Power Recap: The Curse of Lobos

Power

Help Me

Season 3 Episode 5

Editor’s Rating 3 stars ***

Omari Hardwick as James. Photo: Myles Aronowitz/Starz

Well, Holly’s dead. Are y’all happy now?

Power’s least-beloved character gets offed at the hands of her one true love, officially making her and Tommy the show’s resident Sid and Nancy. (Or Christopher and Adriana, whichever you prefer.) This dysfunctional coupling finally goes off the rails when Holly admits she ordered the Jamaicans to put a hit out on Ghost. Her confession comes right after Tommy learns that the Koreans, not Lobos, tried to exterminate him outside the church when a hoodied Ghost came to the rescue.

You can’t blame Holly for making an executive decision. After all, she’s looking out for Tommy and her unborn child, which he still didn’t know about. It’s a common theme this week: “Help Me” is largely concerned with parents going all out to protect their children. Tommy’s mom comes by for a visit, takes an immediate disliking to Holly, and later tells Tommy to get rid of her. James spent the day with Tariq, trying to get the bottom of all this lashing out he’s been doing. Dre becomes Kanan’s minion when he makes a surprise visit to his place, holding his daughter and threatening to send her ass out the window. And Sandoval has to keep on protecting Lobos, so he doesn’t off him or his daughter.

Even Ruiz, who comes back to talk to the Feds, is reminded of the hit he put out on Nomar when he found out about him and his daughter. Knox dropped that nugget out there, telling him he could get the death penalty for whacking an informant if he doesn’t give up Ghost. Unfortunately, Knox’s plans are thwarted once again by Angela, who not only tells Ruiz that a jury wouldn’t convict a man who wanted to protect her daughter from a predator, but that Ghost saved his life. (This spooked the hell out of Ruiz, calling her a witch in his native tongue.)

For a minute there, I thought the Jamie-Angela love train was coming to an infinite halt. She even stops their obligatory lovemaking scene to talk about the “obstacles” in their lives, which she describes as their families getting in the way of their happiness. But later on, Jamie finds out she was talking about Ruiz, as James’s lawyer, Proctor, informs him that he saw Ruiz and Angela going into one of his building’s conference rooms. That makes James silently mull over signing the separation papers he asked Proctor to draw up, pondering if it’s the right decision to break up his already broken home for someone who’s still keeping secrets from him. Alas, that thought is nixed when Angela tells him that not only did Ruiz not give up Ghost, but Lobos is giving up the Jimenez cartel, closing up the entire case. The love train’s moving again.

Then again, James just came face-to-face with death, so he’s probably glad to hold his woman. As ordered by Holly, the Jamaicans show up with AK-47s cocked and loaded behind James’s car, getting him to step out by denting his bumper. (Tariq is still in the car, but he’s too busy listening to his headphones to hear any of it.) It seems dicey for James until Dean and his security team show up to save his ass, then tell him to get the hell outta there. Of course, this happens while Tommy and Holly have their knock-down, drag-out fight, with Holly taunting him about his “not normal” bond to Ghost and Tommy ultimately wrapping his hands around her throat.

Of course, a hoodied Ghost comes to his aid again. He breaks into Tommy’s place to discover a dead Holly next to a curled-up Tommy, muttering the episode title: “Help me.” After they head to the river where Ghost dumps the body, they conclude that they need to work together to kill Lobos, who’s on his way to getting transferred and, eventually, sprung out.

“Help Me” shows how, as always, Power finds ways to conveniently structure everything so bad things might’ve been avoided if the characters just talked to each other. I’m so used to people getting the wrong idea on this show — Tommy and Holly’s relationship seems to be built on the pattern of one character saying they need to holler at the other, but the other running off to do something else — that I feel like I’m watching an extreme version of Three’s Company.

Maybe that’s how Kemp and her team show that the truth is always beyond these characters’ grasps. Practically every character on Power lies to everyone else and themselves; it almost seems like they run away from the truth whenever they’re presented with it. James may try to be a better man by running a bunch of legit nightclubs. One of those clubs is even named Truth. But now that he and Tommy are back in cahoots, he won’t have much time for Truth or the truth anymore.

Stray Thoughts:

• After seeing Holly and Tommy’s mom in the same room together (Lucy Walters certainly reminds me of Patricia Kalember in the Sisters era), I can officially understand both Tommy’s twisted fixation with redheads and why he was attracted to this petty criminal in the first place.
• Has Lobos turned into the most pitiful drug lord ever seen on television? Watching him pathetically grab for Sandoval’s hands so he would grab Lobos’s junk made me wonder why the hell Sandoval is even still scared of this dude. Kanan is ten times more menacing in his one scene than Lobos was in his two. He was holding a baby, after all.
• How does Proctor know what Ruiz looked like? Did I forget about a scene in season two where Ghost gave him photos of all his soldados? (By the way, congrats on the engagement, Jerry!)
• Naturi Naughton doesn’t have a lot to do, but she does get that nice scene where Tasha has a heart-to-heart with Tariq. And now that Holly’s gone, I’m gonna miss the sisterly bond (and wine-filled, Tommy-roasting sessions) those two were beginning to have.
• Speaking of Tariq: Is it just me, or is his character mostly being used to bring out some quiet, solemn acting? Both Omari Hardwick and Rotimi Akinosho have some sweet, one-on-one moments with the kid this week.
• Can David Fumero chill with the shifty-ass acting? We all know Sandoval is in Lobos’s pocket, but what the hell happened to the cucumber cool he had last season? He’s acting snitchy and twitchy all over the damn place.
• Please tell me Dre didn’t leave that damn baby all by herself for the day, making it so Kanan could easily walk in and pick her up!
• “I was a good prosecutor.” Um, not really, Angela. At best, you were adequate.
• “What the fuck did you do?” Even Saxe is caught off-guard by Knox’s scheming.
• So, 50 Cent got mad that people saw Kanan jerk off last week. He should’ve put his foot down and said no in the first place! Aren’t you the EP?