This review contains SPOILERS. To read last week’s review, click HERE.
Marcus Garvey was all about African liberation from any country deemed white. He wanted to take his people back to their Motherland, and rightfully so. Black people have suffered various atrocities over time. From the transatlantic slave trade to Jim Crow to several different kinds of genocides and ethnic cleansings. Whether at the hands of white people or our people. At the end of season five in Snowfall, Leon (Isaiah John) and Wanda (Gail Bean) left for Africa because Leon wanted to visit the Motherland and leave the blood-stained streets behind.
This episode of Snowfall starts with Leon and Wanda in Ghana. They are shopping and walking around a market when Leon sees a quote from JJ Rawling, the president of Ghana at the time. At that moment, he decides it may be time to return to South Central. Before they leave, Wanda and Leon tour Ghana and visit various places relevant to historical moments. They also decide to get married and have a celebration.
Read: ‘Outer Banks’ Season 3 SPOILER Review/Recap – The End of a Great Adventure
Franklin still has Veronique and Cassandra looking into who stole his money. When Leon returns, he sees a very different South Central than the one he left. Everything is war-torn, as Franklin has been at war with his aunt and uncle. Leon tries to broker peace by going to Jerome and delivering a present he brought from Africa. Unfortunately, Jerome and Louie aren’t looking for peace, and neither is Franklin. Franklin tells Leon the truth: if he’s staying in South Central, he must pick a side.
Teddy (Carter Hudson) and Gustavo (Sergio Peris- Menchata) are doing business with Jerome (Amin Joseph) and Louie (Angela Lewis), and the CIA is still after Teddy. They need all the information they can obtain on Teddy and are using Gustavo to get it. Teddy decides that he must take a trip to Costa Rica to catch up with some communist fighters and take their intel. After they take them down, Teddy grabs a tiny container and reads it. There’s no indication of who it’s from other than that Teddy recognizes the handwriting.
This was a slow-burner episode from the director Alonso Alvarez. The teleplay from Walter Mosley is very tight and clean. This is all about building tension. Even though the violence onscreen isn’t as over the top as usual, it’s still there. There was a lot of culture in this episode, proving black people aren’t a vacuum. We come from all over the world and have many different beautiful cultures. The way this episode goes from beautiful Ghana to the distressed area of South Central is incredible. It’s a tale of two different sides of the diaspora. There’s a lot to digest, but it just shows you the vast difference between what was happening in the states and Africa at the time.
The cinematography in this episode when Leon returns home is intense. Plenty of action sequences showed the shootings between Franklin and Jerome/Louie. The montage happens when Einstein (Kamron Alexander) tells Leon what happened while he was away. The sequences in Ghana are stunning. The scenery is fantastic, and it’s just something you have to take in as the episode moves along. Snowfall had been missing this level of cinematography, but in this episode, it was amazing.
A lot is going on here, but it happens so slowly. Leon clearly will have to choose a side. Jerome and Louie have more enemies than just Franklin. Big Deon (Quincy Chad) isn’t going to relinquish his post since Leon is back. Teddy knows who’s after him, and Gustavo may be in trouble. Also, Veronique and Cassandra don’t seem trustworthy, but Franklin must see it through. What’s been depicted in the last two episodes of Snowfall is what crack and gang wars did to the black community. Both were sparked by the government, whether the CIA or the local police force, but this was the reality. Families were destroyed, and many black people were either killed, jailed, or made homeless. This is what makes Snowfall such a good TV show; it’s the truth. – Rascal F. Kennedy
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