The Power – Scarlet Minnow

By starrymag | April 20, 2023

By: Dawn Inchaurregui-Miller

 

 

The episode begins with a taxi driver in Carpathia listening to a radio broadcast discussing the worldwide economic crisis that has been felt since the EOD phenomenon first began. The newscaster announces that President Viktor Moskalev (Alexandru Bindea) has not done enough to help with the financial mess that they are in. As the driver passes the President’s house where he resides with his wife Tatiana (Zrinka Cvitesic), he rolls down his window and shouts his hatred of the President at the gates that stretch in front of the courtyard of his house.

Tatiana, who happens to be looking out the window, not only sees the car but also the word thief spray-painted upon the wall in front of the gates and watches as several people attempt to clean it off. She walks throughout the house, head held high but visibly unhappy.

Margot (Toni Collette) arrives at work where Helen (Edwina Findley) informs her of the line up for the day. Of the three interviews she has a photo shoot first with Vanity Fair taking place in her office which leads Margot to make assassinations jokes. Helen lightly tells her she needs to be careful with the jokes as she is now the face of EOD and needs to stick to the safe subjects they have agreed on. Upstairs in her office she poses for pictures with the Vanity Fair photographer, who wants her to look serious and powerful.

Tatiana walks into her enormous dressing room to the sound of Margot’s press conference in the background and stands in front of the TV for a moment when it states that the power is transferable. She sits and stares in the mirror as another girl arrives to do her makeup. They discuss the fact that all the other girls were no longer employed but that she was allowed to remain. Solongo (Bahrain Bela) tells Tatiana that she was allowed to remain as she doesn’t have EOD herself. She is then interrupted by a butler who shows her a pink bag full of poop made by her tiny dog, who she scoops up to cuddle.

President Moskalev walks the halls, passing by an oil painting of himself as he enters a dining room with Tatiana behind him. He takes a seat for a meeting glancing at a large television playing footage from the Saudi Arabia protests. He has a meeting to attend at 4pm so he smugly jokes that he will turn up at 5PM. Sat across from him General Miron (Bogdan Albulescu) tells him not to discuss financial issues, going on to say that banks may not be opening next week. Viktor tells him he will discuss what he wants and that the people are lucky to have him in power as the country would be worse without him. When another of his men turns up late, talk turns to the first six girls who used their power in public. It’s casually stated that they were put to death, just as the president had warned any girl using it would be, during his first press conference on the matter. He turns to a scared Tatiana who seemingly agrees that this was the right thing to do, though her expression would say otherwise.

Tatiana follows the general out and asks if a storm is coming, to which he answers yes, there will be and that it’s probably close. As they talk someone drives by and throws a firecracker in through the gate while driving off.

Possibly in another part of Carpathia, a van pulls up to a broken down area and passes through a fence. It parks by a dirty house with broken furniture and rubbish outside. A man exits the car and slides open the van door, revealing two young women with their hands tied and are then dragged into the house. They are taken to the back where a group of other women, one pregnant, have been locked up. An argument breaks out as to whether one of the girls might be young enough to have the power, so they drag her back out front and shoot her. You have just about accepted the shock that these girls are in a trafficking ring, before it’s revealed that the pregnant woman is Tatiana’s sister, Zoia (Ana Ularu)

In a flashback a young Tatiana (Eliza-Marie Agrosoaie) and Zoia (Julia Marcan) speak to each other in English so as to prevent their parents from hearing them talk. They joke together about their mother who loves neither of them, but cares more about Tatiana as she is a talented gymnast. Zoia tells her sister that if she could, she would run away to Israel to live with their neighbor who had promised to take her in when she was four-years-old. Tatiana was getting ready for the Olympics and promised to bring back gifts for the younger girl.

At practice Tatiana makes several wrong lands which her coach Mitch (Greg Canestrani) is not happy about. He angrily tells her she’s done for the day and she runs off the mats. Later one of the other girls tells her not to worry because she will definitely still be going to the olympics as she won her place and government men were watching. Zoia gets her attention and points to nearby steps where the officials seem to be back and in talks with her dad. Later, a younger Viktor, who is still much older than her, watches Tatiana stretching. He tells her he is the financial minister and wants to ask her something, so she stands with a smile that soon drops when the old man asks her to go on a date with him. In the background her father urges her to say yes.

Back in their house Tatiana watches from the side as Viktor walks down the stairs with a group of scientists. She is told he has brought them in to examine the electricity producing organ that they call the skein and she overhears him say he has already rounded up some girls.

Margot sits in her office being interviewed by Tunde Ojo (Toheeb Jimoh). As he films they discuss his time in Saudi Arabia and her coming forward as a voice against the legislation being put on girls with EOD, but she describes herself as an advocate for bodily autonomy. He states that she hasn’t said if she has EOD and that some people are saying she is just using her position as a female politician to win people over with the phenomenon. She then says that he had seven subscribers on his social media a month ago but now everyone knows who he is, so the same could be said for him. But she says he doesn’t have EOD and yet he’s put himself on the line, so why does she need to confirm she has it in order for her voice to be valid. She wants to know why he is putting himself in harm’s way for this story? He tells her he had never really understood just how much privilege he had as a man and that EOD has made him see the world differently. One that’s better for everyone. He thinks that men would listen to another man explain this to them and she agrees that they need male allies. Margot begins to get riled up when talking about how Governor Daniel Dandon wants EOD registered as a weapon, allegedly for public safety. When she begins to get more heated, Helen tries to steer her back on topic, but Margot asks if they will eventually lock up every girl in rubber cells and says women’s bodies shouldn’t be legislated. Helen shuts down the interview to protect Margot from herself, but he wants to ask one more question… Will she be trying for Governor Dandons senate seat, to which she says she has enough work to do in Seattle.

When they get outside Helen tells her the way she is talking isn’t just dangerous to her career, it is actually dangerous as they have been receiving death threats. She goes on to tell Margot about an online presence called “Urbandox” who disguises himself but makes misogynistic videos to rile up disgruntled men. Margot doesn’t seem concerned but Helen tells her he has nine million subscribers, with her on his hit list.

The warped voice of Urbandox plays from the last scene to the next as Margot’s son Matty (Gerrison Machado) sits in his bedroom watching one of his videos. It talks of men being at the top of the food chain and that it’s better for everyone if it stays that way. He calls the girls with the power femi-Nazi’s and his dad Rob Lopez (John Leguizamo) walks in asking if he’s listening to the “Urban d**k guy.” Rob doesn’t want him listening to it anymore as he says things about his mum, but Matty defends Urbandox saying that he just doesn’t always agree with her. Though his dad knows it’s a free country, he says Urbandox wouldn’t be hiding his face if his words weren’t that bad. Matty says he just wants to protect himself as he pushes boundaries and touches his scarred face saying they all have to protect themselves now. He says it isn’t just about the accident with Josh. It’s that all the girls at school shock you if you say something they don’t like. Rob tries to reason with him that the girls are experiencing new things in their bodies and tries to make him see how scary that would be. Matty; however, gets upset and feels like they shouldn’t have to get hurt just because girls are angry at the rest of the world. Before he leaves Rob asks him to just stop listening to the videos, but the second he leaves he turns it back on.

Tatiana walks a small pony through her home and into the dining room where her husband sits with General Miron and the Prime Minister Barbu (Gabriel Constantin). They are on a call with the scientists he hired, watching a screen that shows the findings of their tests. The EOD organ called the skein is laid out on a metal table, having been removed from a woman. He talks through where the organ connects and what each part is and states that as it needs a large blood supply, the three women they have taken them from have bled out. Her husband calls it ugly, but the camera pans up to the face of Tatiana who is beginning to look more and more angry.

On the other side of the world Rob looks at a print out of the same results. He scoffs when he is told that the removals were from volunteers in Carpathia. Knowing the statistics on human trafficking rings in Carpathia, he realizes why he was asked to sign an NDA. Anna Rao (Sunita Prasad) arranged the meeting with him as she has been put on a confidential project and needed someone with a conscience, but also they are impressed with the work he does. However, he isn’t happy with the list of chemical types he can see in the report, sedatives, receptor antagonists and hormone blockers. She tells him that elevated oestrogen levels make the skein mature and in older women, the sustained electrical impulse can trigger it to maturity. They want to make a “medicine” that would neutralise or suppress the skein but he doesn’t agree as it’s a vital organ. He’s disgusted at the thought of them chemically castrating them but she argues that a lot of the people with EOD are distressed. She then tries to manipulate him using the girl that accidentally brought down the plane and claims that some women will try to cut out their own skein organ. She tells him the girls should have a “choice” but he doesn’t think that making this would give any of them a choice.

