Major Spoilers Ahead!
Remember the moment in the last episode of Power when Kanan told Tariq that some people claim that you're not a real killer until you murder someone you love? Tommy Egan must be the realest killer ever then. This week’s episode of Starz's hit drama was completely reliant upon critical information. Maybe that’s why the showrunner named 509 “There’s A Snitch Among Us.” The penultimate episode deals with the immediate fallout of Kanan’s death, and we finally get to see the collision of Tommy’s love and his father’s snitching come to a head. All throughout “There’s A Snitch Among Us,” each one of Power’s main players makes a big chess move because of information they received.
The most important piece of information discerned here is that Teresi is a snitch. There are two key moments that foreshadow his death at the hands of his own son. The first is when Lakeisha asks Tommy if he has ever killed anyone. “I mean, I know you move weight and all, but you never killed anyone right?” she slyly questions. Tommy doesn’t answer, and I doubt Lakeisha will even know her boyfriend murdered his last girlfriend when she turned into a snitch. Later, Ghost meets up with Tommy while he’s with Teresi. After carefully avoiding talking in front of the old man, Ghost warns Tommy about his dad. He gives him the “I can’t wait to say ‘I told you so,'’’ speech just moments before Angela alerts him about Teresi's true motives.
The moment that Angela tells Ghost about Teresi, his fate was sealed. After getting Dre to snitch on Cristobal and Alicia Jimenez, which was another power move reliant on inside information, Angela arrests them both and notches a big win. She then snoops into Mak’s office, learns about his snitch, and questions the lawyer about his name. Mak hands over Teresi’s name, which then gets to Ghost, who turns the evidence over to Vincent. This exchange of information is key. Just like Mak and Sax have a snitch on the outside, Ghost has a snitch on the inside. Actually, he has two. Proctor becomes another vital source of knowledge in this episode.
Proctor wears a wire after pressure from Mak and Saxe, and visits Ghost at his club. The shifty lawyer alerts Ghost to the wire though, allowing him to alter his statements. After a brief altercation between the two, Proctor foreshadows what will happen by the end of “There’s A Snitch Among Us.” He warns Ghost that Angela is going to flip on him, and that the Feds are in their final push to lock them all up. Angela and Proctor’s information, both given to Ghost, end up guiding the entire narrative of the episode. Angela’s dime on Teresi gets him killed, but also implicates her, which subsequently makes Proctor’s words of wisdom to Ghost so powerful.
While the world is falling down around Ghost, his son is setting himself up to be his successor. Tariq admits to his parents and Tommy that he knew Kanan would die, and that he took a loss so they could win. After instructing his father to teach him the drug game, Tariq goes on a mission to become his father. Much like Poppa St. Patrick, his seed finds himself in the presence of Vincent, who strikes an unwilling deal with the kid. Ghost would walk through those same doors later in the episode and strike an unsettling deal himself. Tariq’s metamorphosis into his father continues to move at a rapid pace, but I guess watching your twin die and learning your parents are drug dealers may force you to grow up fast. He has a moment where he illegal obtains Kanan’s ashes, which would look suspicious on any camera in the area. Fake ID’s aren’t necessarily fool-proof. Expect that to play out at a later date.
Ghost and Tariq are the good examples of a father-son relationship this episode though, since neither one of them kill the other. When Vincent tells Tommy about his father's snitching (based on the information he got from Ghost via Angela), I really felt Mr. Egan’s pain. We watched this man murder a pregnant Holly, and the moment he believed his father was a snitch, I knew we were set to watch another emotional killing. After taking Teresi to see Connie one last time in Hospice, Tommy shoots his father and leaves his body on the tombstone he promised for him and his wife. Teresi’s death immediately implicates Angela, who is teary-eyed as she is shown the criminal flow chart with her face plastered in the center. Proctor’s prophetic warning to Ghost hangs in the air by the time “There’s A Snitch Among Us” ends. Will Angela give up Ghost, or will she take the fall? Meanwhile, back in the safety of his mother's home, a broken Tommy curls up in his only living parent's arms and admits his sins. “You did the right thing,” whispers his mother after Egan breaks down. That's one gangster mom. All that is left now, is for Power to show us how Ghost and Angela deal with being pitted against each other.
