Power Season 3 Episode 3 Recap: Kanan Is Alive and (Not Really) Well

In this episode, Kanan’s cousin Laverne “Jukebox” Thomas (played by Anika Noni Rose) is introduced as a new character on the show. Laverne is a dirty cop and the episode opens with her trying to take control of a situation, in which two of her minions are in the process of robbing a pharmacy in Washington, D.C. She shows up to the store and pretends like she’s going to apprehend the suspects, but things quickly change when the store clerk informs her he triggered the silent alarm.

Officer Thomas then instructs one of the men to shoot the clerk and he follows her orders. Shen then chews the man out about making the robbery attempt without her permission.”If I wanted to be somebody’s mama, I would have had kids of my own!” she shouts. As he tries to explain, Laverne shoots him in the chest and allows the other young man (whose name is Dirk) to go freely before calling the crime in and reporting it as a robbery and officer-involved shooting.

Moments later, Officer Thomas returns to her home with stolen bottles of cough syrup from the pharmacy. She walks in and sees that she’s on the news being portrayed as a hero in the robbery, and she kisses her smoking hot girlfriend, who is whipping up some fried bologna sandwiches in the kitchen.

This is when we find out Thomas is in a lesbian relationship, but that’s not even the big news. She’s also Kanan’s cousin and has been hiding him all this time. Kanan is still in really bad shape after his bout with Ghost in the season 2 finale and needs to take his medication to heal, but cousin Jukebox won’t give him any until he tells her the truth about what happened to him.

Tasha stays true to her promises at the end of episode 2 and introduces the idea of getting into the hair weave business to Tommy and Holly. By investing in “hair weaves,” as Holly put it, they will be able to clean up the drug money and keep the Feds off their backs.

Tasha has a hair connect that will give them a great price if they pay in cash, which will allow them to buy hair in bulk at a wholesale price and sell it double for what they paid for it.

From there, Tasha plans on using her friend Lakeisha to open up a few salons and sell weave to all the customers. Tasha tells LaKeisha she will make her the “McDonald’s of weave” and will expand her salon into several locations.

Greg is back on official stalker duty and is following Angela and Ghost everywhere they go. In the first few minutes of the episode, Greg watches from across the street as Ghost and Angela playfully race each other on the sidewalk, while wearing matching outfits and looking like the cutest couple ever.

Angela eventually catches Greg in the act and confronts him about stalking them. He shows her a picture of Ghost outside of Tommy’s house and tries to get into Angela’s head that Ghost is still working in the streets.

Greg also meets with Agent Medina and asks him to use his DA contacts to find Ruiz, who can confirm St. Patrick is the distributor in Lobos case. Medina hates Angela’s guts as well, and agrees to help Greg out.

Besides the weave business idea, Tasha takes Holly under her wing and shows her the ropes to being apart of the team. The two get pulled over by police after Tasha makes an illegal lane change, and for once, Holly comes to the rescue and actually does something good for a change.

Holly tells the officer Tasha is her nanny and that she was rushing her to get home quickly. Tasha gives the officer her best fake Jamaican accent (R.I.P. Miss Cleo) and he lets them go with a warning.

They later bond over the incident at Tommy’s place and things between them seem to be seriously improving, but then Holly reminds us that she has no intentions of really being Tasha’s friend, and she’s only using her to get information about Ghost, so that she can convince Tommy to kill him. What a fun gal!

Julio finally get his chance to screw the living soul out of Ms. Lee, one of the Korean Cartel’s prostitutes. After their steamy sex session, Lee goes to do a few lines of blow and Julio tells her to slow down. She tells him to not worry because the product is really weak and reveals that Dylan has been giving her and the other girls blow on the side.

Julio immediately informs Tommy of the news and they both sit down with Jae Shin to discuss the matter. Shin promises to take care of the issue and Tommy watches him hilariously sing karaoke before he leaves.

Later, towards the end of the episode, Dylan chops his own finger off as punishment for stealing product and selling it on the side.

Ghost ambushes Andy and Alby’s dinner meeting with Karen Bassett, a potential investor who comes from a very rich family. Ghost makes the men look like a bunch of amateurs and wins Bassett’s attention.

Bassett later shows up to Truth and tells Ghost her plans to refurbish an apartment building and turn it into a hotel that will have a bar or club inside. She tells Ghost she was on the verge of signing Andy and Alby until he showed up and she’ll now be evaluating both clubs to decide on who she will pick to do business with. Bassett also tells Ghost she wants to get to know him better, whatever that means.

