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Audio readings of TRANSlating Everything content and wacky discussions!
If you listened to Dave Chen and Joanna Robinson opine over Game of Thrones with their acclaimed podcast Cast of Kings, then you know the pleasures of a recap show with a host who is an expert on both the books and the show.
That’s where I come in!
My work in research, publishing, and activism recently earned me the nomination as the second-only transgender nominee for 40 Under 40 from University of Georgia.
With that attention comes it’s own kind of Power — and with great power comes great yadda yadda yadda…
So for the foreseeable future, I’ll be using my unique insight into the book and Amazon Studios show The Power to offer a recap series like no other.
The Power Episode 5: “Scarlet Minnow”
Directed by: Ugla Hauksdóttir and Lisa Gunning
Written by: Sarah Quntrell
Music by: Morgan Kibby
“A lack of power means you often don't get to choose your allies” - Reddit user u/LadySummersisle
Tatiana: present day (ish)
In Carpathia, Tatiana is a powerful woman. She is the wife of Viktor Moskalev. In an earlier episode, a figure from Tatiana’s past came to her begging for help. Tatiana turned her away.
To ignore the plea of a helpless woman is a power all its own.
Tatiana accepted a marriage to a disgusting hog beast so that she could have more power than anyone else.
And yet she watches the news. She sees other people awakening to a power her husband cannot give her. A power that should have been hers all along.
She just needs to find the one who will activate her skein.
Margot
In a mirrored storyline, Margot prepares for an interview that will test the limits of her power, too.
Like Tatiana, she doesn’t have a skein. At least not an active one.
When she walks into an enormous skyscraper to take photos for the cover of Vanity Fair (no doubt as a guest on a podcast co-hosted by Joanna Robinson), she walks the walk and talks the talk, but this is a strange position for Margot to be in.
She’s suddenly become the face of the Skein. The face of the Power.
But you can see it in her expression as the photographer tells her to look like she’s about to rip his face off. He needs her to look fierce. Powerful.
But she’s uncomfortable. She’s afraid. This change is big and the consequences are even bigger —yet she won’t allow herself to use the one thing she could use to keep herself safe.
The person waiting to teach her that lesson won’t reveal herself until the end of the episode. More on that later.
Tatiana
Tatiana enters her room as Margot explains on TV how the skein works. She looks longingly at her own neck.
The skein should be there. The skein IS there. But it’s not activated. She sees women with a power she’s supposed to have, but her husband makes sure she’ll never have that power. He’s killed every woman who expressed it.
Indeed, as Margot sits down to have her assistant polish her appearance, we’re told that Solongo is the only woman in Carpathia allowed to get near Tatiana.
The Power (Prime)
Any other woman young enough to have the power has either been killed or forbidden from getting near her.
Better hope this girl doesn’t get Woke!
Tatiana continued
Tatiana’s husband refuses any advice for how to handle the emergence of skeins in Carpathia. He will do what he wants, when he wants, how he wants. No one will speak against him. No one will question that he is the rightful owner of Power.
Men across the world are still taking measures to ensure the current gender paradigm continues as the status quo. This is when the show cuts to Tatiana’s siter, who may not be in as much luxury, but in another sense shares a kind of captivity with her sister.
Zoia Donici
Zoia is held captive as a sex slave with lots of other girls who are too old to have an awakened skein without Power-affirming therapy.
Like many, many, many women, she needs medical care if she is to be whole.
Except her captors, like Tatiana’s husband, murder anyone who exhibits any sign of the power. You don’t need to have an active skein. They just need to suspect you have one.
Case in point? They take one girl who surely does NOT have the Power, lest she would have defended herself. At least that’s what I want to believe.
They take her out of the room and let the girls know how helpless their situation is. We don’t see what happens. We just hear her screams, the gunshot, and sudden silence.
In the heat of Zoia’s fear, she remembers what brought her to this moment.
It was a final encounter with her sister Tatiana before they went their separate ways.
Flashback: Tatiana and Zoia Donici
While Tatiana prepares herself in the mirror, Zoia plays with the chess pieces — most notably, the piece she plays with is the Queen.
And here is where the show foreshadows everything these two sisters will face when finally reunited. That’s not a spoiler for future episodes, just an observation that this is clearly a show where every sound bite and visual is a deliberate feast of foreshadowing.
Zoia holds the Queen in her hands casually, thoughtfully, like it holds the secrets to her future. She circles the Queen around another chess piece that is equally symbolic: a Rook.
Queens can move forward, backward, left, right, diagonally. Their power is universal.
Rooks can only move left, right, forward, backward. They have a strength, but their power is narrow. Limited. Easily defeated unless joined with that of the King. A Castle move is a kind of Hail Mary if you don’t do it right.
Wikipedia states: A queen wins against a lone rook, unless there is an immediate draw by stalemate or due to perpetual check (or if the rook or king can immediately capture the queen). In 1895, Edward Freeborough edited an entire 130-page book of analysis of this endgame, titled The Chess Ending, King & Queen against King & Rook.
Tatiana may appear to have the upper hand right now, but by the time these two reunite, it will be check mate. Watch out for the Rook—Tatiana—to eventually ally herself in a Castle with the one King she trusts.
Back to the show
There’s a break in playing with chess pieces as the adults outside the room argue in loud Romanian.
Zoia at first tries to talk to Tatiana in Romanian, but her sister reminds her that to be successful, she must play by the rules.
The first one is to speak English. Not because it’s better, but because it is Power. Their caretakers don’t understand English. It’s the only way they can speak freely.
Tatiana: “You don’t want them to understand you.”
The sisters discuss Tatiana’s future in the Olympics, what’s needed to survive in this world. If you can take Power, then you take it. You keep it. And you share it with the people like you who most need it.
Tatiana’s success as a future Olympian speaks for itself. Zoia is extremely jealous of Tatiana and her Olympic future, but she’s a good sister. Jealous, but not envious. She supports Tatiana. Well, mostly.
Zoia: “I know. They can only pick one girl for the Olympics — and you’re the Chosen One.”
Not to worry. Zoia has plans. She will go to Israel to find Mrs. Josan, a woman who used to live next door. She hasn’t seen her since she was four years old — just a few years ago, but that’s a long time.
Zoia: “Yeah, but when she left, she told me that I could live with her.”
It’s funny. It’s sweet. And Tatiana promises to bring back gifts for Zoia.
“Chocolate. Shoes.”
Y’all can already guess what other gifts the two sisters will share.
Tatiana: Olympics training
From there, the flashback jumps to Tatiana training for the Olympics.
This was hard to watch. When she tries a run and doesn’t stick the landing, the coach gives her accurate advice — chest up, head up — but he touches her in a way that reminded me too much of the possessiveness touch of abusive men like Larry Nassar and my own brother.
Maybe it’s that casually abusive touch that shakes her ability to perform. She tries another run, but the coach tells her to stop. He can’t watch it anymore.
In the background, her sister Zoia seems confused. Wasn’t Tatiana supposed to be on a one-way trip to Power? The already nearly empty seats empty completely — but in the background, powerful people from the government have arrived.
One of them is a pedophile named Viktor Moskalev. That’s the man she’s married to in the present.
In the flashback, he is the Finance Minister. His special liking to young Tatiana means that she will never want for anything again — so long as what she wants is an extension of this man.
He asks her to go on a date — and the doubt in her eyes signals that saying yes will mean giving up as much as it brings her.
Tatiana: Present
The Power (Prime)
The thread ends back with Tatiana in the present.
Her husband Viktor speaks to his colleagues — in English. Tatiana once used English with her sister as a way to speak freely in a language her captors didn’t share. That power is now gone.
She has nowhere to hide. Nowhere to turn. No one to confide in — not even her sister.
We are meant to feel how oppressive her situation has become. How it mirrors and parallels that of her sister Zoia caught in a far more explicit situation of capture and enslavement.
The show is telling us that just because abuse is not crude and obvious does not mean it’s not abuse. Tatiana and Zoia are in very similar situations. One of them just looks nicer on the surface.
A large group of men comes down a staircase with Tatiana’s husband. They’re discussing skeins and the Power.
Ruslan, one of her husband’s officers, tells Tatiana that this group of scientists will be with Viktor for quite some time.
They’re here to study the Skein. And they’re not afraid to kill as many women as it takes for them to first understand the organ — then to control anyone who has it.
Margot
We cut to America and Tunde interviewing Margot.
Did Tunde meet Margot sooner than this in the book? If I recall correctly, he met her VERY late in the book when the characters finally begin to converge in the same meeting place.
Margot took one look at Tunde, by then a very successful journalist, and said he’d only gotten anywhere because he was hot.
The show, at least for now, has other plans for Tunde and Margot. At this point in the timeline of the show, Margot is still semi-happily married and nowhere near pursuing a young man like he’s a tasty piece of candy.
Give them time — or at least six seasons and a movie.
Tunde explains what will become the heart of Margot’s story for this episode. At least in America, she has become the face and the voice (but not The Voice) for the Power. She opposes legislation meant to control women with EOD — what she says is merely her serving as an advocate for women’s bodily autonomy.
And yet, as Tunde points out, Margot has not admitted whether she herself has an active Skein. She’s given birth, so her estrogen levels have long since been past the threshold for her to have a Skein. She’s just never admitted to the public whether it’s active.
She’s not alone. There are lots of invisible men, as well as intersex, non-binary, and gender non-conforming people in this story who will not admit whether they have active Skeins.
If Margot doesn’t have an active Skein — isn’t she playing both sides? Pretending that she is the show’s version of cisgender while also leaving alive the possibility that she might already be gender non-conforming? That sounds an awful lot like Ben Shapiro’s definition of virtue signaling.
Tunde makes a similar challenge: “Detractors have speculated that you’re using this to build your career.”
Margot: “Yeah but…putting yourself on the line. It’s come with a price, hasn’t it? I shouldn’t have to disclose whether I have EOD. This is my body, and no one has the right to know Jack about it.”
As empty as I feel Margot’s arc is becoming over whether to activate her own Skein, ehhhhhhhhhh this is a pretty good point by her!
Tunde: “I’m a Muslim. I’m a Nigerian. And I’m a man. I never really thought about how those identities intersected. How my gender informed my position and privilege. in those other two spheres.”
Seeing women awaken to Power and the courage to simply live their lives has awakened him to the responsibility of sharing his testimony.
Tunde: “I think more men might be willing to hear that from another man.”
And here comes another great speech by Margot/Toni Collette.
Speech by Margot
Margot: “We need men who are allies more than ever. Because men like Governor Dandon are trying to pass legislation that would force women to register EOD as a weapon. supposedly only in the name of public safety.
“Safety for who? I mean, male politicians don’t exactly have the strongest track record when it comes to advocating for the safety of women’s bodies.
“In fact, we still have people advocating that women shouldn’t have access to safe, sterile procedures. What — are we gonnna lock up every women with EOD in a rubber cell? When are we going to learn?
We can’t legislate women’s bodies. I mean you saw first hand in Saudi Arabia, right? This bell is not getting unrung. This is progress — ”
Saved by Helen’s Bell
That’s when her assistant Helen says hey hey hey! Save it for episode where you debate Daniel Dandon on stage.
Margot may not have even had an eye on taking a bigger political position, but then Tunde plants the seed.
Tunde asks if she’s going to challenge Daniel Dandon for his Senate Seat.
It’s the same thing they did in House of Cards when Frank wanted to get such a big public reaction to the idea of someone being elected that the nomination basically manifested itself.
Margot and Helen
With the interview over, Helen and Margot have a walk and talk. Helen reminds Margot that this isn’t just a political idea. It isn’t just a message. It isn’t just virtue signalling.
There are real people out there who want to hurt women. Especially women who have an active Skein. Margot has chosen to become their voice — and she is choosing to speak about these issues in ways that are guaranteed to inflame abusive men and their allies.
She points at UrbanDox — the show’s version of someone like Alex Jones and the darkest corners of Reddit. He has 9 million subscribers, and he’s pointing every single one of them at Margot.
Matty Cleary-Lopez
YIKES!!!
Guess who is watching UrbanDox and soaking in every morsel of misogyny? Joselyn’s brother Matty. That’s the one she nearly blinded when she zapped him in the eye in episode 3.
TRANSlating Everything Recaps The Power: Episode 3
There’s not much else to say about UrbanDox unless you’ve never spent a moment on the internet. He’s an Alex Jones type, though the casting page on IMDB indicates the show is going in a different direction than the presumed middle aged white cisgender horn dog man.
What stands out is how Rob responds to his son’s motivation for finding solace and comfort from the UrbanDox message.
Here is where the show once again feels a little on the nose, but only because that’s the reality we all live in.
Matty’s complaints aren’t the typical complaints of real-world men. Matty’s have been reversed to reflect the emerging paradigm. He basically recites the most common complaints from teenage girls encountering horned up boys at high school.
These girls suddenly have so much power, they don’t know what to do with it.
“Girls will be girls,” is essentially Rob’s message.
It doesn’t need to be more subtle than this when it’s literally what women, queer, and gender non-conforming people face every time we enter the world. We’re intensely aware that other’s perceive us as something other than the default for power. We’re at least vaguely aware since birth that we are at a fundamental disadvantage.
The scales are violently unjust. And Matty is now experiencing what it has always been like for the women and queer people around him.
He believes, as UrbanDox tells him, that the system we have is in place for a reason. It’s what got us this far, and it’s what will take us into tomorrow.
These women want to destroy it. Matty is beginning to believe that his sacred mission as a protector of all society will be to stop these women — including his mother and sister — from assuming ownership of a power that was never theirs to begin with.
From UrbanDox’s POV, nature fucked up. He’s calling on all Benevolent Chauvinists to correct that error.
Tatiana
Do you remember those Tatiana flashbacks with her younger sister Zoia?
How about Tatiana learning that the men coming to see her disgusting husband are scientists performing experimental research on Skeins?
Tatiana brings her husband a drink and adopts the charm of aloof arm candy with the casual grasp that comes from years at play. That’s why she’s there to see the graphic footage of a surgically removed Skein.
Maskalov: “It’s disgusting.”
Most naked biological tissue is, dummy.
The big thing we learn is that in all three surgical removals, the woman died. Keep this in mind. For some women, having the power isn’t a promise that you’ll keep the power.
Rob
The show often plays with a character like Tunde uploading footage, then the next character watching and reacting to that footage. In this case, we saw people in Carpathia reviewing their experimental research. Now we cut to Rob learning what they discovered.
A new character named Anna Rao goes over the research with him. What’s important is that Rob is horrified. He doesn’t want any part in this — but he may find himself unable to resist taking part in it.
Anna argues that some people deserve the option to choose whether to have a skein. To have this power. Thankfully, the research also shows that certain drugs can chemically castrate anyone of their skein.
I’m not sure if the show intends this as a reversal of where skeins came from in the book. The novel explained that skeins likely came from a chemical agent placed into the global water supply as an attempt to affect something entirely unrelated. That is why there are some isolated areas of the world where skeins did not emerge at the same rate as in more densely populated cities with shared water supplies.
Will they also reveal this element later on? Or will the show focus instead on a chemical agent that castrates rather than empowers?
The government wants Rob’s aid to manufacture a chemical agent that can be manufactured and distributed at scale. She says it would only be used to offer each individual the choice whether to have a skein, but Rob knows better.
They won’t stop with giving this drug to one person by choice. Even if Anna is being sincere, someone else won’t stop with giving the drug to each individual by choice. Men desperate to hold on to their power would find a way to distribute the drug through something like the water supply, thus neutering anyone with the power by virtue of them quenching their thirst.
The other big thing this scene reveals
Anna: “Development of the organ appears to be linked to a set of nascent buds that mature into full skeins under sustained, elevated estrogen levels. Or in cases of transference, sustained electrical impulse.”
That’s right, folks. Skeins and thus the Power don’t go only to women.
This isn’t a twist, just the author confirming the clarified world building she established in the novel upon which the show is based.
Speaking to CinemaBlend, the author Naomi Alderman gushed with praise for trans actress Daniela Vega as Sister Maria, as well as all else the show had helped her update in the mythology of The Power.
Explaining her decision to clarify that in her world, trans women are women, Naomi Alderman said:
So, in the book, as readers have pointed out to me, fans have pointed out over the past few years, I have an intersex character, but I don’t have any trans characters. And I started writing the book in 2011. And I just didn’t think of it and subsequently, I’ve had many wonderful conversations as fans of the book were just like ‘Come on.’
