The world does not exist in black and white, but rather an array of technicolor. By the same token, people are not one thing or another. They all operate within the various shades of the color palette. Sometimes good, sometimes evil but generally with the underlying motive of self-preservation. Last night’s episode, “Devil Inside” brings us one step closer to that day of reckoning where so many of the series’ characters must answer for the choices (both good and bad) they’ve made up to this point.
We open the episode in the aftermath of Tasha’s interrogation by the authorities regarding the death of Raymond Jones. Tasha tells Ghost and Angela that the Feds (with an assist from NYPD Det. Blanca Rodriguez) are trying to convince her that she’s being set up by the two of them. Tasha knows she now must get her lover and lawyer Terry Silver to lie and corroborate her story that she put the gun in the closet and it was stolen. Tasha arrives at Terry’s and finally comes clean and says that Tariq was the one who killed Jones and she only said she did to protect him.
Ghost and Angela discuss the implications of Tasha and Silver and whether or not he would help them. Ghost has his doubts. He thanks Angela for protecting him and his family and she rightly responds by initially saying she did it to keep herself out of jail. Buy she eventually cops to doing it for him as well. Angela says to Ghost, “When we started. I didn’t think we’d end up here…” Sometimes the best-laid plans…
Both couples in their moments of doubt and fear seek some semblance of comfort and safety and on Power that’s often achieved through sex. The sex scenes on Power have always been top notch in terms of television. Think back throughout the course of this series, EP Courtney Kemp and her team have always portrayed sex in its variety of forms. Love, lust, comfort, trust, currency, as a show of power and domination, even submission. The juxtaposition in the scenes of Ghost and Angela having sex and Tasha and Terry doing the same were powerful. Ghost is attempting to comfort Angela and reassure her that he loves her and has her back and that they are in this together. Angela is afraid and vulnerable and needs some reassurance. With Tasha and Terry, there are similar feelings but she really needs Terry to do something for her. I don’t doubt the sincerity of her feelings for him, but with her, the sex is almost a weaponized currency. Think, if you love me, you’ll do this for me. Obviously, Tasha and Terry don’t have near the same history as Ghost and Angela, so the dynamics are clearly different. There just isn’t as much invested. But the use of sex still has an impact. It further solidifies what Ghost and Angela mean to each other, despite all the harm they’ve caused. For Tasha and Terry, we ultimately see that it doesn’t produce the result she’s hoping for. Or will it? Terry will be subpoenaed by the grand jury and will have to testify as to whether or not he saw Tasha put the gun in the closet. Before they had sex he didn’t seem like he was going to lie. After sex and his talk with Ghost about backing Tasha up, he flees his apartment. He leaves behind the notice that he will be subpoenaed, Tasha’s retainer check, and a post-it note saying “I’m sorry”…