Source: Power / Starz
After the longest final season of a show in television history (that’s not confirmed by the way), Power has finally come to an end. Based on reactions on social media though, it didn’t end the way some people expected. For me, though, I wasn’t really surprised at how things played out.
[SPOILERS AHEAD]
For one, it was actually Tariq St. Patrick, the prodigal son, who killed James “Ghost” St. Patrick, going against a plan by Tasha to take him out herself. They felt the need to be rid of Ghost because he thought it best for Tariq to take the fall for killing the crooked police officer who murdered Raina. According to Ghost, his hope was that if he was elected lieutenant governor, which could have very well happened, he would have worked to get Tariq a light sentence, possibly even just probation. Unfortunately, Tasha was willing to stoop to some really low levels to ensure that her son wouldn’t see anything harsher than a talking to from her.
For instance, she shot and killed her best friend, LaKeisha Grant, because she thought LaKeisha snitched about about Tariq killing the cop, Raymond Jones, but it was really someone else. She also believed that because Keisha signed papers claiming she would testify against Tommy Egan, which she said she only did because they were threatening to take her son, she was really going to do it and take down not only him but her and everybody else.
She also, in the finale, played a really good (and good looking) guy she started dating named Q. She planted the gun that Tariq used to kill Ghost in Q’s apartment (after initially stealing his actual gun with the plan of shooting Ghost with it, which she hoped to return so he could take the fall). Police were called and he was arrested as a suspect in Ghost’s murder. What she didn’t expect though was that Q was smart enough to ensure he had an alibi, choosing stop at a store nearby when he dropped off Tasha for what he didn’t know was her plan to take out her estranged husband, making sure he would be seen on camera.
That would, technically, be her downfall on the show. Q would turn the tables on Tasha, and she would end up going to prison for Ghost’s murder, taking the fall for a tearful Tariq, who would have to go to school to ever have a chance at seeing his inheritance from his father’s will. In the end, she would be without access to any money from Ghost’s will, in prison for who knows how long, and without her children — all for Tariq. If you ask me, that is the real downfall of Tasha St. Patrick.
For all of Ghost’s faults and poor choices, he was right about two things: he needed to go legitimate, and Tariq needed to take responsibility for his decisions at least one time, even if the consequences weren’t the prettiest. Tasha disagreed with both of those things, nothing more than the latter. Ghost was not the best influence whatsoever, but Tariq went way out of his way throughout the last few seasons to be something that he’s not, and that Ghost wasn’t even anymore — a drug dealing thief who would flip on anybody because he really had no loyalty. He did all this simply to spite his father for choosing to leave Tasha for Angela Valdes. Instead of trying to curb his behavior as it got worse and worse over the seasons, Tasha enabled him. She virtually gave up, believing that neither she nor Ghost could change Tariq and that the best way to keep him out of trouble was to accept him as is and HELP him sell drugs, which she did out of her daycare center.
She enabled that boy so much that he thought he was her parent in the end, calling her out for being a “snitch” for telling police that Ghost killed her former lover, Terry Silver, and questioning her about where she had been. Though they relied on each other heavily by the finale, Tariq was consistently not forthcoming with his mother about his plans, and they both end up sabotaging the other — he interfered with her plan to kill Ghost, she interfered with him handling the narrative about who killed Ghost with the cops. In the end, sis ends up in prison because she never late Tariq face consequences for his actions. She literally sacrificed everybody else in order to protect a boy who was going to continue to need the world moved to stay out of trouble, and he was the only child she really cared about, even of her own. Her youngest daughter, Yasmin, stayed virtually out of sight all season, presumably at the grandmother’s place. When Tasha killed LaKeisha, she didn’t care that she’d be leaving Keisha’s son, Cash, without a mother. And when she tried to set up Q, she didn’t care that he was a single father who’d made mistakes in the past but was trying to be present for his daughter. Everybody could go, but Tariq.
That’s why I say that if we’re all being honest, Tasha was not a good mom — and not really a good person. Sure, many of us would take her over Angela Valdes because no really liked how Ghost went gaga over her while ditching his wife, but she’s been terrible for a while now. She was far too happy being a kingpin’s wife, and didn’t want better, at least, for the sake of what her children would have to deal with. And all the time she spent running around after their marriage started falling apart, worrying about creating relationships with new men she could possibly run away with as opposed to setting up something to protect herself and her kids, she wasn’t focused on making sure her kids were truly okay. Had she done so, maybe she wouldn’t have had to spend so much time cleaning up after one, mourning the other and completely ignoring another…
That’s just my opinion, though. Hit the flip to see the varied reactions to the Power finale and Tasha’s reckoning:
