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Audio readings of TRANSlating Everything content and wacky discussions!
In Amazon’s 9-part global thriller The Power, sustained and elevated estrogen causes people across the world to develop a new organ capable of producing and conducting electricity.
Younger people can awaken the Power in older people. Soon enough, most women can do it. Sooner still, non-binary, intersex, and gender non-conforming people reveal they’ve got the Power, too.
And with that comes a startling reversal in gender-based power dynamics — and the revelation that how the world responds may merely repeat the mistakes of the past.
Episode 7 recap
Leading into the final two episodes of The Power, let's break down what each character must face if they want to make it out alive
Let’s get started with our recap of episode 7: “Baptism”
Roxy
Come one! Come all!
For 20 pounds a session, Roxy teaches newly awakened people how to use their skeins.
And it turns out that using a skein is a lot like being in a fight. How many of you ever been in a fight? A real fight. Yeah, that’s what Roxy thought, too.
You gotta throw a bolt of lightning like a punch. It’s gotta come from your gut.
Allie
Allie watches the latest news footage covering UrbanDox and the man who set himself on fire to send a message at the end of the last episode.
UrbanDox is coming for anyone who has the Power. That includes Allie and her growing community of rebel nuns.
The Voice: You better protect your Garden of Eden.
Note that in Allie’s mind, she is petting a huge yellow serpent laying across her lap and the entire couch. But the next shot cuts back to her watching the news. That’s not a real python.
It’s unclear what this is meant to suggest is happening for Allie. Is the literal imagery of a serpent across her lap meant to be taken as her literal perception? Is the Voice now manifesting for Allie as a fully corporeal being?
The book already confirmed the Voice is a real presence. A spirit who has been with humanity for thousands of years. The show has otherwise been deliberate about its imagery and foreshadowing without yet revealing the scope of characterization it will ultimately give to the Voice.
Time will tell how large a character the Voice becomes for more than whoever it is currently possessing.
Joselyn
Joselyn goes to school. You can see from her face that she’s still disturbed by the man who took his own life just to send a message.
You can see from her reaction to a student—hurling slurs and wearing an UrbanDox hat—that the martyr won.
Joselyn is terrified.
She doesn’t defend herself. She cowers, she cringes. It’s a moment I believe makes her empathize with what the intersex character Ryan may have experienced every day of his life.
Joselyn didn’t start being attacked as something other than cisgender until her skein awakened, but Ryan has been facing persecution for being intersex his entire life.
But you know what they say. Losing the battle doesn’t mean you lost the war. Joselyn and Ryan will have another opportunity to prove themselves as each other’s allies.
Tunde goes to Carpathia
Tunde goes to Carpathia, where he’s delighted to meet Declan Blease in an extravagant lounge. Declan wants his help to infiltrate Zoia’s growing group of insurgents.
Declan: “They’re angry, and they’re hiring.”
He believes Tunde can get inside. These girls eat men for breakfast. What else would you expect when they recently liberated themselves from a sex trafficking ring?
Tunde buys a gun? WTF?
Tunde’s journey by boat into Carpathia reveals how grim things have become.
Carpathia is the sex-trafficking capital of the world. Women were once subjugated without thought or reservation.
But as Tunde rides past the coastline and the forest, he sees camps of male refugees. They’re not from other countries. They’re men who fled torture and death from the newly-awakened women who remember what those men did to them.
Once back on land, Tunde makes one final preparation. He buys a gun from the back of a Romanian car in the middle of the countryside. When he fires a bullet, a flash of power comes over him, a kind of baptism by gunfire.
Tatiana
President Moskalev makes the tough decision to spend millions instead of billions in order to control any woman with the Power.
It’s a huge cost, but placing ankle bracelets on any woman with an awakened skein will be cheaper than building prisons for all of them.
Much to Tatiana’s chagrin, he puts a bracelet on her ankle.
Allie
Allie finds Savannah trying to break into Sister Veronica’s office.
Sister Veronica took Savannah’s phone away for “using electricity.” That means Savannah has been unable to call her three-year-old daughter for two days.
Allie teaches Savannah a strategy to channel her skein’s power. Think of everyone who has ever hurt you. Feel that anger growing in your chest. Let it build like a pot of boiling water. Soon enough, it will be too much to contain. Soon enough, you’ll have to look it go.
Then—ZAP.
Once inside, Savannah gets her phone and calls her daughter. It’s sweet, but then Allie sees the unique scars left by a victim of an electric shock. Savannah accidentally her daughter like that.
Allie sees that these girls need to be taught how to use their powers as much to keep themselves safe as to not harm the people they love.
Roxy
Roxy returns home and gives the money to Terry’s mom—that’s the brother who died in her impulsive rush to kill the man who murdered her mother.
She gives the money to Terry’s mom out of a slim hope that the money will earn of course never love, but perhaps forgiveness, maybe even appreciation.
That’s not to come for them.
Her dad meets with the lawyers and Roxy’s other siblings to decide who will inherit which parts of the business. It’s like Succession, but on a much different playing field.
Roxy’s brother Ricky insists that the business—originally to be split into equal thirds between the three brothers—should now be split into halves. He’s getting married and wants the extra money for security.
But Roxy’s dad believes that in ten years, the family might look out of step without a woman at the top. He needs first to see how his youngest and his oldest work together.
At least for now, Roxy has at least one more chance to prove herself to her father.
Tunde
OMG
Tunde arrives at Zoia’s compound. They usher him to an upper level of the abandoned but secure building, where he watches from above as Zoia gives birth in the middle of the courtyard.
Damn. That is an unsanitary birth.
It’s a girl!
Personally, I thought it could have been a good chance to show off more subtle expressions of a person’s skein. In the book, this kind of embodied haywire means you easily send out uncontrollable electric shocks.
Some women get themselves killed, like getting trapped in a car wreck, panicking, and jolting the car until it explodes. What if something like that had happened while Zoia was giving birth?
Could they at least have used the electric power to zap away any germs?
Well the other thing is that the show gives a VERY graphic shot of the birth. I guess Pieces of a Woman really shifted the Overton Window for filmed depictions of births.
Game of Thrones used nudity for sexposition. This is something else. This is power.
Tatiana
Tatiana takes a bath and gets a visit from Solongo. Remember her from the episode 5 recap?
That’s the girl they let Tatiana keep because they don’t know what REALLY happened between them. At the end of episode 5, Tatiana cornered Solongo, the one woman left in the Palace who has the electric power.
Tatiana said, “Give it to me.”
And Solongo activated Tatiana’s skein.
Now Tatiana emerges from the bath as casually nude as her sister was moments ago. The show does a great job of reclaiming women’s bodies for more than an eroticized male gaze.
Having said that, Solongo came to see Tatiana for a reason. She wants Tatiana’s help getting her brother out of prison for a crime he did not commit.
This is where the scene gets weird and honestly lost me.
Tatiana doesn’t care about anything Solongo said. She kisses Solongo. She turns this into a very sexual encounter. In this room, Tatiana is the one with power.
Solongo’s expression says it all. She’s as put out of place as the audience. She asked for help…and instead of answering, Tatiana just kisses her?!
Roxy
Roxy and Terry do a great job intimidating the man who owes their father money.
When the guy won’t shut up, we get another extremely graphic shot. He’s in the pool, Roxy’s finger dips into the water, and then comes a zap.
God, the show is really going for it with this one. First a shot of a live birth, then a shot of Tatiana fully nude as she exits the bath, and now a shot of this dude literally shitting himself when Roxy zaps him in the pool.
Does a baptism affect you differently depending on whether the water is full of poo? I know Jesus turned water into wine, but…
Allie
Allie and the girls go to the shoreline. They wade deeper into the water while she stays on the edge of the surf.
After that awful report on UrbanDox and what she sees all women will face going forward, she’s thinking lots and lots about what these girls need to learn about their powers. All of the things she has been able to discover that no one else knows. Just how easy it is for her to follow the directions of the Voice and use her power in ways no one else understands.
She remembers what the eels taught her in episode 1. They can use a kind of mind control by sending electric pulses into their victim’s mind.
So she sends electric pulses into the ocean water. The girls feel it. They’re tickled. They’re confused. They’re under Allie’s control without knowing it.