So I’m extremely delighted that we have the wonderful actress Daniela Vega, who is a trans actress who is playing a trans character, Sister Maria, in the show, and we get into her story.
It’s not a spoiler to say that in the show, it’s explicitly clear that you get the electric skein if you’ve got estrogen in your body. So trans women are women.
Indeed, in Alderman’s acclaimed novel, her alter-ego (a male writer named Neil) comments that “gender is a shell game.” He continues, “What is a man? Whatever a woman isn’t. What is a woman? Whatever a man is not. Tap on it and it’s hollow. Look under the shells: it’s not there.”
So for those paying attention, it’s no surprise that the show confirms skeins are not divided according to a binary concept of gender, ie men vs women. Skeins come from elevated and sustained estrogen (combined with a million other biological moderating variables).
A skein does not manifest according to any concept of gender. Imagine trying to tell a person who is Two Spirit whether they can expect to get a skein. Saying it’s only or even mostly “women” who get it just betrays that the viewer is beholden to a narrow concept of gender.
A skein is a biochemical manifestation that should be seen and studied as its own thing. People who want to study how it is distributed according to “gender” would then need to define gender and how it has a functional use for a biochemical manifestation independent of that concept of gender.
Some women are born without functioning skeins, just as some women are born without functioning reproductive organs. Some men are born with more powerful skeins than any woman they know. Some intersex people are born with skeins. Two Spirit people get skeins, agender people get skeins…
It depends on a set of predictable factors that don’t have anything to do with gender until a person tries to fit the science of skeins into whatever model of gender with which they identify. Those concepts of gender are just concepts. Not facts. Their operational definitions, purposes, and functions make them useful, but it’s they are also “empowering” in the same sense as a person picking up a hammer. Sometimes, a person picks up a hammer, and it’s so empowering that for a while, everything kinda looks like a nail.
That is why in The Power, people who we typically classify as “cisgender women” will tend to develop an active skein on their own. This is also why skeins are actually spread throughout all manifestations of gender. This is no different than any other naturally-occurring biological trait that doesn’t care how we group some traits together vs others according to what we say fits under “gender.”
Now having said that, the show is absolutely dropping the ball on one huge opportunity to show this stuff on screen. His name is Ryan.
Joselyn and Ryan
The Power (Prime)
I’m glad to see Ryan back — played by Nico Hiraga from Booksmart — but I’m not happy that the show appears to be ignoring that he has a skein??!?? I apologize in advance if I’m spoiling what the show intends as some weird twist, but there’s no setup within sight of that happening, so I’m just going to say it and move on.
In the book, Ryan has a chromosomal disorder that contributes to him manifesting a skein. He has the Power!!! It’s one reason he and Joselyn connect so instantly and deeply. They are both weirdos in this new world.
But in the show…
It’s still charming. I still love Ryan and the actor who plays him, but if the show has castrated Ryan, I will cry foul.
Rob
Rob smells something burning!! But he knows in the new world, it’s not weed. It’s Joselyn using her skein.
So he interrupts the two in order to have a little dad/daughter chat about the skeins and the bees.
I really like this. He isn’t pushing too hard for her to talk about sex or skeins or anything, just letting her know that he’s not a naive idiot who refuses to acknowledge what’s happening right in front of his face.
She doesn’t want to talk to him now, but…you never know. I learned with my own daughter that the kid knowing they can turn to their parent often empowers them to a degree that it’s as though they already did.
Rob and Margot
Rob tries to get a moment alone with Margot to discuss this horrifying research into skeins and what their own government wants him to do next.
It turns out she already knows, and that’s like a gut punch for Rob.
But what’s like a knife to his heart is when he tells her that they want him to make this drug to chemically castrate people with skeins. And instead of acting horrified? She sees it as just another political obstacle.
She believes that from her position, she can do what is needed to keep girls safe. And that means playing nice and accepting that for the sake of safety and progress, there will be collateral damage.
This is a pretty juicy way to reinterpret Margot’s arc from what we got in the book.
Rob again
Isn’t this cool?? Rob wasn’t a character in the book. Not like this. Margot had already divorced him. But here, he’s a major player.
Since his wife won’t help him, he calls a friend who is also a journalist: Declan Blease.
Rob needs him to take this information and get it to the public. Just keep it anonymous, okay?
