garbage all this time and now here we are.”
Savannah: “You think it’s God?”
Allie: “Maybe. Maybe she just left us alone all these years. A few weeks ago, she just thought, fuck it, y’all had your chance. I’m gonna have to step in with a little something to even the scales.”
The speech does faster work than a lightning bolt. It inspires Savannah. She’s been worried all this time that admitting she has the Power would mean they will never let her see her daughter again.
Allie shows otherwise.
Savannah: “It’s gonna be a different world for my daughter.”
Allie: “It already is. We just gotta take it.”
Roxy
She is having an endless AHHHHHHHHHHHH cocaine-filled exploration of what really happened to her mom.
She zaps Terry. Then she zaps the jellyfish. Her power is ABUNDANT.
Tunde
He records more protests. Women fight back against the incoming military. They showed up with uniforms and tanks and guns — and the women shock the tank until it fucking explodes lol.
A soldier named Rashid fires a machine gun. The women are scared, but a woman recognizes him. She begs him to put down the gun.
“Heaven lies at the feet of your mother,” she says.
Will the men hear their cry?
Yes. These men hear the words that are not said in this episode but may as well have been: “That hurts. Please stop.”
And these men lower their weapons
The men laying down arms is not credible or believable at all — until I remember that there is now a subtly and guiding force manipulating the minds and hearts of everyone on the planet.
Is the Voice that Allie hears an actual deity? God? Is she connected to the Uniified Skein — a kind of consciousness everyone with the Power now shares? Is it schizophrenia? Could it possibly be another person who has mastered an ability not even Allie has imagined?
What — or who — is The Voice?
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Sisters of Christ Convent: Luanne and Gordy
Back at the Convent, we get a classic scene from the novel expanded into a central part of the episode.
If you watched Nick Offerman in episode 3 of The Last Of Us and wanted more queer joy in epic television, welcome to the queer joy romance of Luanne and Gordy.
Luanne suffers from seizures so badly that she hesitates to touch herself. You know, like that. She’s afraid she’d accidentally shock her bits into dust.
Gordy offers to help her get a little release.
This is a really sweet scene of lesbian romance. I am here for it. Even if — especially if — it takes place in the middle of church.
The show is kind enough to let them finish before bringing Sister Maria around to ask everyone to go back to their dormitories.
Sister Maria: “A storm is coming.”
Then she sees Gordy and Luanne fresh from the Little Death.
Sister Maria: “Look at you… Glowing at this hour.”
LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
But before the girls can find rest, Luanne is overcome with a seizure.
Only an act of God could save her. An act of God — or Her humble servant.
Stretch out your hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant
Allie presses her hands to the window, as though connecting to the totality of energy running through her and all of existence. It’s a real “Use the Force” moment.
Then Allie understands the source of Luanne’s trouble. Not just that she’s having a seizure, but that the brain runs on electricity the same as any other organ. And if it runs on electricity, then Allie can control it.
Sister Veronica: “You may not use your Power to — “
Allie: “SHUT UP!”
The Voice: “Feel your way. Where is the short circuit?”
This episode showed Allie killing the chicken because we need to experience genuine fear that despite her good intentions, she might kill the girl.
We get a long moment wondering if she’s done just that, but then Luanne takes that sudden breath audiences know means a person has been brought back to better than ever.
Guess what’s going on YouTube next? A video of this miracle.
RoXy tOxY
Roxy argues with Terry and Darrell. Whereas once she would have waited for her dad’s approval, now she has power of her own. Maybe enough to finish this with or without him or her brothers.
That’s a big problem. Because they love her, but their loyalty is with Pops Monke.
While Darrell goes outside for “a fag,” Roxy confronts Terry.
Roxy: “Do you know who this Tony bloke is?” That’s who her dad says is responsible. “The bloke that lives on Pelham Road?”
Terry says just a little too much and confirms that yes, the person she wants to kill is named Tony, and he lives on Pelham Road.
Aaaaaaaaaaaand there she goes, ready to take care of business.
Darrell tries to stop her, but she refuses to be contained.
No one stops Roxy Monke. Especially when she’s high on cocaine.
So Roxy, Darrell, and Terry ride together to snort more cocaine and prepare to kill this Tony fucker.
Note: okay, another sibling named Ricky Monke is also in the car, but I’ll bet my left skein this is the last time he gets named by IMDB
This is a great time to listen to the show’s theme song again.
Tunde
It’s getting bad.
Women are hurting men.
Not just hurting them. Violating their consent. Raping them.
They’re saying they deserve it. They asked for it.
This is the darkness waiting for the world. Patriarchy is evil — even when it’s women perpetuating that system.
Tunde walks with Nourah but sees women violating a soldier on the ground. He tries to intervene and nearly gets injured or killed. It’s one thing when he’s just an invisible bystander taking photos and video. It’s another when he tries to save one of them.
This scene was intensely violent in the book. It is perhaps blessedly brief in the show.
Nourah saves him, tells him not to be stupid. His job is to watch, not get involved. The camera barely shows us that though Tunde escapes, the soldier left behind is probably as good as dead.
