Tahsa has “grown folks” problems. The money she gets from Ghost is not enough for her to feel a sense of independence, and it doesn’t allow her to plan for any kind of future. She has an idea, prior to her meeting with Tate and Garrity, about starting a childcare center. The idea dawns on her when she picks up Yas from her mother’s. Estelle is watching some of the kids in the neighborhood and it’s bringing in cold hard cash. Tasha, always one to spot an opportunity, knows this could be the avenue she needs. When she does meet with Tate and Garrity and they ask her to “play house” with Ghost to help the campaign, she sees an opening. She’ll do it, if permits and the necessary local municipal requirements can be expedited. Well played.
By the way, Estelle has a nice house. If memory serves, Ghost pays for it. That dude is so overleveraged. It’ll eventually cause him to do some things he likely doesn’t want to. Which brings us to…
The most farcical portion of the episode. Mastermind Jason Micic, who is playing both Tommy and Ghost, to line his pockets with even more cash wants Alicia Jimenez dead. The death of the head of the Jimenez cartel opens up the ports for Micic in LA and various other parts of the country to move his drugs.
Jimenez who is in a maximum-security prison will be transported to a preliminary hearing and that’s where Ghost or Tommy are to capture Alicia and bring her to Jason alive. LOL. The cockamamie twists and turns undertaken to get this done were wild.
Tommy realizes, he can get his man (a bailiff) inside the courtroom to put two plastic cups of water on the table in front of Jimenez and her lawyer. The cup that Alicia drinks from has a chemical that will cause her to get sick and rush to the bathroom. Under heavy escort of course. The Feds will check the bathroom to make sure nobody is inside. Except the one inept guard, a common TV trope, decides that the one stall in the middle that says “Out Of Order” only deserves a cursory knock and a half ass look to see if anyone was inside.
But wait, it gets better…
Keisha is inside the restroom, texts Tommy that Alicia is in the restroom, and walks out of the restroom that was just searched, and nobody notices. The bailiff removes the tainted cup as well, and nobody notices him either. When Tommy, 2Bit and Spanky – disguised as EMT – load Alicia into the ambulance and Black Grimace backs his SUV (a bail bondsman) right into the path of the following Feds, anyone else notices no Feds hopped into the ambulance. We’ve all watched enough TV to know, that’s standard procedure.
The other implausible takeaway from that scene is Ghost. He too, sent to capture Alicia. Ghost was “disguised” as a maintenance worker. This dude has been on the front and back pages of every major newspaper and on TV in NYC for at least two years. All he is wearing is a hat and overalls. Nobody in a federal courthouse, in a case he’s loosely associated with, can recognize him?! Sure, that’s a commentary on how day and manual laborers are treated. To the people in the courthouse who are “important” and on “official business”, people like that are invisible. But Ghost, despite the eponymous name, is anything but. And if that isn’t a major sticking point, how was he going to get Alicia away from the courthouse by himself?!
This was too ridiculous.
Yes, you must always suspend belief of reality when consuming TV and movies. But these moments are where Power doesn’t stack up against other prestige shows. Maybe that was never the goal. But this could be why the show never received any Emmy love. Among others…