Power Book IV: Force Season 2 Episode 8 Review: Dead Reckoning

What. An. Hour.

The chips are falling into place now, and we are circling the end of this wild and alluring season. With the deck stacked against Tommy, from enemies he can see and enemies he’s not even aware of, you can’t even begin to predict how things will end up.

But if that closing frame of Power Book IV: Force Season 2 Episode 8 was any indication, he’s never felt more alive.

This was a very messy installment from start to finish.

And there’s no easy place to jump in, but it’s probably best to start at the top with Vic doing his damndest to cover his tracks.

Vic has been flying by the seat of his pants since he became a snitch, and he stepped in it when he killed Vargas. He may not have had a choice, but it put an even larger target on his back as far as Stacy was concerned.

Stacy Marks feels like every attorney we’ve seen across the Power Universe rolled into one. Notoriously bad at their jobs, save for a couple, the attorneys we’ve seen in this Universe are obsessed with bringing down the bad guy to the point their ethics go flying out the damn window, often alongside their dignity.

Stacy: You know, if Miguel Garcia finds out that you fucking his little sister, he might take you off the map before I do. Be careful, Mr. Egan. Chicago is a very dangerous city. Tommy: So I keep hearing.

Stacy wants to make her mark in Chicago, and she sees a pathway by capturing a notorious criminal like Tommy Egan. I’m sure she wants to help rid the streets of drugs and violence, but I can’t help but think her ambition trumps almost everything else.

Bobby provides an interesting counterpoint to that ambition, but she doesn’t seem to really listen to him ever. She’s got a plan, and she’s operating in a way where she will get all the glory if things go right.

But things haven’t been going right, and while she’s had Vic on the hook, he’s been about the least helpful informant in the history of informants.

Vic Flynn made his bed and has to lie in it now, though it’s so apparent to Stacy and the audience that he doesn’t want to really screw Tommy over. But he was always going to have to, and killing Vargas just sped up the timeline.

Vic was a bare minimum informant, giving the FEDs just enough information to build their case, but he was by no means giving them anything they could use as a finishing move. Catching Vic in a lie meant that Stacy could exert all her power and get Vic to implicate Tommy, whether his words were true or not.

Now, Stacy will operate moving forward like she’s going to drop some bombshell on Tommy, but she doesn’t know that Tommy’s now been tipped off to the rat, and there’s no way in hell he doesn’t immediately finger Vic as the traitor.

Tommy’s suspicious by nature, but who else could it be but Vic?

Vic did an excellent job of pushing the blame onto Jenard and Claudia, and Tommy’s just as suspicious of them, but he wasn’t with them twice when Vargas was sniffing around.

In the aftermath of the murder, Tommy was seeing what was right in front of him, but with new knowledge and some time to think things through, Jenard going to the FEDs would make about as much sense as him going himself.

Jenard may be A LOT of things, and we know he’s actively trying to undermine Tommy in another way, but he’s not the one to go to the authorities, even if it would mean getting rid of Tommy for good.

It was unbelievable hearing Tommy basically tell Jenard he was lucky Tommy let him back into CBI, like Tommy didn’t come into town seventeen seconds ago and Jenard hadn’t spent his adult life helping establish CBI as one of the biggest crews in the city.

Tommy Egan will always have ALL the audacity.

It’s so interesting watching Tommy do this dance with all these people he knows don’t care about him and he knows he can’t trust. But as long as they’re useful to him and helping him get to where he needs to be, he’s keeping them around.

But even knowing he can’t trust them, does he realize how many people are actively after him?

We know that Tommy can find his way out of even the most dire of situations, but it’s okay to be concerned about Tommy because he’s got heat from so many different directions, and he can’t jump over every hurdle.

We’ve seen him get tripped up in the past, and we’ve seen him lose people, and we’ve seen him hit rock bottom. To think Tommy can be in control at all times and never get touched would make for a pretty damn boring show, and that’s never been how Power has operated.

Right now, Diamond (and Mireya if you want to lump her in) are the only people in Tommy’s orbit not praying on his downfall and making moves to make it happen.

And we’ll see over the next two hours if they succeed or not.

Speaking of Tommy’s enemies, it took almost the whole season for Miguel to finally see what his Abuelita picked up on immediately.

Miguel Garcia’s got pride oozing out of his pores, and he needed to be stared in the face with Tommy’s betrayal to understand that he was being played. And he didn’t even have time to fully process that before Tommy decided to rub it in by rubbing elbows with his superiors.

Tommy has done a great job keeping his relationship with Mireya and his business relationship with Miguel separate. Still, he pounced on her information about the quinceañera without hesitation or care for how it would make Mireya feel.

Tommy had a great speech about wanting to be honest with Mireya and learning from his past mistakes, but he didn’t seem to think about how his barging into the party to talk business would affect his relationship.

Mireya has been so up and down with Tommy, from swearing him off, but not really, and falling head over heels seemingly overnight. But wasn’t it always going to end up here?

She has alluded to Miguel killing one or both of them about forty times by now, but she’s always folded when Tommy would assure her everything would be okay. But seeing Tommy and Miguel together must have been the spark she needed to push her to walk away from the situation.

Did she really think Tommy would be above killing Miguel? While I understood her anger toward Tommy, I didn’t quite understand her shock. Was Tommy supposed to let the man kill him if it came down to it?