And Allie understands that she doesn’t need their consent. Their cooperation. She can make them do what is needed for their own good.
The show is not saying so directly, but in its own way, Allie is in danger of becoming the modern version of Sister Veronica.
She bends people to her will. The only difference is that Veronica uses overt abuse, whereas Allie uses the Power to control you without you ever knowing it happened. It’s empowering to know you can get what you want whenever you want. Allie will moments from now, however, receive the biggest red flag of all time.
She wonders for a second if maybe she should stop.
It’s easy to keep going when everyone believes in you. She has each girl on her side. They call her Mother Eve. They believe her power comes not just from the skein, but from her speaking to God.
Then a new person arrives at the convent.
Her name is Jean.
Jean’s father was an abusive preacher, so when the girls start speaking of Mother Even who speaks to God, she holds up her hands. She’s not about the religious stuff.
And since she’s not blinded by awe and divine wonder, she can see Allie for who she really is.
If only she could recognize her.
Jean, you see, is also from Alabama. And she’s pretty sure she’s seen Allie before.
Allie believes her safety here depends on leaving that old identity behind. It’s easy for her to live as Mother Eve when she is surrounded by people who believe in her. Her only enemy is Sister Veronica.
But Veronica confronts Allie on the beach. She discovered the evidence of Allie and Savannah breaking into her office. She tells Allie this is unacceptable. She’s going to find out who Allie really is and tell the world.
The threat sends Allie to church and to her knees. Gotta listen to the song “Take Me To Church” for this. She’s full of shame and flashbacks to what sent her into hiding.
She killed her father. She doesn’t know whether he deserved it. Does that matter? She’s a killer. She no longer believes she is worthy.
But the Voice is there to remind her that she has a Greater Purpose.
Allie: She’s right. I’m a fraud and a killer. They’re gonna kick me out and send me back.
The Voice: Not if you own the place. Not if you make them believe. Belief is power.
Joselyn: Say Anything
Joselyn is terrified, too.
So she watches those videos Roxy puts up on how to use your skein to fight. To defend yourself. To know your power and how to use it for shield, safety, and comfort.
Then comes the greatest homage to Say Anything ever filmed. Ryan plays music and lights up a heart-shaped string of lights on the ground with his skein.
He says that he thought a lot about the way the world is now. The same people who want to hurt her also want to hurt him. He needs her. And she needs him. He wants them to fight this together.
Joselyn made a mistake. She’s an imperfect ally. But she is an ally.
From the window, however, Matty films it all. The preview for the next episode hints at the consequences of Matty releasing footage of Ryan using his skein.
For UrbanDox, a man with a skein is as good as a woman. And for UD and Matty, all women are dangerous.
Tunde
This scene.
Zoia grills and eats the placenta. Nothing can go to waste.
Tunde sits across from her as she eats. She needs an act of solidarity from him. A gesture of good faith that he can collaborate with her, even when those actions run contrary to his instincts.
She asks him to eat a piece of the placenta. And because he is her ally, he puts aside his hesitation. He eats.
Tunde says he would love to cover her story, and not just because Declan Blease asked him to do so. He believes Zoia will be an important voice in the world to come.
Zoia will help him, but she wants payment from him first. The problem is that for her, payment doesn’t mean money.
Declan used Tunde to infiltrate Zoia’s compound. Now Zoia will use Tunde to infiltrate the Palace and hopefully free her sister.
Remember that the show likes to establish which character belongs to which chess pieces. Tatiana is the Queen, and Zoia is the Rook. The show is putting each of those pieces in place.
A Rook is generally limited in movement unless it is in position to pair with a King and trade places in a move known as a Castle.
Let us see what happens when Zoia puts her Rook into position.
Allie
Allie remains inside the church. Whatever she’s wrong about, don’t ever question her faith. It is the bedrock of her being. She turns to the Voice with a sincere belief that it is God speaking to her and through her.
But she keeps her ears open to the world around her, and she hears cries for help. Savannah has gone missing.
Sister Veronica screams for the girls to go back inside. Forget about Savannah. She already knows why Savannah has disappeared.
Allie finds Savannah on top of a roof, ready to jump. She’s covered in blood after attempting to cut out her own skein.