The next scene opens on a cardboard cut out of Margot’s face being held by her daughter Jos (Auli’i Cravalho) as she lays on her back with Ryan (Nico Hiraga). She’s attempting to control her EOD and lightly burns a beard across the cut out, but when Ryan places his hand on her leg the entire thing bursts into flames. As they playfully kiss,  Rob walks past the room, smells the burning and comes to knock on the door. When she comes out she has to explain that she was practising and accidentally lit a piece of paper on fire as he assumes they are smoking weed. He wants her to know that he is there for her and gives her a quick hug before Margot bursts through the door downstairs. She has to go to an event at Governor Dandon’s house and munches on crackers as she talks about the creepy face masks people have created of her (like what her daughter just lit on fire). Jos thinks that she shouldn’t have done the press conference and that she can’t be the face of something that she doesn’t have, though Margot wants to use her platform to help women that are too afraid to come forward. Against her dads wishes, Jos slams the door shut and Margot states that Jos hates her. Rob tries to talk to her about the research that is being sent around and she tells him she has seen it. He becomes flustered when she doesn’t react how he had expected, but she says she isn’t happy that their country bought it. Every country has and they had already done the research regardless of who bought it. She says she’s still about protecting bodily rights but as they have bought the research, their deaths can mean something when it’s used to help others. He keeps trying to make her listen to him as she rushes to get ready for the party and tells her about the drug that he has been asked to help create. His concern is that it will eventually be put in the water supply to be administered without anyone knowing but she says she will never let that happen. He doesn’t want to go to a party at a man’s house who he dislikes, but she says she needs to stay on his good side to stop him from doing anything to the girls with EOD.

When he’s alone outside the back of their house, Rob calls his friend Declan Blease (Risteard Cooper) and tells him about the drug that the government wants to make. His friend had seen an image of the Skein in the paper, but no one knows that multiple women died to take that skein out of a girl for research. As soon as rob tells him about it all, Declan also realises that the drug sounds like something they intend to put into the water supply and rob says he will send over the confidential research to him. They decide on a code name so that it protects Rob and decide on the name Scarlet Minnow. Before leaving for the party, Rob sends over the research document in an attachment.

At the party he sits at the bar getting drunk while Margot socialises with the other politicians. Daniel Dandon (Josh Charles) makes his way over to her and they begin a passive aggressive back and forth about her career now that she has spoken out publicly about the girls. Apparently the party leaders aren’t happy with her lack of team player attitude. He says she has a duty to everyone, not just “the ones who have vaginas.” He asks says he’s heard she wants his seat in the senate and even though she hadn’t said this, knowing it will annoy him, she says anything is possible. He then moves on to a very unveiled threat that if she gets in the way, he will destroy her career. His wife Gina (Lee Tomaschefski) then comes over. When Daniel introduces her to Margot, she instantly tells her how amazing it was what Margot did. She doesn’t seem to realize that he tried to keep Margot quiet and believed that he was proud of her.

Rob then drunkenly stumbles over and begins a crude explanation of caviar that seems to subtextually mirror the current situation. Just then phones go off all around the party and people start to gasp at the horror of the what is called “Leaked Document Government’s Exposes Torture Of Women – Anatomy of the skein.” It has made its way across the world by a source known as “The Scarlet Minnow.” Daniel says it’s foreign research and that America didn’t do it, but Margot points out that they did buy it. People around the party are shocked realising that women are being mutilated and experimented on and Daniel leaves to make a call. Margot turns her head, instantly realising it was her husband.

When they get home Margot is angry that he could put his whole career on the line by leaking confidential files. She isn’t happy that he sent it to his friend Declan who she doesn’t trust, but he drunkenly says that she is the problem. He wanted her to ask him about his day, but she says whenever she has, he shrugs it off and doesn’t really talk. She is angry that he has also put her career on the line, which he is not surprised by. When she tries to take him to bed, he childishly says he doesn’t want to go anywhere with her and instead wants to swim. Now taking it outside, he starts to take his clothes off, shouting about her mockingly and settling on the fact she knows nothing about the kids. She begins to list off the things that she does everyday with them, but he claims those things are on autopilot and that she doesn’t know about Matty becoming angry at everything she stands for. He tells her that she is taking this position that EOD is empowering and will change the world, but that Jos is struggling, even though she says she is fine. He warns her to start paying attention before she loses them all and then stumbles on towards the water saying he’s going to swim away. The three children come out onto the balcony and ask if they are fighting as Rob splashes around in the water saying that he is free. Jos says the family is a shit show and they go back inside, leaving Margot alone, devastated.

Tatiana sits having her makeup done while across the room her husband sits repeating a speech he is about to give on camera and burps. Tatiana spots a girl around the correct age for EOD and, taking off her bracelet, she asks for the girl to help her. As she fiddles with the clasp, light electricity crackles from her fingertips and in a panic she hands the bracelet off to another member of staff.

It then cuts back to her childhood when she first dated Viktor. He takes her to a restaurant with fancy food and taxidermy bears around the room where she seems completely out of place. He hands her a long red box with a diamond bracelet inside, but the moment of beauty is gone when the old man burps and sits licking food from around his mouth.

