Absolute power corrupts absolutely, but we live in a patriarchal world where men’s corruption is the “glorified” way of life. “The Power” Episode 4 has only just scratched the surface of what happens when women are no longer perceived as the weaker gender. While that is well and good from a storytelling perspective, it is worrying that after four episodes, this is all the makers have managed to do. But maybe the coming episodes will give us something more. For now, these are the events of Episode 4.
Spoilers Ahead
Roxy
After the events of “The Power” Episode 3, Roxy’s father has been forced to acknowledge her powers, and he knows that he cannot ignore her any longer. Therefore, to appease her, he presents to her the body of one of her mother’s killers. He has been drowned alive, and though Roxy is glad about that, she questions her dad about the other man. Bernie tells her that they will get to him later. Meanwhile, he asks his son Terry to take Roxy out for the night to distract her from everything that is going on. Accordingly, Terry takes her out to a party, and the whole cocktail of grief and her new-found power makes Roxy a little more reckless than usual. She wants the bouncer to smile for her, and she also doesn’t hesitate to be petty about it with the mansplaining men at the bar.
The fact is that Roxy desperately misses her mother, and her brother is a bit slow in the head, which is why he gives her the worst possible coping mechanism: drugs, which Roxy takes a little too much of. Naturally, instead of dulling her senses, it makes her all the more agitated to track down the second killer of her mother. She figures out that her brothers might know where he is, and true to her suspicions, Tony tells her since he thinks that she will know anyway with time. Roxy doesn’t waste any time and gets into the car with her brothers, and she drives to the man’s house. She finds him easily enough, and when he hits her, she fires back with her power.
It is only a matter of seconds before he starts turning into toast. But before he dies, he tries telling her that it wasn’t him who killed her mother. We assume it means that he was employed by someone. But Roxy keeps up with her power, and the man dies. His daughters are watching the whole thing from the window, and when a grief-stricken Roxy gets in the car, the man’s family starts shooting at them. It takes a second for them to start driving away, but Terry has been injured by one of the bullets. They keep driving, even when they realize that Terry is dead. They all drive to Bernie’s house, and Terry’s parents are horrified to see their son’s dead body in the early hours of the day. A guilty and weeping Roxy is attacked by Terry’s mother, but she is pulled back by one of Bernie’s sons. Roxy’s revenge has cost her a lot more than she could have anticipated, and how she moves on from this remains to be seen.
Eve
Since Margot’s press conference in “The Power” Episode 3, news channels have started taking the initiative to educate people on the biology of power. Eve is watching the program with the other girls in the convent. However, they are still not allowed to use their power. When Eve goes out to feed the chickens, she catches a girl secretly practicing. Of course, Eve doesn’t say anything, but the voice in her head tells her that Eve is still special since she can use her power in ways that the other girls cannot. The voice encourages her to practice her skill by trying to control the chickens in the coop with it. True to the voice’s encouragement, Eve finds that she can make the chicken do her bidding by controlling its electrical impulses. But she misses her mark at one point, and the chicken ends up dying. Unfortunately, Veronica witnesses the whole thing, and it adds to her distrust of Eve. When she shares this with Marie, the latter supports Eve by saying that the change that Veronica fears so much might not be a bad thing. But Veronica isn’t convinced.
Eve is undaunted by it all, and she heeds the voice in her head that tells her to take charge of things. When Eve brings back a dead bird to life, she gains the faith and admiration of all. When the talk reaches the convent that the power can be let go by removing the skein, Eve is strictly against it. One of the girls wants to let go of it, but hearing Eve talk helps her and the others realize that this is their one way of having some power in an unequal world.
Later that night, when one of the girls starts having a seizure, Eve uses her powers to cure her of her condition. Veronica is getting increasingly uncomfortable at this display of power, and she wants Eve to leave as soon as possible, but Eve refuses. She declares that she doesn’t have to listen to Veronica or anyone else anymore. As for the girls, while some of them look a little uncomfortable, it is evident that they have all chosen Eve as their leader now.
Tunde
Tunde has gone to Saudi Arabia to cover the social changes that are happening due to women getting power. He comes to know that using the power is banned in Saudi Arabia, though he spots a girl practicing it behind the dumpsters. Tunde immediately goes after the girl after checking into his hotel. Journalists are not allowed, so he is masquerading as a student. However, before he can reach the girl, she is discovered while practicing by a man, and he beats her up. This starts a chain reaction with all the women taking up arms. The girl, Amal, is in need of medical help, and all the women gather near her house to take her to the hospital. When some police officers try to use force to control the crowd, one of the women uses her power on them and shoots a particularly violent officer. The scene is one of violence, of long-trapped feelings of anger against the daily injustice finally spilling out. It is scenes like these that make you think once again of the nature of power itself.
The reason Amal was beaten up so brutally was not that she was doing something forbidden but because a man wanted to show her place in society. All the women had gathered outside Amal’s house to make sure she got medical care, but the police used violence on them once again, even when it was not required, simply because they could. As the mob in Saudi Arabia moves ahead, they rescue a woman trapped in a house with an abusive man and transfer the power to her. Wasn’t the woman subjected to such violence simply because she was so unprotected? If she could ask for help from the windows, it means that must have happened before, but she remained trapped because the laws and the societal structure were based on the subjugation of women. That is why it is important to understand that women’s corruption is far more complicated than men’s. Women are fighting against a system that is stacked against them, whereas men are making use of one that is in their favor.
‘The Power’ Episode 4 Ending Explained: How Does Tunde Escape From Saudi Arabia?
As Tunde follows the mob, they reach a halt when the military is deployed against them. When one of the women is shot at, some others try to smoke up a tank with the men trapped inside. Before things can get worse, one of the women, who is the mother of someone in the military named Rashid, asks him and the others to just let them pass. The plea works, and the women pass through the barricades while all of it is being caught on camera by Tunde.
However, the mob is still not without its violence. Some of the women are smoking up cops, and from the looks of it, it is a game to them. When Tunde tries to intervene, they start attacking him, but he is rescued by a woman named Noora. She tells him that he must get out of there, as his life could be in danger. When Tunde goes to his hotel room, he finds it completely trashed. He gathers his essentials and escapes with Noora, knowing that he cannot get on his flight as he might be arrested. Noora takes him to her friend’s apartment to spend the night and tells him that her sister’s friend, Nadya, might help him drive to the Jordan border, from where he could escape.
Tunde offers to help Noora escape as well, and that is when she questions why he thinks she wants to. Women, in most situations, have two choices. One is staying where they are to fight to change the system and make way for the women who come after them, and the other is leaving the situation to look for something better. Neither choice can be judged or criticized because it is often a labyrinth of factors that decide the route one takes, and most of them fall into gray areas. Noora tells Tunde that she wants to stay in Saudi Arabia to help bring much-needed change to the country, and Tunde understands what she is saying. The next morning, he escapes with Nadya while realizing that the world has already changed, and our society must simply catch up with it.
Final Thoughts
In “The Power” Episode 4, we saw three very different sides to the effects of power. With Roxy, it was about the recklessness that it brought with it. With Eve, it was about her and the other girls’ empowerment. In Saudi Arabia, the government taught the citizens to rethink the subjugation of their women. But more than that, it was about how there have always been women like Amal and Noora, who take what little they can to find a sense of personal agency and communal development because their presence ensures that if things are not going forward, they will at least not slip backward into the dark ages, once again. With the coming episodes, we hope to see how the other women are faring with the knowledge and abilities of their new-found power and how they are reclaiming their spaces with it.
