It takes three one-hour episodes The power to finally say what it means – namely that teenage girls have shown the shocking (ha) ability to electrocute at will.
While some shows may require three episodes to establish knowledge and world-building, The power pretty much all take place in a world like ours, aside from that particular quirk. So to make it clear that young women develop this power because of how much society mistreats them, we need to see women abused for almost three hours – from micro-aggressions at work to sexual assault and everything in between. Nothing about it is subtle, which is the point, but at the same time, being so blatant for so long makes for a drawn-out experience that might just get you going, Okay, okay, I get it.
[Ed. note: This post contains spoilers for the first three episodes of Prime Video’s The Power.]
Photo: Katie Yu/Prime Video
Based on the 2016 novel of the same name, The power is not limited to just one facet of being a woman. The cast is extensive and shows the different types of discrimination faced by a wide variety of women. Margot (Toni Collette), the mayor of Seattle, struggles with the double standard for women in politics, while Roxy (Ria Zmitrowicz), the illegitimate daughter of a London mob boss, battles a home invasion that kills her mother. However, the most painful scenes to watch involve Allie (Halle Bush), a teenage runaway whose powers manifested after her foster father sexually assaulted her. It is important to be reminded that women all over the world are suffering, and in different ways. However, it’s unbearable to have three episodes of women suffering as the plot slowly creeps to a reveal that the audience basically discovers in the middle of the first episode. We understand it! Do we really need another two and a half hours of women’s suffering?
Clearly the makers of The power wants the audience to feel as frustrated as the women on the show. The women know something is going on, but they are kept in the dark about all the information. They are demoted if they ask for help; they are villainous if they don’t. Margot finds out in the third episode that the government actually knows what’s going on, but refuses to do anything about it because she doesn’t want people to panic. (This comes with a comment about how the people who initially warned about COVID-19 became the bad guys, so again, not subtle.) It makes sense to some extent to delay this period of confusion and annoyance. But at some point, the show has to trust that the audience understands what’s going on and knows that society’s way of treating women is unfair.
Image: Prime Video
But after three episodes The power finally takes off, with the plot pointing towards something rather than wandering in circles. Now that the plot is finally locked and loaded, it seems poised to hit its target in full force, which is a patriarchal society bent on keeping women down. And it certainly feels like it’s going to, because this isn’t a show that leaves anything untouched. If something, The power will purposefully turn every stone to make sure the audience understands what’s going on.
And maybe that works for some people who live blissfully unaware of the horrors of the world. But others are well acquainted with the bitter truth that society treats women unfairly and need no more reminders than necessary.
The first three episodes of The power streaming now on Prime Video.