Power Book IV Force Season 3 Episode 9 Sets The Stage For A High Stakes Finale

Critic’s Rating: 4.3 / 5.0

4.3

The second-to-last episode of Power Book IV: Force EVER was both unexpected and expected in all the ways you’d think.

Each hour has built upon the last, with secrets slowly coming out, allegiances and alliances shifting, and the deaths piling up.

War has been brewing in the background, and it was finally time for something to happen. And what happened was the death of another death, that while not shocking, certainly makes you wonder what the final hour could have in store.

All things considered, this hour showed you just how complicated Tommy’s life currently was, as the man barely had time to grieve his brother.

It’s not like Tommy has ever been super big on dealing with his feelings in any healthy manner, as he typically deals with all forms of heartbreak or injustice by killing someone.

But he honestly didn’t even have time to say a few kind words about JP before he was back out of it, because Ortega was still coming for him, Jenard was walking around Chicago unscathed, and Ché was still waiting on his money.

When Tommy, Miguel, Shanti, and an emotionally volatile D-Mac had their little meeting, it dawned on me just how many moving parts are still in play at this point of the season.

With only one more hour left to go, they couldn’t head into it with so many loose threads because they wouldn’t have been able to adequately address everything satisfyingly. So, something had to give.

And that something was the Sampson brothers.

Now, that’s not to say that taking the time during this hour to dive into the brother’s complex past means that everything in the finale will suddenly end the way we want it to, or in a way that leaves us fulfilled. However, it was still an essential part of the story that deserved a proper wrap-up, and I’d say they mostly succeeded there.

When you look back on the relationship between Diamond and Jenard, there may be multiple things that come to mind first. For me, I think of Power Book IV: Force Season 1 Episode 1, when Diamond left prison, and Jenard was waiting for him, happy as could be.

My first impression of the brothers was just that; they were brothers. And that’s something that gets thrown around A LOT throughout the Power franchise, with various pairs of men, bonded by blood or friendship, claiming the title as if it carries inherent weight.

Ghost and Tommy are obviously the clearest example of that, because their relationship was so intense, intertwined, and unique that it went beyond a regular friendship. It was deeper than that, right? But no matter how close they were, they weren’t blood. And that distinction matters.

Diamond and Jenard are blood, trapped together by memories, both good and bad, that come with a lifetime of not only knowing someone, but belonging to the same family.

We only saw the mostly turbulent relationship between the two, and how much of their perceived issues seemed directly linked to CBI, from its creation, to Diamond’s time behind bars, to the tenuous place they found themselves in the greater Chicago drug game.

Their brotherhood was constantly tested, and Jenard especially built up many resentments toward his brother, pushing him to levels he probably never imagined he could reach.

Jenard’s a narcissist through and through (like MANY people in the universe), but he’s also wildly insecure, something that was on full display during the breakdown of his relationship with Shanti. And even in his killing of JP.

You tell him about himself, even a little bit, and suddenly you’ve got a bullet in your head.

Diamond’s just as lethal as Jenard, but he’s more calculated and methodical. He’d rather go into a situation with a plan than react impulsively and end up spending his time cleaning up.

Though we saw some of that impulsivity rear its ugly head when he, you guessed it, teamed back up with Jenard.

After Shanti warned Diamond about Jenard’s duplicity during Power Book IV: Force Season 3 Episode 8, I had faith that Diamond wouldn’t just unthinkingly follow along with Jenard and realize that Jenard had been manipulating him, even if only subtly.

But as soon as Jenard explained to Diamond why he killed JP, why the RDs were about to be on their ass, and Diamond barely pushed back before deciding to double down on all of Jenard’s buffoonery AND team up with Ortega on top of it? Well, I knew then that it was Diamond’s time to go.

All Jenard wanted to do was save himself. Killing JP, King Kilo, and that other man was purely because he was high and also because he felt disrespected, and he panicked. None of it was strategic or part of some grand plan, and I’ll give him credit for flipping the situation in his favor to double down on getting rid of Tommy, but that was pure happenstance more than anything.

With no witnesses, it was pretty easy to flip the RDs against Tommy. Still, I did love that everyone was so skeptical of Jenard because he has this general air of complete incompetence around him a lot of the time, especially when he’s not in his right mind. I hate when he’s unquestioningly trusted.

And with Ortega, they now had the backing of a cartel that wanted Tommy dead, unlike Ché.

Everything was aligned for them, which meant that it was all destined to go wrong somewhere. But before it went wrong, we got a series of conversations between the brothers, and they were infuriating.

At some point along this journey, Diamond decided that protecting Jenard was more important than being protected by him, and we saw that play out literally throughout the whole hour.

Diamond gave Jenard ample opportunities to come clean to him about literally anything. He was heartfelt and open in a way that we haven’t seen from Diamond this season, and Jenard sat there and still lied.

I desperately needed Diamond to wake up and realize that he couldn’t save Jenard, but he was determined to do so, and it cost him his life.

The ambush at the church would never have worked without Raheem being deeply in love with Shanti, and it almost didn’t because D-Mac remains such a liability.

He’s an emotional guy, like a lot of folks on this show, but he’s no Tommy. Tommy can be fueled entirely by his emotions, yet still finds a way, through sheer luck and willpower, to come out on top.

