The Power – A Better Future Is in Your Hands

The series opens with a voice over by Margot Cleary-Lopez played by Toni Collette. She is sat looking at herself  in a mirror while a montage of future scenes flash by. She talks of a world to come where women make the rules, not men – where God was made in the image of womankind and they no longer need to feel afraid. She tells us to get there they had to burn the whole world down and that every revolution begins with a spark.

We’re then taken to six months earlier…

Allie Montgomery (Halle Bush) is sat with a speech therapist alongside her foster dad Mr Montgomery (Chris Mulkey) and her foster mum (Elise Robertson). Allie doesn’t talk anymore and hasn’t done so for months. Her foster parents imply her life was difficult but that she is at last settled with them, though she doesn’t speak. The doctor informs them that she has selective mutism but that she will begin to talk again when she feels stronger. Her foster dad tells the doctor he believes she is just a quiet girl and they are all making something of nothing while Mrs Montgomery believes stability and prayer will get her through it.

Allie sits quietly in church next to her foster parents. The preacher talks of sin passing along his family and tracing all the way back to Eve when Allie suddenly hears a voice that no one else seems to hear. The voice doesn’t sound impressed by the mention of Eve or the original sin, with another man blaming women for all that’s wrong in the world. When she tells Allie it’s time to use her voice, she runs from the church, leaving her foster parents behind. She is told; however, that running will do no good as the voice is firmly in her head. She tells her she could be anybody – her guardian Angel, the Devil, her mother – but that she will keep her safe and she need never be afraid again. She gives her an important message for the series and the series namesake, that a better future is in her hands.

Roxy Monke (Ria Zmitrowicz) is in London, England getting ready for a wedding to which her mother, Christina (Sinead Mathews), wasn’t invited. She tells her that she intends to ask her dad for a real job working for him, but her mother tries to deter her saying her father doesn’t see her that way. Her mom tells her she always wanted a big wedding and as they cuddle on the bed. Roxy says that no man is good enough for her.

Her father Bernie Monke (Eddie Marsan) is overseeing the caterers preparing for his son’s wedding. Stood looking at the cake, he is extremely unhappy with the green hue covering it and becomes very angry. Claiming it will make them look Irish, he demands a new cake. When they tell him they have no time to fix it, he takes off his jacket and punches the cake into a mess of pulp.

Jos Clery-Lopez (Auli’i Cravalho) is Mayor Margot’s daughter. She scrolls through her social media watching skateboarding videos of her crush and comes across a picture posted on her mother’s page. She smiles reading the comments underneath calling her out as a liar. Jos likes the comments and writes one of her own telling the world that the Mayor’s shoes cost £800 and she calls her a fake capitalist. Her reply is instantly liked by many other people. As Jos finds a personal family video posted by her, she rubs at her chest huffing and we are left with the distinct knowledge that she holds a lot of anger towards her mother.

Tunde Ojo (Toheeb Jimoh) gets into a car with a girl he knows offering him a lift. They immediately get to talking of their shared interest in becoming journalists and begin making a short video for his social media profile. He introduces his friend Ndudi (Heather Agyepong) as he films and turning the phone in her direction she tells him that she will be doing a report on juju – a/k/a magic. He thinks she is joking, but she goes on to explain it is a woman’s only juju meeting for awakening your power. She wants to go in there and get him to do secret filming so they can expose the scammers by putting it on his channel. As she pulls up at his house to drop him off, she sees another girl waiting for him. Ndudi becomes instantly annoyed that he will not be going with her, though it is hard not to see the jealousy.

Later as they are swimming together when asked, Tunde tells the girl that nothing is going on between him and Ndudi. They head upstairs and as they begin to kiss, she rubs her hand down his back and accidentally shocks him. It’s hard enough that goes to the bathroom to check his back and the girl suddenly leaves, equally as surprised as he was.