Tunde: A desperate phone call home
On the phone, Tunde’s boss tells him, “I’m not going to be responsible for your death. Get the hell out of there.”
Nourah agrees and basically orders Tunde to get his stuff. She will get him out of here.
Nourah: “This isn’t safe for you any more.”
The show has deliberately spent almost all of this episode away from more American-centric characters like Margot and Jos so as to SHOCK audiences when you understand that everything you see taking place in the rest of the world is also taking place in America.
Women have awakened to their Power.
Nourah takes Tunde to her friend’s very nice apartment so he can stay there for the night before she takes him to the airport tomorrow.
Tunde uploads his stuff.
While he waits, he calls an old friend: Ndudi. That’s the girl who invited him to a gathering of girls in the first episode.
But she’s not there. It goes to voicemail. And he hangs up without leaving a word. This needs to be a conversation, not a one-sided message.
He offers to bring Nourah with him when he leaves the country. He will be her savior!
But Nourah doesn’t need a savior. Doesn’t want a savior. Indeed, it is just like a man for Tunde to assume it is his place to be one. That’s okay — we’re all imperfect allies in a process of growth.
Nourah: How do you feel when the rest of the world tells you what it’s like to be you — even when they know nothing about what it’s like to be you?
The Review Geek describes the final moments of this scene: “He tells Noura he’ll help her if she needs to get out of here, but she’s irritated he thinks he knows this place after 24 hours. She’s fighting for freedom, but she doesn’t want to leave. She loves her country. Tunde was thinking he could be her savior when, in reality, she’s been his.”
Roxy
Roxy and her brothers arrive to deliver the Big Death to the man they believe killed their mother: Tony (played by Daniel Coonan).
Roxy knocks on the door. He opens it and shows that he’s in a nice house with a nice family.
Tony: “What the fuck do you want?”
Roxy: “I just come to say hi.”
Tony: “I know you from somewhere, don’t I?”
Roxy: “I’m Bernie Monke’s kid. You killed my mum.”
Tony: “Who’s your mum again? Remind me?”
Maybe cocaine isn’t so good for a skein after all, because when she tries to remind him — nothing happens. No zap. No pop. Nothing.
So he hits her. And I mean HARD.
But then her power reserves are back. Maybe not all the way, but enough to take care of business. She quickly overpowers Tony and anyone who tries to defend him.
Afraid for his life, Tony offers the truth.
Tony: “I know who it was. I’ll tell you.”
Roxy: “I was there. I know.”
Her brothers try to stop her, but she shocks them off of her and goes back to kill Tony.
She blasts him into oblivion. Such an incredible display of power not seen since the end of episode 1.
As her brothers take charge of the chaos and anyone who would now challenge them, Roxy looks up and sees a reflection of herself.
Up top in the window is a girl watching some crazy stranger kill her father. That girl will have Power, too. Will she come for Roxy?
It’s just like that moment in Kill Bill when the Bride tells Vernita Green's daughter it’s okay to come after her someday.
The Bride: “It was not my intention to do this in front of you. For that I’m sorry. But you can take my word for it, your mother had it comin’. When you grow up, if you still feel raw about it, I’ll be waiting.”
See also: Kill Bill’s Vivica A. Fox Wants Zendaya to Play Her Grown Daughter in a Revenge Sequel
But why wait for revenge?
On the way out, there are tons of gunshots, and Terry Monke is hit. Not even Allie could resurrect a person from this kind of damage.
They make it home and drop his dying or already dead body on the ground in front of their dad. Darrell tells their dad who did this. Who made them do this. Who forced this.
Roxy. It was Roxy.
Whatever chance she had of earning her father’s trust is gone. What happens next will destroy any chance he had of her trust, too.
Allie
Everyone is finally confronting the people who once pulled their strings. At the Sisters of Christ Convent, Veronica takes Allie to task for these recent miracles.
Sister Veronica: “You can’t use electricity under my roof. It’s time for you to go.”
Allie: “You don’t get to tell us what to do anymore.”
All of the girls are with Allie. It doesn’t matter anymore what one person says.
No woman will ever again tell another woman what they must conform to if they want to count.
Tunde recreates the ending for the Shawshank Redemption
Heartbroken and awash with tears, Tunde rides in the back of a car across the desert. He watches his earlier footage of a girl getting shot. He keeps going back and forth, watching her brief moments of awakening, her first taste of Power — all brought short with a single bullet.
As the episode comes to a close, Tunde delivers an emotional voiceover recap of the episode.
Tunde: “In Saudi Arabia, for women all over the world, it is the dawn of a new day. New freedoms. New privileges. New abilities. A byproduct of new power. But this liberation is not without its costs. It is a law of nature that for every action, there is a reaction. But we must all be better than our nature. For those of us committed to the equality of all humanity, it must be our mission that the price of this new dawning day is not too steep. And I believe we can. I believe in our inherent goodness. I have hope in the bright rebirth beyond this reckoning.”
Cue the credits for Shawshank Redemption.
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