Editor’s note: The following article is an op-ed, and the views expressed are the author’s own. Read more opinions on theGrio.
Welcome back to Southside Jamaica, Queens, New York City.
When we last left our heroes—villains, actually; they’re all villains—Det. Howard (Omar Epps) and Ronnie (Grantham Coleman) had just met their maker in a warehouse where Raquel (Patina Miller) thought she and Marvin (London Brown) were paying $500,000 to Ronnie to get back her son, Kanan (Mekai Curtis), who they believed had been kidnapped for ransom. It turns out he hadn’t, and the okey doke was in progress on the part of Kanan, and once the Thomas family (Raquel, Mavin and Kanan) vacated the premises, we see Unique (Joey Bada$$) standing over the body of his brother.
This is only important because several episodes earlier, we watched Ronnie beat Unique to death (or so we thought) and dump his body out in the woods of Somewhere, New York. We were all caught off-guard and had all of the questions. I wrote down several of them in my season finale recap of season 3 (which you can read here—I did).
The premiere episode of season 4 attempts to answer some of the questions that arose once he showed up in the warehouse. Questions like: Where was Unique all this time? How much time has elapsed in order for him to be walking around? Who knew?
So let’s hop right on it. Unique, as we now know, wasn’t dead. He eventually came to and dragged himself to a working payphone at a rundown gas station. Now, I have to point this out for plot purposes. Where Ronnie dumped Unique MUST have been their “drop off your dead bodies” spot because how else would Unique know where he was when he called his homeboy to come get him. The homeboy showed up to the right spot THAT night. So it was both not that far and a familiar enough spot. Either that or it is one gaping plot hole of Tyler Perry proportions. I’ll give it the credit of being the former but I was…befuddled.
Anyway, Unique gets taken to a veterinarian to assess his condition where his homie who is REALLY concerned about getting paid back for the service of bringing him to the vet for an assessment, gets told that Unique needs to be in a hospital and that people with those types of injuries develop personality disorders and such. I believe we call that foreshadowing. The homie (whose name escapes me but is played by Chris Redd, forgive me Power Gawds) brings Unique back to his spot so he can wait out his healing. Is he doing this because he’s a good friend? Not at all; he wants to make sure he’s going to get his money. I am truly truly curious how much money he paid the veterinarian to say “Unique is mostly dead, it would be beneficial for all if he got non-animal related professional help.” But what do I know?
While Unique is going through his healing and thus trying to figure out who else aside from Ronnie could have taken his spot (question answered), we get caught upon the happenings of the Thomas family. At this point in the story, which is about three months (question answered) before Ronnie and Det. Howard catches those bullets in the warehouse, Raquel and Kanan are still not in a good space because of Raquel’s control issues. Lou-Lou (Raquel and Marvin’s other brother, played by Malcolm Mays) is still drunk and in the beginning stages of what will become his journey to sobriety. He’s working at the club and we get a background of a scene we saw in the last season where Lou-Lou sets up a music showcase for Famous (Antonio Ortiz) whose song, “The Streets Need a Body,” is killing it.
Raquel is not at the showcase (also attended by Kanan’s cousin, Jukebox, played by Hailey Kilgore) as she has been pulled in by the FBI for questioning related to her drug operation. The FBI has nothing, but their nosing around. We also find out that Raquel is pregnant with Unique’s baby. She has an abortion which seems to make her reflective about Kanan, as I suppose anybody would be. Anyway, while at the doctor’s office, when asked where the father is (Unique), she informs the doctor (and eventual social worker) that the father is dead. Question answered. Everybody believes he’s a ghost.
Marvin gets pulled into the world of Stefano (Tony Danza), separate from Raquel—Stefano is now Raquel’s drug supplier—to do some off-the-books attitude adjusting for his daughter’s husband. I feel like this has “end bad” potential, but for now, Marvin, ever the consummate professional, handles that business.
Jukebox, who is part of the burgeoning R&B group, Butta, is still (at this point) trying to get answers about possibly joining the military, which we find out by last season’s finale, she’s joined.
In what ends up being the episode’s most interesting scenes, Kanan has an assignment where he has to do a research paper on somebody in his family. He chooses his grandfather (who is deceased) Elijah Thomas. It was fascinating to see the different people he asked (his grandmother, Marvin and Lou-Lou) about him. Everybody’s perspective is so different, but we learned a LOT about Marvin. Marvin is the oldest sibling and the one with the most memories and the one who was hurt the most by their grandfather leaving them. Marvin said it hurt him the most because he loved their father the most because they he got to see the most sides of him. Definitely a scene worth the watch.
Interestingly enough, Kanan asks Det. Howard (who he found out in earlier seasons was his actual father) if he can do the research paper on his family and is swiftly reminded that while they are father-and-son, everybody on the street believes his father is a former drug kingpin and Raquel’s love, DefCon, and that nobody needs to find out that Kanan’s father was a cop. I thought that was quite interesting for Kanan to be willing to go that route. Obviously, Det. Howard dies at the end of season 3, but it was nice that Kanan was reaching out. So sad how THAT one turned out.
Also, Raquel killed him in front of Kanan, largely because Howard wanted Raquel to turn on Marvin in favor of Kanan. If you’re keeping score: Raquel FIRST tried to have Kanan kill Det. Howard. THEN she ends up killing Det. Howard because he’s trying to protect her and Kanan and also because he still wants a relationship with Kanan. Kanan has BEEN THROUGH SOME THINGS, Y’ALL.
The episode ends how last season begins, with Unique standing over the body of Ronnie who he’s been stalking and seeing how Ronnie is moving weight and how Raquel took over the drug connect. Unique is pissed, ready for revenge and intent to take back his spot. This season has drama and violence written all over it. I can’t wait.
Southside.
Panama Jackson is a columnist at theGrio and host of the award-winning podcast, “Dear Culture” on theGrio Black Podcast Network. He writes very Black things, drinks very brown liquors, and is pretty fly for a light guy. His biggest accomplishment to date coincides with his Blackest accomplishment to date in that he received a phone call from Oprah Winfrey after she read one of his pieces (biggest) but he didn’t answer the phone because the caller ID said “Unknown” (Blackest).