D-Mac flies by the seat of his pants and just does stuff, like killing Marshall.

Marshall was never going to kill D-Mac. He turned his back on him in that kitchen because he genuinely believed their bond could withstand them being on opposite sides of a gang war, but he severely underestimated D-Mac’s volatility.

It’s not even as if I believe he shouldn’t have killed Marshall because Marshall proved himself to be a fair-weather friend, but did he have to kill him? CBI may have been a threat to him, but Marshall, as an individual, was not.

It’s lowkey scary how easy it was for him to flip that switch, but then again, he IS related to Tommy.

Inside the church, he almost got himself killed just shooting recklessly and got himself shot, and it won’t be a wakeup call at all.

The chaos inside that church felt like one of those quintessential Power moments, where you knew someone central was going to die, but it wasn’t entirely clear who.

I actually thought there may be a scenario where Miguel got himself killed helping Tommy, or maybe the show would go full nuclear and have Jenard kill D-Mac so that Tommy would burn the whole city down in the finale.

But alas, they went for a somewhat safer option by having Diamond step in front of Jenard so he could die a hero, or something.

Diamond got to a place this season where I became more indifferent to him than anything else, and that’s sad, because at a certain point, he was a favorite. But his fierce loyalty to his brother ultimately led him to the exact place we’ll leave him: bleeding out on the floor.

Power is a show about family at its core, and we’ve seen family members turn on one another to preserve their own self-interests time and time again, but in the end, Diamond was more loyal to Jenard than he ever would have been to him.

Jenard may have never pulled the trigger on Diamond himself, but you won’t ever convince me that he would ever truly have Diamond’s best interest at heart if there were a choice to be made between the two of them.

We now know exactly what Diamond would do, but would Jenard have done the same?

Jenard already wanted Tommy deader than dead, but I assume the finale will see him on a radical mission to make it happen because he’s going to be feeling as much guilt as someone like Jenard can feel.

But make no mistake about it, a dead Diamond is a win for Tommy, even if it’s not what he wanted. It leaves CBI in tatters, makes the coalition even more unstable, and may scare off Ortega and the cartel.

No part of Tommy was looking to kill Diamond in that church, but it does strengthen his position. And heading into the final hour, that makes me nervous.

I’m starting to have this sinking feeling that they could pull the rug right out from under us by leading us into this false sense of safety that, against all odds, Tommy’s going to find a way to win.

He’ll win the battle with Jenard, Ortega, the FEDs, and everyone else, believing he’s on the cusp of having the ultimate power in Chicago and a devoted family to boot. Only to then get ambushed and blindsided by someone terrible like Vic.

Can you even imagine Vic being the one to end Tommy? It makes me physically ill.

But things are going a little too well right now, to the point where you know it can’t stay that way.

Tommy’s due at least one more heartbreak or betrayal if he makes it out of this alive, but where will it come from?

Tommy ending up in jail would be the absolute worst-case scenario for me because that’s never been what these shows have been about. The threat of proper punishment has always lingered along the periphery, and if they were ever to send someone to jail for life, you’d do it in the series finale, but that would not be befitting for a gut like Tommy.

He’d rather die than rot away in prison.

So, where will that ultimately leave him when it’s all over? It’s hard for my brain to fathom Tommy Egan dying, but then again, old me, watching Ghost and Tommy during Power Season 1, would never have guessed how that story would end.

With one more hour to go, it feels like we’ve reached a point where Tommy Egan is going to get everything he ever wanted, or all his past misdeeds are coming back to collect.

I know what path I’m rooting for, but in this world, it’s always worth remembering that you rarely get everything you want.

Everything Else You Need To Know

• We finally get Kate back in town, only to bury JP, get jumped by Jenard, and then find out Mireya is planning to leave town. What a 24 hours.

• Mireya wanting to leave town is something she should have done a long time ago. She doesn’t have to stay gone forever, but there is no reason she should even be in Chicago at this point.

• Raheem could have fired a couple of shots at the roof of the church or something to make it look like he was trying to kill somebody. The first stop on Jenard’s payback tour will be to get Raheem, and then he’ll connect him to Shanti, which should lead us to a final confrontation between the exes.

• That better be the last we see of Vic, y’all. I’m not even kidding.

• Bobby accidentally stumbling upon Tseng being a double agent is better than Tseng getting away with it. Still, I will always admire Power making all authority figures in the universe wildly incompetent.

• Miguel, Shanti, and Tommy are kind of a badass trio.

• Ché is funny as hell because Tommy has done everything he asked him not to, yet he refuses to pull the trigger on him.

• RIP Diamond Sampson. It was mostly a pleasure, but your brother has got to go next.
• Tommy said he was calling in a favor. Is it happening, guys? Are we going to see Tariq and Tommy together one last time?

This season has flown by, and we are one hour away from the end of the road.

Please let me know in the comments all your predictions for the finale and all your reactions to this one!

You can watch Power Book IV: Force on Fridays at 9/8c in the U.S. and Canada on the STARZ linear platform, and new episodes will be available to stream weekly on Fridays on the STARZ app, all STARZ streaming and on-demand platforms.