Roxy arrives at the wedding and heads to the furthest table at the back where they have hidden her away. She doesn’t stay there long before making her way to the main table to congratulate her brother and his new wife. She says hi to her father, throwing her arms around his neck, and then his wife Barbara Monke (Juliet Cowan) where they exchange sarcastic and passive aggressive “pleasantries.” Bertie Monke, her father, takes her out back to discuss her 18th birthday, though it is clear he merely wants to keep her out of sight. She only wants one thing, which is to work for him. She tells him she is tougher than Darrell, but her father says she is too emotional whereas he keeps his cool. He offers her a calmer job outside of London at a spa in the Cotswolds, which she is very unhappy about. He ignores this and tells her to come watch him make a fool of himself giving a toast and tells her not to go anywhere.

Roxy follows him out and stands in the crowd as her father gives a toast saying how happy he is to finally have a daughter now one of his three sons has married. Roxy looks heartbroken as Bernie has once again rejected her, claiming publicly that he has no biological daughter.

Walking to the school entrance Jos is listening to music. A friend of hers, Yuki (Ashley De Guzman), tries to speak to her but the sound is drowned out by the music in her headphones. The students go one by one through the metal detector security doors, which instantly shuts down as soon as Jos passes through. The officers claim it has been playing up all day and another girl behind her notices that this has happened to Jos.

At her locker Jos uses the mirror inside to have a look at her chest which she is still rubbing. Ryan (Nico Hiraga), the boy she was watching in the skateboard videos, asks if she’s ok, noticing her frown while she rubs at her chest. When she asks him, he empathises with her that he also feels strange in his own skin sometimes. As they smile an electric spark from her hands sends a shock wave that hits him and several other students using their lockers. She hastily makes an exit and heads to the girls bathroom.

Jos looks at herself in the bathroom mirror confused by what had just happened when a girl named Cat (Anissa Matlock) walks in. This was the girl that had noticed her shut down the security door and they agree to meet later when she claims to know what “it” is.

Allie sits quietly in the car next to her foster dad, who inappropriately uses tissue to wipe ice cream off of her leg. Her chest glows under the skin as the voice tells her knowingly that it comes when she needs it and repeats that a better future is in her hands.

When they sit down for dinner, her foster parents are carving up meat. The voice tells her it’s time to talk and Allie opens her mouth to tell them that she doesn’t like meat. Though they are surprised she is talking, her foster mom asks why she usually eats it. Allie tells them that they never asked and that she doesn’t understood taking pleasure from something’s death. Mr. Montgomery is not impressed by her disrespecting her mother, to which Allie replies that they are not her parents and that isn’t her place. She pushes her chair back and makes her way upstairs. When she is inside her room she takes a seat on the edge of her bed, with the voice asking her how many girls with pigtails have there been. When her foster dad walks into the room he pulls off his belt, leading you to think he intends to beat her, but instead he hangs it on the back of the door. Suddenly the reason for her silence is made clear. When he feels the girls have done something wrong, he puts them in their place with rape. The voice sternly tells the young girl “never again.”

Downstairs Mrs. Montgomery looks uncomfortable with the thuds she hears from above. She stops eating and goes into the kitchen, turning on the radio to mask the sound.

Back up in Allie’s room Mr. Montgomery is laying on top of Allie but the situation changes when she places her hands on his temples and begins to electrocute him. She then gets on top of him and holds his mouth as she runs a current through him so strong that his entire face burns purple. Under the guidance of the mystery voice, she kills her abusive foster dad and packs a bag to leave. The voice encourages her to take the cross from the wall as she will need it and she quietly flees the house.

Tunde does an online search for electricity through touch but finds nothing. He then has an idea and calls his friend Ndudi, wanting to go meet her, but she tells him he should have gone with her when she offered and reminds him it’s her story. She hangs up but he intends to go find her and the juju meeting house.