Savannah felt a moment of power earlier in the episode when she used electricity to break into Sister Veronica’s office, take back her phone, and call her daughter.
But then Veronica punished Savannah. Her daughter Riley is being put into foster care. As far as Savannah is concerned, this skein has brought her nothing but misery.
Allie offers her what we so often need in those moments of urgent agony.
She tells Savannah that she is seen. She is heard. She is loved.
She promises that together, they will live long enough to see that this gets better.
Allie part 2
The girls—and most notably the trans nun Sister Maria—sit around a campfire on the shores by the convent.
They each share their stories of womanhood.
Luanne begins by sharing when she first understood she was a girl. Until she was seven, she was just a person. But then men let her know that at least to them, she was a woman. And as a woman, she would never be as worthy of power as them.
It’s notable here that the show’s casual mixture of cis, trans, non-binary, intersex, and other gender non-conforming characters makes it easy to empathize with each character. Luanne could just as easily be saying that she is non-binary, but they were forced into the identity of womanhood by the people who declared that anyone with their physical characteristics simply does not count.
While Savannah rests in the gentle arms of Sister Maria, a second rebel nun shares her story. Her name is Sister Bianca, played by Eva-Jane Williams.
Sister Bianca: When I was nine years old, I told my mum what my uncle did to me. She got so mad, she hit me in the face over and over. She said he had a bad childhood. He didn’t know any better and I shouldn’t say stuff about him. So I never said a word to anybody else ever again.
Allie can only hear so much before she cannot help but truly hear them.
Her ears and her heart are open.
The Voice: They need something to believe in. Make them believe in you.
Allie understands in her heart what the Voice then tells her. These girls need to believe. They need—if just for a moment—to feel in their hearts what they already know to be true.
The mind and the body are linked, but the mind can know what the body does not yet experience. These girls believe in the power of God, but there is more to them than their skeins. There is more of them to be awakened.
Allie is the one with the mind, the motivation, and the ability to awaken their deepest natures. All they need is a baptism of electricity.
Allie leads the girls—with Sister Bianca and the trans nun Sister Maria among them—into the water, where she sends a current through the water and through the women.
They are so often separate people trying to work as a whole, but thanks to the skein and the latticework of electricity, the water conducts the energy and unifies them as one.
Most of these girls already have awakened skeins, but now they have two nuns on their side as well.
Sister Bianca will have an awakened skein.
And though some wondered whether Sister Maria being trans meant she would have a skein, the science of skeins and the author of the book itself confirm that trans women are women. Skeins come not from a narrow collection of physical traits we call “man” or “women” but from sustained and elevated estrogen.
Thanks to Allie, Sister Maria now joins the rest of the girls in their fight for Power.
The only one who looks on with scorn and fear of what’s to come is Sister Veronica.
Commentary
For me, Allie and the rest of the convent having such easy access to television and outside information disrupts my suspension of disbelief for what comes at the end of the episode.
In the book, most of the girls were ignorant about the Power and had no way to educate themselves. Allie’s acts spoke more of miracles than science because that was the only language they had to explain what was happening to them.
But in the world of the show, the characters are literally watching government-sponsored documentaries that explain what skeins are and how the power works. At the beginning of this very episode, Allie watches detailed news reports on UrbanDox.
There is no ignorance of mind and fullness of heart to motivate these girls to see Allie’s miracles as anything other than a more skilled use of the power they now all share.
All it takes is one person who does not share their faith to break the spell. It has for some time now been Sister Veronica, who compels them to follow her not through respect but through discipline and punishment.
Because that counter-argument has come from Sister Veronica, it has been incredibly easy for the girls to reject.
But how will the girls react when the seeds of doubt come from someone they trust?
Note who is not present on the shore or in the water.
The new girl Jean. The one who, like Allie, is from Alabama. The one who could reveal Allie’s past and thus provide the greatest test of faith for her followers to come.
Previous recaps
Episode 1: written | podcast |
Episode 2: written | podcast | video
Episode 3: written | podcast | video
Episode 4: written | podcast | video
Episode 5: written | podcast | video
Episode 6: written
Bonus: Did John Leguizamo Just Spoil The Ending Of The Power?
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