While at school, Tariq gets caught with the gun he stole out of Angela’s room. Ghost and Tasha are called to the school, and at first, Ghost thinks the gun belonged to Tasha, until the headmaster informs him that it is actually registered to his girlfriend Angela Valdes.

The headmaster tries to expel Tariq over the incident, but after Tasha reminds her of violent offenses committed by white students at the school that were overlooked, she allows Tariq to stay enrolled.

After the meeting at school, Tasha asks Ghost how Tariq wa able to get Angela’s gun, and he tells her he left the kids alone with Angela while he went to meet Tommy. Tasha flips out and cancels any further plans of Ghost having the kids over at Angela’s.

Laverne sends her girlfriend Candie to have sex with Kanan to get information out of him, but he’s in such bad shape, he can’t even get a hard-on.

So instead of fucking him, Candice puts Kanan onto some “Texas Tea” (a.k.a. lean) and the two talk about his relationship with Jukebox, and how he took her in when her father kicked her out because she was gay.

Kanan accidentally blurts out that he got to fighting with Ghost, and Candice takes note of the statement. She later tells Laverne about Kanan mentioning “Ghosts,” and Laverne informs her that he actually meant Ghost. Laverne is dumbfounded at the news that Kanan allowed Ghost to beat him, who she calls a book-smart motherfucker.

After aggressively groping Candice’s neck and her vajayjay, she tells her next time she better have sex with Kanan or else there will be consequences to pay.

As Ghost and Angela argue over Tariq having Angela’s gun, he asks Angela how could she have an unsecured gun around his kids. She responds asking him why was Tariq in her stuff in the first place. This only leads to Angela question Ghost about the photos Greg showed her of Ghost outside Tommy’s apartment.

Ghost tells her the truth, that he went to talk to Tommy, and that he had to choose between the both of them, and he choose her. Angela apologizes to Ghost about Tariq having her gun and they both agree that they should hold off on the whole kids coming over thing for a while. She also stuffs the new apartment application away in a drawer.

Throughout the whole episode, Kanan is seen struggling to heal from his injuries without his pills, that his cousin Laverne refuses to give him until he tells the truth about what happened to him.

Laverne guilt trips Kanan for not keeping it real with her after all they’ve been through (he was the first one she told she was gay, he called her after his first murder). When she mentions Ghost being responsible for Shawn’s murder, Kanan finally breaks and confesses to killing his son. She agrees with Kanan’s decision to murder Shawn, and says that he deserved it because he was disloyal. “Shawn wasn’t loyal,” Jukebox told Kanan. “Shawn was a pawn. You sacrifice pawns for the greater good.”

As a reward for finally fessing up to the truth, she gives Kanan some lean to drink, and he asks her about the job he overheard her talking to Dirk about. She tells him that they have to get him on his feet first.

Holly takes a pregnancy test and finds out she is knocked up with Tommy’s baby. Immediately after getting the news, she storms out of the bathroom and hounds Tommy about killing Ghost before Lobos comes for them. But before the two could even have a real conversation about the matter, Tommy gets a text from Tariq saying he ran away from home. Tommy leaves to meet Tariq and makes sure he is okay. Wonder when he will he find out Holly is preggo and how he’ll react to the extremely untimely news.

Despite Ghost’s wishes, he and Tommy haven’t seen each other face-to-face at all this season. The last episode ended with Tommy failing to take the hit out on Ghost that Lobos ordered. Ghost knows that Tommy had the chance to kill him, and after Tariq almost gets expelled from school for having a gun, he takes the incident as an opportunity to trick Tommy into meeting him.

Ghost texts Tommy from Tariq’s phone and tells him that he got into trouble at school and ran away from home, and is headed to Basketball City. Tommy, who prides himself in being a good uncle, agrees to meet Tariq there, only to find Ghost waiting for him instead. Tommy is livid that Ghost tricked him, but actually hears him out.

Ghost tells Tommy that he thinks Lobos used him to lure him to the park, and that he’s next on Lobos’ list. He tells Tommy they should work together to take out Lobos and that it’s only a matter of time until he messes up and Lobos has his head. Tommy takes offense to the fact that Ghost thinks he will, without a doubt, mess up, and refuses to tell Ghost the truth about Lobos putting a hit out on him.

Extras:

• Holly finally admitted to stealing Tasha’s earrings. I guess this shows a little progress with her. (But JUST a little.)
• LaKeisha threatens to beat Holly’s “flat ass” if she steals anything out of her salon, and best believe she will stay true to her words. Holly better keep them pasty fingers to herself.
• When Dirk told Kanan he is fried and burnt like a pork rind, I almost died. No lie!