The next day her coach tells her she won’t be going to the Olympics or training anymore, as Mr Moskalev doesn’t want her distracted when she is his wife. When she gets back home she sits as her mother, Bunny (Dana Voicu), packs her things. Tatiana wants to go to the Olympics but they have already agreed to give her to him, clearly for a fee. She is scared in case he wants to have sex with her, so her mothers comforting words are “of course you’ll have sex with him.” Tatiana begs her mother not to make her go ahead with the marriage but her mother slaps her. She leaves in anger with them both wishing Tatiana had never been born. When she passes her little sister Zoia she begs to be taken with her, but Tatiana screams that she hates her and leaves the house.

The scene cuts to the women stuck in the sec trafficking house with Zoia telling the others she saw the Saudi Arabia story on the TV when she was taken to the toilet and now knows about the power. When one of the others wants to know why they don’t have it, she says it’s usually younger women and that it must be why the traffickers only wanted slightly older women. One of them says she was young when they first took her and now she’s a few years too old to develop it and defend herself. Zoia pauses a moment before saying she thinks that the deaf girl who brings them snacks has it.

When Zoia arrives with bags some of the men stop her, but are told that she isn’t all there in the head and she is sent through. She makes her way past a room where a man comes out zipping his fly up and the next door is opened by another, which contains all the women. The deaf girl hands out chips and drinks but when the door is closed behind her she sneaks a look to check they are alone and keeps her eyes on Zoia.

In her bathroom Margot takes a look at herself then pushes back from the sink to see her drunk and naked husband snoring on the bed. She knocks on Jos’ door, who is up texting. When she enters tells Jos she thinks she’s more drunk than she realised. She goes over to her daughter and apologises if she never asked how her day was and tells her how much she loves her. She says she doesn’t want to have to make decisions all the time and asks if her daughter has any marijuana. She says she knows she and Cat smoke it and that Jos won’t get in any trouble. Jos then awkwardly takes out a rolled joint and hands it to Margot, who snaps that she doesn’t approve of her daughter smoking it. She then turns around and asks if Jos wants to come outside and smoke with her. Jos immediately gets up to go with her mother.

Outside Margot almost goes back in to get a lighter until Jos stops her, saying that she might be able to light it with her hands. She touches a finger near the tip and sets it alight which really impresses Margot, who calls it cool and then smokes the joint. When she passes it to her daughter she says, “I am not handing this to you” and Jos smiles as she takes it. She asks Jos if she really thinks that she did the press conference for her own career and Jos says it’s always about her career. She tells her daughter that she had a mother that she had to look after her whole life and didn’t want Jos to ever struggle the way she did. When Jos says she understands, she then also says that her mum doesn’t get it from her side, but Margot wants to understand. She says that Margot doesn’t need to protect her anymore and that she is stuck in the mindset of what she went through herself. She tells her as she doesn’t have EOD she is afraid and overprotective. Jos says she hates that her mum goes around saying the power is great when she doesn’t even know what it feels like. Margot wants to see the world as Jos sees it, so Jos begins to tell her that on Tuesday she went for a run and lost track of time. She says that when it got dark, instead of rushing home to safety, she walked home in the pitch black, finally feeling safe to do so. Her mum laughs but Jos goes on to explain that she can jog with both of her earbuds now. That she doesn’t need to clutch her keys or make plans for the girls to get home safe from a party. She tells her that although there are things to worry about, she didn’t realise how afraid she always was and she now feels 100 times stronger. She turns her talk to her little sister, saying she won’t have to worry when men pass her by, or worry about what clothes she wears and all the freedom she will have. Margot stands and says she wants it. Jos is taken slightly aback, saying she hasn’t done it before but she’s seen it on the internet. Jos says she has heard that apparently there are buds in the skein that will wake up but she’s concerned it won’t work. Margot tells her it will work and that she trusts her. So her daughter raises up her hands and places them on her chest and begins to spark across her collar bone. Margot takes in a sharp breath as though she had just plunged out of deep water, raises her arms and begins to cry as she reaches out and holds Jos.

Across the world in Carpathia, Tatiana sees Solongo sat at the bottom of a stairwell looking at her sparking hands. She speaks to her from the top of the stairwell demanding she not move and solongo stands hesitantly as she approaches, scared for her life. To her surprise Tatiana tells her to pass the gift to her, even if it kills her. She has heard it’s possible and wants it. Solongo places her hands on Tatiana’s chest and passes it along, and she experiences the same visible joy at the feeling of strength.

The scene then passes along to Zoia, Tatiana’s sister, who has received the power of EOD from the deaf girl and then passes it to another girl herself. Hearing the noise, one of the men comes in with a gun and the last to receive it, turns to him and shoots electricity at him in his crotch. The camera goes to the front of the house where you can hear men screaming and electricity crackling. A moment later all the girls burst out the front of the building and run through the trees, only momentarily stopping to pick up a heavily pregnant Zoia who has fallen to her knees. They continue to run into the distance as fast as their legs can take them.