Tariq Gets Exactly What He Wants — Guess Who Gives It to Him?
There’s a scene in this week’s Power in which Ghost writes LaKeisha a fat check to tempt her to leave Tommy and get out of the drug game for good. On a similar note, while I don’t have James St. Patrick-level funds at my disposal, I’d gladly do someone’s laundry for a month or pet-sit their diabetic-and-prone-to-bite cat if it meant that person would put Tariq in his place for good. Because man, does that kid need to shut the heck up.
Know who doesn’t agree with me? Tasha, who uses “If you can’t beat ’em, mold ’em” logic and decides to shape her son into Ghost 2.0 — only better. I’ll admit it: I didn’t see that one coming.
Oh, and Tommy and Ghost have another reason not to kill each other just yet. Read on for the highlights of “Like Father, Like Son.”
SCARED STRAIGHT? | Tariq wakes up one morning with his father pressing a gun to his cheek and quizzing him about leaving the service door ajar so Tommy could kill Proctor. “You’re not gonna shoot me, so stop this scared-straight bulls—t now,” Tariq says. As they’d say on The Great British Baking Show: The cheek! Ghost thinks Tommy was at the penthouse to kill him, and that his own son helped make that so. “He wasn’t going to hurt you, and I owed him!” Tariq yells. Ghost warns him not to think he’s smarter than his dad, then they go on a field trip to the shot-up apartment. “Uncle Tommy did all this?” Tariq asks, looking truly shocked at the level of destruction. “Yeah, with your help, son,” Ghost says. Then Ghost takes what’s left of Tariq’s drug money — “Dope boys get robbed all the time,” he snarks — and makes the teen vow never to talk to Tommy again.
Tasha is not down with the whole gun-as-alarm-clock thing, but Ghost promises her that the move scared Tariq right onto the path to a “legitimate life.” Yeah, OK.
2-BIT GOES 2-FAR | Over at Tommy’s, LaKeisha reminds her man that it’s only a matter of time before Ghost finds out Tariq helped Tommy gain access to the penthouse. (Too late!) He gives her a gun to protect herself, and she makes a point of saying that once he gets Ghost, “we’re done” with the St. Patrick family. He counters that he’ll never be done with his godson, whom he considers family. Pardon me for echoing an earlier sentiment, but: Yeah, OK.
Later, Keisha swings by the warehouse to do inventory, but 2-Bit, Spanky and Black Grimace are already there and have realized that someone’s been stealing product. Keisha immediately suspects 2-Bit, who gets really mad and grabs her arm forcefully to stop her from leaving to tell Tommy. The whole situation escalates very quickly; finally he lets her go, but Spanky and BG tell a surly 2-Bit that he’s made a serious mistake in putting his hands on the boss’ lady.
Back at the apartment, LaKeisha is the only one home when Tariq comes by (directly breaking the promise he just made his father, in case you’d forgotten). He asks if Tommy’s in Brooklyn, which gets a raised eyebrow from her, because how would the kid know where the warehouse was? He lies to her face about the pills he sold, saying they were from Kanan’s stash and not Tommy’s, then she tells him to stay away from his godfather.
Tommy later calls his primeras to the warehouse, where 2-Bit continues to be insufferable. But Tommy knows he didn’t steal the product, so he merely fires him (and Spanky, by association) but doesn’t kill him. The ousted pair then devise a scheme to grab Dre and bring him to Tommy as a way to get back into their boss’ good graces. They also come up with another plan, but we’ll get to that in a minute.
OH RAMONA, RUN! | Derek, the campaign staffer Tate beat up a few episodes ago, finally puts it together that his boss and his wife are doin’ it and doin’ it and doin’ it well. He catches them in the act. “You know, Cassandra, I kept wondering why you had so many coffee meetings on your calendar. I guess you take yours black now?,” he yells, threatening to make the affair public and ruin Tate’s campaign. But with a little coercion from Ramona and Ghost — she gets Cassandra to sign a non-disclosure agreement in exchange for the Democratic National Committee’s support in a future political run, he installs Derek as the project manager of Queens Child Project and offers him a buttload of cash — everything is fine and dandy for Tate. Oh, and we learn that Ramona has feelings for someone… and that someone is likely James St. Patrick. Meanwhile, Tate helps grease the wheels for Tariq’s admission to Callister, a New York prep school.
Ghost also has Tate reunite Dre and his daughter, Heaven — which Dre thinks makes him free from the pressures Saxe keeps putting on him. But Saxe slaps an electronic bracelet on his ankle to monitor Dre’s whereabouts and threatens to have him arrested for the murder of Maria Suarez if he doesn’t continue to help the feds. Later, Tariq meets with Dre and threatens to tell Tommy his whereabouts if Dre doesn’t hook him up with product. The exchange ends with Dre giving the kid weight to move.
SAXE, SACKED | Warner tasks Rodriguez with looking into Saxe’s shady dealings, and that’s how the AUSA chief becomes aware of the recording of Lindsay’s death. Saxe gets put on administrative leave, and there’s going to be an investigation. “If you’re gonna collude with some of the most elusive criminals in New York,” Warner advises him, “maybe you should ask them how to avoid getting caught.”
UNCLE TOMMY, OUT! | Tommy meets with Tariq, who lies to his face about the pills. When he finally comes clean, Tommy dangles him over the side of a building but ultimately pulls him back. “You’re just as lowdown and grimy as your old man,” Tommy sneers. “I guess we ain’t family no more.”
Over at Weave Got the Funk (ha), aka LaKeisha’s hair shop, a guy Spanky knows swings by to intimidate her into leaving Tommy and the drug business completely. He holds a knife to her throat and implies that Ghost sent him — but what he doesn’t know is that a) Keisha isn’t afraid to put her knee into the groin of anyone who’s up in her face, and b) the gun Tommy gave her is in her purse. So she grabs it, and shoots him dead after they scuffle, then she calls Tommy.
Her call interrupts the scene at the warehouse, where the guys have grabbed Dre, stuffed him in a trunk and brought him to Tommy. He leaves the weasel with 2-Bit, BG and Spanky and runs to the shop, where he’s shocked at what he sees. Keisha is convinced Ghost was behind the attack, especially because — as we know, but Tommy does not — James approached her the day before and offered her a ginormous check in exchange for ditching Tommy and moving way the heck away. “This is just part of the life,” he tells her, trying to figure out a way to dispose of the body. “I just want us to live a normal life. Can we do that?” she pleads. He kinda absentmindedly says yes, they can. He’s totally going to wind up killing her, isn’t he?
Oh, and in case you’re wondering what happened back at the warehouse with Dre? BG, bless his big, dumb, kind soul, fell for Dre’s sob story about wanting to call Heaven one last time. And when BG got near, Dre quickly pulled a gun out of BG’s waist and shot him in the head, then ran away.
MOTHER KNOWS BEST? | An irate Tommy crashes Ghost’s meeting with Jason — he was going to introduce him to Dre, his new hook-up — and confronts his old friend about the hitter he sent “to get even with me for Angela.” Ghost is grave. “I can’t get even with you for Angela,” he tells him. Jason doesn’t care about any of this: All he wants is peace and the profits that come with it. He instructs both men to work together, for him, and he’ll reduce their taxes. If they don’t, he’ll charge them double. And if one of them kills the other, he’ll destroy the one that’s left. Tommy and Ghost warily agree they can trust each other until Jason is dead — something they want to make happen quickly — but then it’s game back on.
With that settled, Tommy drives Keisha out to the suburbs and pulls up in front of a big house. When she wonders what he’s up to, he pulls out some keys and unlocks the front door: He bought it for them. It’s like the purse all over again: Keisha smiles, says she loves him, and everything is OK until the next time she freaks.
At Tasha’s apartment, she’s figured out that Vincent’s kidnapping was a ruse that was designed to make Tariq money. So she makes a deal with him: “You never lie to me again, and in exchange, you get an education.” But she’s not talking about prep school. “You can be better than Ghost ever was, if you commit to both the legit life and the streets,” she says, telling him that she’ll teach him the drug trade and he’ll continue to go to high school and college. “I’m not about to let you get killed, Tariq, because you don’t know how to do it right,” she continues. “You don’t know the streets, but I do.” So he agrees never to lie to her again — GOOD GOD WHY DOES ANYONE TRUST THIS KID? — and asks for her help in moving Dre’s weight.
“Alright, Tariq,” she says, taking a deep breath. “I’ma teach you the game.” (courtesy of TVLine)
