Betrayal is the name of the episode, but it shoulda been “When Franklins Voice Cracks, Yo Ass Finna Get Attacked! As luhLee can tell you in what remains my favorite scene of this show. DRIVE MUTHAFUCKA!!!!!
so im super late to this recap party, but lets just pretend Ive been up for the past four years. Mkay…thanks! NOTE: if you decide to join me on this journey, you may not get a lot of Reed and Oso….their storylines are what put me off the show in season one. It was too disjointed and took me out of the black peoples bidness. I understand why they are important and needed in this show, im just saying, don’t get too used to reading bout them in this space.
The Opps: We see Manboy, Skully and Khadijah talking bout the newspaper expose and how they now know how Franklin beat his murder rap and how they THINK the CIA wont want anything to do with Franklin and how Manboy gonna step up and be the plug. I guess he’s gonna call 1-800-CAN-I-SELL-DRUGS-FOR-YALL-NOW and they are gonna play ball. Not content to just settle for money over her daughter’s spilled blood, Khadijah and her hood rat crew head over to Fat Back’s funeral and spray everybody in sight, which for some reason includes our entire favorite crew, just out chilling in front of the joint, like it aint bounties on their heads. Luckily, kinda, for us, everyone emerges from the drive by unscathed….well almost everyone.
Louie and Jerome: Unc is still smarting from Louie’s decision to hide the CIA’s involvement in their family badness. As he’s preparing to go to Fat Backs funeral, RIP TO A REAL ONE, she’s cautioning them why they shouldn’t go. There is a bounty on their heads after all. But Unc aint hearing it…Fatback was one of theirs and he aint going. Men and their egos and bullshit, amirite? In a scene right out of every urban film you’ve seen, as Louie is happily walking up to join the mourners, Khadijah, sees her open and takes it…guess who gets hit? Louie. UNC IS LIVID AND OUT FOR BLOOD. Franklin tasks LuhLee with trying to contain Unc and not let him go retaliate, but how Luhlee posed to stop a man who just saw his baby shot down? HE CANT. Thats the answer.
Cissy and Alton: Alton, last seen being pistol whipped by his son over outing him and Reed to the lady journo, crawls back to The Saint House to confront Cissy over what their son has become, the environment he has created and what that means for their future. He begs her to go to Cuba, a place that lives rent free in my head and heart, hang out with Assata and laugh at how they beat the government. Cissy isn’t moved by this plan, until the money they gave to a power broker is returned in light of the story published about Franklin and the CIA. She sees aint no future in her fronting. She has to get real about the situation they have all created and benefitted from. The walls are gonna close in on them eventually. There are only a couple of ways out of their mess and as she sits waiting to find out about Louie’s prognosis, in the same hospital waiting room where she waited to found out about her own sons prognosis, she has an epiphany. She don’t want Franklin’s future. She don’t want Alton’s future. She wants her own future. She tells Franklin “mama gotta have a life too” and he begs her to wait until he returns from a meeting to make a move. She doesn’t. Have we seen the last of CIssy Saint?
Lady Journo: name unimportant. how and why she thought it was a great idea to expose the CIA is beyond me. This aint Watergate ma’am…you aint fucking with the Republican Party, you fuckin with the C, the I and the A? What do they do? I don’t even know, I just know I don’t want no part of nothing bout them. She takes her victory lap at the paper and everyone is like GO NEWSPAPER LADY. KORBEL FOR EVERYONE! She ends up taking a call from Franklin, who wants to meet with her. He tries to threaten her in the most regal refined way possible, but she think she tough. Although she leaves the meeting triumphant, she soon is summoned by the paper’s Legal Affairs dept, who tells her she gotta pull the plug on this series and boy is she pissed. She realizes shits gotten outta hand and prepares to go into hiding. She packs up her place and tells her ex, she just wants one last night in her home….lol. That one last night got her a visit from the CIA boys, accompanied by a shot in her arm and a promise that she will wake up tomorrow, but if they have to come again she may not be as lucky. Bye Lady Journo….Alton has an extra ticket to Cuba, maybe you can go with him.
Franklin: Franklin is reeeeeling after the expose was published on him and he was unable to get a hold of Reed, who has been in Central America. He truly in over his head this time, which is saying alot. This shit is so much bigger than him. Everyone is in his bidness. And he can’t control it, which lead to one of my favorite Franklin tropes, the aforementioned voice crack! lol. Eventually Reed returns and meets with Franklin to assess the damage and how they can contain all this mess. Reed reminds him of two things….he will always have his back and trust no one….which leads me to ask this question: WHO THE FUCK AINT NO TALLAHASSEE OR WHOEVER WAS A PLANT? Franklin. Franklin Saint thats who. Jesus, HOWWWWWWWWWW? From the moment she stepped on the scene, I knew. Franklin returns to the hospital and finds out Louie has stabilized and Tallahassee has found out who the other two shooters are, Diamond and Silk. She encourages Franklin to negotiate with Manboy….give up the plug in exchange for getting Khadijah to back down. He gives her the okay to make the deal with Manboy, which she goes home and does. She says way too much on the call with Manboy and once she gets off and settles down in her easy chair, the camera pulls out and Mr Saint and Payches enter the frame and all Franklin wants to know is how long she been playing him. The return of the Saint!
Im really thinking someone is gonna die tonight…..who yall money on? Jerome? Cissy? Alton? LuhLee? Manboy? Skully? Khadijah? Diamond or Silk?
