Power Book II: Ghost

"I'm nothing like my father."

Power Book 2: Ghost was created by Courtney Kemp and 50 Cent and stars Michael Rainey Jr, Mary J Blige, Gianni Paolo, Paige Hurd, Woody McClain, Latoya Tonodeo, Method Man, Alix Lapri, Lovell Adams Gray and Larenz Tate.

Tariq St Patrick has to grapple with his new world order. His father "Ghost" is dead and he pulled the trigger. On his own for the first time Tariq is forced to balance his college life, family affairs, drug operations and love life. Tariq soon realizes that the only way to avoid the same fate his father met is to become him, only better.

Lead actor Michael Rainey Jr went on record saying when he first heard he was getting his own spin off series that he didn't see how it would work and said that the Tariq character at the time seemed unredeemable. Lucky for him he was able to prove himself wrong and everyone else because this went on to become the most popular show currently airing on Starz and has consistently broken viewership records for them. Academy Award Nominee Mary J Blige stars as Monet Tejada a ruthless Queenpin who heads up the Tejada family which consists of her kids Cane, Dru and Diana and who Tariq finds himself entangled with. Aside from him they are probably the second biggest focus on the show.

In terms of performances I'd say Woody McClain does a great job playing the hothead character Cane here. The real standout and true revelation for me is Michael Rainey Jr as Tariq here. It's not easy to go from a supporting actor in someone else's show to leading your own not everyone can pull it off but he does seamlessly. He does a great job here and because of the writing and his performance you'll find yourself rooting for him. Each season of this show seems to get better than the last in my opinion with one being the weakest, season 2 being a significant improvement and season 3 which was helmed by new showrunner Brett Mahoney after Courtney Kemp left to make original content for Netflix being the best so far.

The final season wrapped things up in a satisfying enough way I'd say and late new addition Michael Ealy as Carter brought a lot of energy to the show. Go into this with not a lot of expectations and you'll at least find yourself entertained. The fact that they were able to make this show work at all after Tariq was one of the most hated characters on the original Power series is a testament to the people who worked on this show.

Where to start, why would you take the most unlikable, unrelatable and annoying character in the whole show and base the new show on is beyond me. I was a massive fan of Power but this spinoff is hard going and barely got through the first episode. Why not base a show on Tommy and Ghost as kids becoming king pin drug dealers......

YOU kill off all the main actors and keep all the useless characters.

That Tariq can't even act! And now he wants to be like his Dad? Please? Once you killed off Jamie that was the end of the show. Don't understand why you'd make a show about the son and his mother!

Tommy became non existent he should of killed Tasha and Tariq. Bring him back.

I had huge reservations about watching Power Book II: Ghost because (like everyone else) I hated Tariq's character on Power. I even started off with a low rating at first in Season 1 but the more I watched the more I came to really like show. I just finished Season 4 and found myself really enjoying the show a lot more than I thought I would, to the point where as soon I was done with an episode I was looking forward to the next one. This is not the same Tariq from the original Power, he's becoming much more like his dad and you go from hating this kid to actually rooting for him. I can't remember a show where I hated someone so much to actually rooting for him like I have Tariq. I'll still never get over what he did to his dad but this show is so much better than I expected it to be.

People dislike Tariq who is certainly a class in itself but I find Tasha even more annoying, there is no end to her nagging and complaining. Writers dont even bother writing good interesting characters, they keep creating drama by characters constantly fighting with everyone and complaining about everything. Plus, this show is trying to be progressive and supportive of african americans yets glorifies and romanticizes drug dealing and murder and not to mention is trying to create a even bigger chasm between races. The dialogue (not really a spoiler) Tariq has with that girl , who tells him how only a few af-americans are "hardcore" agenda driven and "loud" and have no problem basically crying wolf is demeaning and depressive really. The original Power at least was about something, Ghost's redemption, trying to do better and teach Tariq about his mistakes. Sure it had like a million lame artificially created dramatic conflicts but it wasnt bad. This is. Its basically about drugs, how to cheat at school, how to avoid murder but at the same time ironically claiming oppression and BLM. You cant have a african american kid doing all the stereotypical things but at the same time him crying racism at every step. Its ridiculous.