Shakir Rashaan recaps 'Power': Kanan's on the offensive

Hello, I'm Shakir Rashaan, and I'm a male erotic romance and mystery author for Strebor Books/Simon & Schuster and a regular contributor to the Happy Ever After blog! You can normally find me on my regular blog, Manly Musings, but I'm devoting some extra time to recapping episodes of Starz's hit show, Power.

Let's get started, shall we?

I'm hoping you had the chance to see last week's episode of Power. If you didn't, then you can catch my recap (here), but let me tell you now, if you haven't, you're going to need to catch up and fast!

Here's some of what we know so far, after the first three episodes of this season:

• RIP to the girl in the pink shoes (alas, we never got the chance to really know your name).

• Ghost now knows that Rolla did not put the hit out on him.

• Kanan has found a way to try to get inside of Ghost's distribution network, in explosive fashion! (Which reminds me, RIP to Q-Dubbs and the rest of the RSKs … man that was bloody!)

• Ghost and Angela have a bittersweet trip to Miami, equal parts sexy (whew, the love scenes, goodness!) and tumultuous. (Angela comes clean about the information she knows about Tommy, aka "Ghost.") They know that things are not going to be the same, but they vow to keep fighting for their love.

Going into the fourth episode, and when I say the lid is being blown off the roof of this season … the body count alone is becoming a story line all its own!

Ghost is finally back in town, and he's armed with information that he can't help but mourn and reflect over: Rolla was true to him, to the very end! And what's worse, he now knows the true identity of the person who actually put the plan of his demise in motion. He confides in Tasha everything he found out, including his suspicions about Kanan. At first, he thinks that it was a matter of Kanan getting bad information while in prison, but he's trying to figure it out.

Tommy has to meet up with Ghost and makes sure that Kanan is with him when he drops the news that negotiations with the RSKs ended badly. When Ghost confronts Tommy about it, Kanan speaks up, tells Ghost that he was the one who shot and killed Q-Dubbs, and that he did it to save Ghost from payback from the RSKs over suspicions that Ghost might have knowledge of who killed Rolla. With the RSK territory in flux, Kanan offers himself and his new crew to take over the territory, with promises to make up the stagger on the backlog of product that still needs to be sold. Tommy's down, but Ghost is skeptical.

Shawn is all over the place! First, he's trying to get Tasha to admit her feelings (which she kinda does, but there's a catch to that), then he goes and gets with LaKeisha (whew, that scene was hot!) since Tasha kinda doesn't want him but kinda does want him, only for Tasha to change her mind yet again (I'll get to the why in just a minute) and have this dude completely twisted.

So, remember the why Shawn is twisted up? Well, LaKeisha and Tasha have a quick lunch together, where LaKeisha can't wait to tell her girl that she got with Shawn. Tasha tries to act like she's not worried about it before she gets hot under the collar when LaKeisha starts making Ghost look less than perfect. She then tells Tasha after the smoke clears that if she's gonna be sure about Ghost, she better be sure about Ghost.

That leads us to the most explosive point of the season: Tasha finds out that Ghost has been lying to her the whole time about Angela! Not only does she go all the way live about it, but she goes "Angela Bassett in Waiting to Exhale" on Ghost! Locking him out the penthouse, the whole nine yards! And then tells him why he was being kicked out and that he would never be able to come back. But an unexpected visitor may change her mind, whether she likes it or not.

Whew! Of course, as always, I'm not telling everything that happened in this episode, but here's some of the more interesting highlights to take into the next episode:

• How will Tasha feel about Ghost now that Kanan is in the process of hatching his plan?

• Now that Angela is back on the case to identify Ghost to get Lobos, will she be able to deal with where the road leads?

• And what about the unexpected meeting between a member of the task force and someone who has intimate knowledge of the principal players involved?

You are not going to want to miss anything! Power will be on a quick hiatus for the Independence Day holiday weekend, so tune in to Starz at 9 p.m. ET July 11 to see what happens next!

Shakir Rashaan lives in suburban Atlanta with his wife and two children. His catalog includes the Nubian Underworld series and the upcoming Kink, P.I. Series. He is also developing projects under the pen name P.K. Rashaan. You can see more of him at www.ShakirRashaan.com or you can connect with him on Facebook and Twitter (@shakirrashaan).