Roxy is kissing a girl in the street alleyway behind the wedding reception. She swigs from a bottle and tells the girl that the Monke’s go hard. She explains how she is related to them all, telling her that Bernie slept with her mother behind his wife’s back, making her the same age as her half brother. She becomes worked up, explaining angrily how she has been kept a secret, but that anger builds until a shock runs through her hand. She drops the bottle which instantly burns with a flame as it hits the floor. The other girl asks how she did it, but Roxy has no idea and continues to stare at the flames as the other girl hastily makes her way back inside.

In the evening Jos meets up outside with Cat and they walk away to talk about the electricity. Cat tells her she has had it for two weeks but Jos has only started to experience it that day. Cat explains to Jos how much stronger she feels and tries to teach her to control it as she places her hands on a lamppost and encourages Jos to do the same. They run a current through it together and on the second attempt make it flicker and brighten until the bulb bursts, sending small pieces into the night sky.

Roxy cycles home leaving lampposts glitching behind her as she rides. She gives her mum a piece of cake from the wedding and throws herself down on the sofa. Her mum wants to know everything and they poke fun at Barbara, her dads wife. Christina, sensing her daughter’s anger, asks if she annoyed her dad when she had warned her he was stressed. Roxy tells her about the Cotswolds spa job which makes her mum happy as it’s outside London. She doesn’t want her daughter ending up in prison, but Roxy would rather that than have a boring life. They begin to bicker but are interrupted by the sound of their door rattling and glass smashing. Two intruders enter the room and point out that the girl isn’t meant to be there. They tell her they aren’t there for her and try to make her leave. Her mum shouts for her to run but Roxy fights trying to protect her, landing on the floor she crawls towards her mum who tells her how much she loves her. One of them takes hold of Roxy, pushes her out the room and closes the door behind him. As Roxy tries to get back in, she feels the electricity crackle through her hands. She looks at them in surprise for a moment, but pushes it out of her head as she forces her way back into the room. One of the attackers smashes her head against the wall but she comes at them again. When one of them grabs hold of her, she places her hands on him and instantly begins to electrocute him. Startled by what she has just done, she lets him fall to the floor and looks down at her hands. Not noticing the other man behind her he hits the back of her head and knocks her out cold.

Driving around asking everyone he passes for directions, Tunde eventually finds the juju meeting place for women. As he enters the building, it looks abandoned with dirt and mess everywhere, but somewhere in the distance he hears music. He quietly moves room to room, filming women lighting cigarettes with their fingers and holding light bulbs lit up in their hands.

Ndudi sees him and makes her over to where he’s hiding to yell at him for just turning up. She’s in the middle of asking him to leave when some of the other women notice him. They become angry that he is spying on them and as Ndudi tries to defend him, one of them shoots out electricity. Instead of Tunde, it catches Ndudi across her face and instantly burns a deep gash into her skin. Though he has backed into the corner we see that the camera has continued recording catching the whole thing on film. Tunde drops to his knees as he calls out to the women to help him with Ndudi.

Roxy wakes up finding herself face down. Lifting herself, she immediately begins to call for her mother. She finds her dead on her back with her throat slit, laying in a mess of her own blood. Roxy crawls over and screams out as she holds her mother in floods of tears.

Walking along a dusty road with the sun now low in the sky, Allie listens to the voice telling her there is a place for her and there will be signs. She makes her way into the grass and laying on her back, she raises her hand to create sparks in the night sky that swirl around her.

Roxy returns to the wedding with her dress now covered in both her own blood and that of her murdered mother. The bride is the first to see her before her brothers join in taking her through to the back where her father is doing a deal. She sobs in his arms as the rest make calls and hold their heads in shock.

Allie sees signs for an eel exhibit in an aquarium. The voice tells her that she had said there would be signs, so Allie makes her way inside. Through a mix of the voice and a woman giving a lecture she learns about eels having the same electrical impulses. They can control their prey and travel in groups to hunt. The voice tells her it is natural and repeats again that she will do big things as she places her hand on the glass. She begins to gently use the current from her fingers and the eels all surround her from within the tank.