What, like UrbanDox? No, no, how about some cool spy thing where it’s a color and an animal?
Rob: “Like Black Jaguar, or Emerald Eagle or some shit like that.”
Margot
So we stick sorta with Rob at this big political party. He’s downing drinks like it’s the end of the world.
While he gets drunk, Margot and her nemesis Daniel confront each other. He’s mad that she’s finding success. The scales are balancing whether or not she has a skein. But he’d like to bet she does. And if she does…!
This part is just confusing. Everyone assumes Margot has a skein. What does it matter whether she confirms she does? How about if she let them know hers isn’t active?
Why would anyone care?
By the end of the episode, the show will deliver what I found to be a stunning yet fulfilling answer to these questions.
Before that, though, Rob interrupts everyone by letting them know he is delightfully drunk.
The Power (Prime)
Rather than discuss politics, he explains that the way you get the best caviar is by doing things to pregnant fish that are best described as a horror movie.
Then everyone gets the news at once. That document drop Rob gave to his journalist friend is now public.
The source: “Scarlet Minnow”
Rob: “Hmm. Sounds kinda…feminine.”
This guy’s poker face is impenetrable, eh?
Rob and Margot go home
Back home, Rob and Margot have a fight that feels kinda on the nose again for American audiences, but is it really on the nose? Maybe it’s impossible for this kind of thing not to hit so close to home that it enters a kind of uncanny valley.
On the surface, Rob’s complaints reverse the gender roles. He says things like, “You never listen to me. You never ask me how my day was. You’ve been coming home for months and you just ignore me.”
And like every woman who has ever begged to be seen by an emotionally absent person, he has a real concern motivated this outburst.
He can’t believe that after seeing the research and what her own government wants to do with it, Margot isn’t as horrified as he is.
He can’t believe that she doesn’t see the horrifying things happening inside her own family.
He can’t believe that she sees UrbanDox as some anonymous threat, but it’s their own son is taking the UD word as gospel.
So when she begs him to come inside and act like nothing is happening, the only response he can have is to drink some more and take a midnight swim in the lake behind their house.
Joselyn and Matty wake up and ask what’s going on, but it’s another moment Margot can’t yet grasp.
Tatiana
Tatiana is getting ready for the next event, too. She’s in a gorgeous outfit, her makeup is perfect, but she has one tiny thing she still needs help with.
She can’t stop thinking about everything that’s in the audiences mind about power.
She pretends that she needs help with her bracelet so that a girl will be forced to help her put it on. If this girl has an active skein, Tatiana will use her to activate her own.
The girl tries to put the bracelet on Tatiana and gets so nervous that her fingers spark. YES! This is her chance.
Remember that Tatiana is not allowed to have contact with any women who demonstrate the power. Her husband has, in fact, killed any girl who shows a hint of it. So this girl runs away as fast as she can.
Tatiana was that close! But this girl isn’t dying for Tatiana.
Tatiana flashback
We cut to a flashback of Tatiana’s earliest days with her husband. This is back when she was a kid. Ugh.
She’s already beginning to doubt whether this is worth it, but when she goes back for training for the Olympics, Coach Mitch lets her know that her gymnastics career is over.
It isn’t that she’s not capable. It’s that she chose to live too long under Viktor Moskalev’s lingering desire.
Now they must respect this man’s power. He won’t want his wife to train. She will now be nothing more than a trophy wife.
How heavy the price she pays just to taste a piece of freedom.
Tatiana flashback with Bunny
Remember Bunny? We met her in an early episode with Tatiana. She came to visit Tatiana in the present, but Tatiana said you can go ahead and GTFO. When I needed you, you gave me nothing. Now I will give you the same.
In this flashback, we see what Tatiana was referring to.
Tatiana now understands what she’s accepting if she marries Moskalev. She needs Bunny’s help.
Tatiana: “He’s old. What if he wants to have sex with me?”
Bunny laughs in her face. She’s not going to save her daughter. Not when Bunny worked her entire life for Tatiana to have this opportunity.
You see? For Bunny, this is the chance of a lifetime. It’s absurd for Tatiana to want to throw it away.
Which leaves Tatiana with no choice but to accept Moskalev’s offer. At least it will take her away from her mother.
