I'm going to watch episode ten this weekend, but I feel like it would be inappropriate if I didn't give notes on season four as a whole. This might be one of the last times I ever do this, unless I start watching Raising Kanan (and I might):
-If I could sum up this season in one word, it would be confused. The first three seasons felt like they had more of a structure that played straight from start to finish. This whole season feels like it was written by people who have never watched the show before. Not just this show, but the original Power. Looking at the credits, I notice a lot of first-time writers and directors. Very few people from seasons 1-3 stayed, and it makes me wonder what the hell was going on behind the scenes.
-Across the board, the series fell apart. Certain characters used to have life and vitality to them that got stripped away. Part of that is the fact that everyone was split up from each other. Season three actually started this problem when Tariq broke up with Effie. I didn't see it at the time, but it made a major impact because Tariq lost one of the few people in his corner that understood the game, and Effie became a side character. They literally stopped using her for most of season four, brought her back and just had her do stupid shyt. Missing her Stanford interview, playing both ends against the middle, not understanding why Tariq would hate her, giving up Stanford for the drug game. Her story stopped mattering because she was more entertaining as Tariq’s partner.
-Which leads me to this: The relationships. I don't care about Cane and Effie. I also don't care about Tariq and Diana. Neither of those couples make any sense. Cane having a crush on Effie and wanting to sleep with her is different from them actually being in a relationship. It was a funny running gag that they took seriously for some stupid reason. Tariq and Diana have no chemistry. They're both characters who need someone else to play off of. If you put them together, you get some of the most uninteresting scenes all season. All four characters became worse because of who they were dating.
-The war amounted to nothing and they threw it out after one episode. But for some reason, they continued to do things like have Tariq and Brayden separated from everyone else for most of the season. When Cane, Brayden, and Effie teamed up, it felt like the show was back. When Tariq, Brayden, and Effie teamed up, it felt like the show was back. They got rid of some entertaining dynamics for no reason, and when they decided to have everyone reunite, maybe it should have been a sign that the war was a bad idea? Season three gave us so much to look forward to in the end and they threw it away.
-Monet should have died at the start of the season, not the end. Her having a heart-to-heart with Diana, and sacrificing herself so Diana could live is a fire storyline. The Tejadas finding out Tasha was the shooter would have been a fire storyline. They did absolutely nothing with that. If anything, Tasha should have been killed in episode nine. Tariq, up to this point, hasn't lost anything. What if he lost the one person he cares about the most? Maybe then, he leaves school for good and becomes a full-time street dude. Maybe Diana spends the whole season slowly turning into Monet and then she realizes what her true destiny is. They had so much material to play with that they didn't use.
-Detective Carter should have had a smaller role. He could still be involved, but not to the extent that he was. He was chewing up the scenery, almost like it was his show. That also led to other characters taking up screen time that they didn't need. I don't give a fukk about Felicia and there was only way for her to go after she killed Diana's baby. Anybody could have done that. Maybe one of Noma's people? Why did it have to be this random cokehead cop who had only gotten a couple lines an episode before that?
-The transitions this season were horrible. I'm not a director, but the way scenes would just end abruptly threw me off. There would be no good line to end on, no background music as a segue, just characters talking and a quick cut to more characters talking. From a technical aspect, the show took a hit, and I believe the first-time directors played a role in that.
-I don't know what their plan was if they thought they would get another season. I feel like this was their way of potentially ending the series while also keeping things open. Season five would have been a reset since Tariq finally has a crew (somewhat), his friends are out of the picture, and the Tejadas are all in different places. Considering how season four turned out, I think it's for the best that this was the end. Starz didn't trust that the crew was going to transition the show into something else, and they realized they should cut their losses before it became more apparent that this show declined.
Just confirms the reports he was on set for force