Their whole spat just reinforced how little they know about each other, especially on Tommy’s part, with this kind of fantasy he’s built up in his head.

He fully convinced himself they could come clean to the world and that if Miguel pushed back, he’d stick a bullet in his head, and then he and Mireya Garcia would live happily ever after.

That was absolutely never going to happen, even with Mireya’s insistence that Miguel would kill her in a minute. She was never going to advocate for Miguel’s death.

Stacy’s little drop by Mireya’s was precisely why she didn’t want to get involved with Tommy in the first place. She’s made an effort to stay clear of Miguel’s business, and here she gets involved with Tommy, and suddenly, she could be involved in a RICO.

Dropping the LaKeisha bomb was something I didn’t see coming, and once Mireya does a little research, what will she do moving forward?

While I can’t see Mireya straight up turning on Tommy in any way, how deep are her feelings right now? Deep enough to allow herself to go all in with a guy who has multiple deceased girlfriends and isn’t remotely interested in leaving the life?

Someone else never leaving the life? Diamond Sampson.

Look, I am an unapologetic Diamond stan. There’s something about his calming presence and quiet dominance I’ve enjoyed since he was introduced, and since he’s been with Tommy, their partnership, while rocky, has still been such an exciting part of the season.

I’ve lamented the subplot with Leon and Gianna only because it’s felt out of place from everything else. But during Power Book IV: Force Season 2 Episode 7, it became clear that maybe this was all being set up to end in tragedy.

Now, it also taught Diamond something, or at the very least, allowed him his first chance since getting out of prison to do more than be the man he was before he went in.

You could see the pride on his face when Reeves thanked him for his speech and heard that he made a difference in someone’s life in a positive way.

Diamond wasn’t exactly walking around trying to be some motivational speaker or a man who gave back to the community, but he enjoyed helping Leon, and he enjoyed helping him become more assertive and aware of his strength.

He was beaming, watching Leon stand up for himself and punch that bully straight in his jaw, but everything turned terrible in the blink of an eye.

Leon was a great kid, full of so much promise, and his life was taken by a coward who was embarrassed that he got showed up.

Diamond was naturally filled with tremendous guilt, but he didn’t pull that trigger. All he wanted to do since he met Leon was help him, not complicate his life or put him in danger.

That was never his intention, and the guilt he’ll feel about this one will be heavy in his heart for a long time.

As I was saying before, Diamond’s calm is something I love and something we’re so used to seeing, but Leon’s death just tore him up to the point he was drinking himself to blackout territory and showering himself in drugs and money to prove a point.

Gianna: I know who you are. My neighbor told me. Diamond: Oh, yeah? Who am I? Gianna: Diamond Sampson. Head of CBI. You’re a gangbanger, and a drug dealer. But don’t get it twisted. I knew that before I let you in my bed. I’m grown.

Diamond asked Gianna to tell him who he was earlier, and he couldn’t even deny it to himself anymore, so he decided to wear it like a scarlet letter.

Tommy was right on time and a little too late to help Diamond, and when Reeves showed up at the barbershop, I was convinced Tommy would get the drop on him. What’s another dead member of law enforcement at this point?

But Diamond literally breaking free of his stupor to just Sweeney Todd his parole officer was crazy.

The deaths this season do not stop, especially the deaths of those in perceived positions of power.

Tommy was worried about Diamond all hour. Afraid that he was slipping and he had his priorities mixed up.

And a distracted and unfocused Diamond was bad for Tommy. In the long run, things don’t work without Diamond, and that’s why he was so happy to see that blood cascading down the mirror.

The Diamond Sampson he needed was back, and now the games can truly begin.

Everything Else You Need To Know

The blood squirting from Reeve’s neck was so nasty. One of the nastier deaths on the series.

I mentioned this earlier, but Stacy genuinely doesn’t listen to anything Bobby says. I would feel bad for him, but he knows who he married.

It took me way too long to remember who Jamal was when he first confronted Reeves.

Kate returned just for JP to tell her the truth and give her an ultimatum regarding her sobriety. I don’t know if that will work with Kate, nor do I know where this neglected storyline is going.

Kate said she was in New York, and I’m VERY curious about what she was doing there.

How many times will Jenard get choked this season? That is a serious question.

Mirković has taken about as many L’s as Jenard has this season, and maybe he needs to team up with Miguel because I don’t see how the Serbs make it out of this season any other way.

Claudia Flynn, always wanting to go scorched earth, will eventually come back to bite her. She’s putting too much trust in Shanti, not understanding that Shanti’s loyalty will be to herself and Jenard before anyone else.

It’s fascinating watching Shanti work and seeing how she navigates her position with everyone around her. In another life, she and Tommy would have been an exciting team. But in this life, I look forward to seeing them become true adversaries once Tommy fully figures out the game she’s playing.

This was a lot of words, but if there was ever an episode that needed it, it’s this one.

Not a single minute of this hour was wasted, and with only two episodes left, we’re heading toward an epic conclusion.

Do me a favor and drop all your thoughts down below and make sure you watch Power Book IV: Force online right now so you can join the conversation!

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Whitney Evans is a staff writer for TV Fanatic. Follow her on X.