As she leaves, however, her sister Zoia begs to come with her. Tatiana tells her instead to find her own way.
Tatiana: “Run. Run as far as you can.”
Zoia: the present
Now we have come full circle for Zoia.
We cut to her in the present as a captive sex slave with several other girls. She is as desperate for the Power as she was moments ago in that flashback.
The difference is that now she knows how to get it.
While their captors have killed anyone young enough to have an active skein, they neglected to take into account the deaf girl who brings them snacks.
Zoia is certain she has it. The power.
The deaf girl’s name is Marinela, and she does in fact have it.
The men don’t understand what’s happening until it’s too late. They let her into the room. The girls open the bags of chips, the sodas, the candy.
And Zoia gets Marinela’s attention. It is time.
Margot and Joselyn redeem the episode
Margot checks in on her daughter. I wish Joselyn’s best friend Cat was in this episode, but in her absence, Margot asks her daughter to share one of the joints she knows Joselyn smokes with Cat.
They step outside — and here’s the moment I alluded to earlier in the episode. I was ready to roll my eyes at what they’d done to Margot’s character arc, but I am all in for it after this scene.
Despite all of those fantastic moments with Margot, at this point I felt like the show had fucked up Margot’s arc beyond repair. Here’s how I got past that.
I just couldn’t figure out why we are supposed to care whether Margot gets the power. In the book, it’s because Daniel’s threats are real. He institutes a test to find out whether a woman has an active skein. At that point, men are still in control, and it’s dangerous for Margot to forcibly be tested.
Except she’s the only woman in the world who figures out how to beat it.
The show may still go that direction for other reasons, but in this scene, I finally had my own skein awakened as to how powerful Margot’s arc in the show is destined to be.
The reason Margot has not yet gotten the power isn't because she's afraid of what Danny or the rest of the world will do to her political career if she gets it.
She hasn't gotten it yet because she still carries her internalized misogyny. An ingrained belief that anything which seems to give a woman Power is instead a trap asking for more pain.
Margot is approximately the same age as Toni Collette, so thereabouts a timeless 50 years old. She has only ever known a world where those with real power will flex their might and silence the few who dare to reach for equality.
For those who have only ever known power, steps toward equality feel a lot like oppression.
Margot only knows a world where no matter how strong a woman feels, a man will always be stronger. No matter how safe a woman feels, she will always need protection.
It is this mindset that has kept Margot from asking anyone, including her own daughter, from activating her skein.
It is this mindset that compels her to on one hand be the world's fiercest champion for women with skeins--it may help to think of these people as a new gender--while at the same time believing she must make the world safe for those people before she could ever consider having an active skein herself.
Suddenly, I got it. I remembered what it was like for myself as a young trans girl in hiding. I volunteered at places like the LGBT Center in Las Vegas while still in the closet. I believed I had to make the world safe for gender non conforming people before I could admit I was one.
Just like Margot, I needed to open my eyes to the majesty and glory of claiming that Power now. It is no cause for fear. That Power — a symbol for all that is possible when we awaken to our true natures — is in fact the thing that could free us.
Tatiana
Remember the girl who helped Tatiana with her makeup in the earlier scene?
Her name is Solongo and she’s baaaaaaaack. Tatiana spots her hiding in a corner at the bottom of a stairwell, sparks jumping between her fingers.
Perfect.
Solongo thinks she’s in trouble when Tatiana catches her, but that’s not what’s happening.
The Power (Prime)
Tatiana: “Give it to me.”
Solongo has never done this before. Trying this could kill Tatiana.
Tatiana: “I don’t care.”
The girl sends those shocks into Tatiana’s nascent skein buds along her neck — and it is indeed an awakening.
Zoia
The same thing is happening to Tatiana’s sister.
Zoia’s skein is now active. She moves quickly to activate every other girl’s skein.
And not a moment too soon. The men now come with guns and violence, but it’s too late. The girls sends shockwaves of liberation and deliverance through the compound.
The show pulls away in a closing shot reminiscent of the other episodes. We see the fields. We see the girls returning to nature. We see a bountiful exchange of power and all that comes with the freedom to claim it.
If the Power has reached even these isolated captives, the next episode will begin to show the ramifications that will take several seasons to resolve.