Tommy and Tasha have finally heard each other out after the events of Power’s final season. In the season 3 finale of Power Book II: Ghost, the former best friends hashed it out over LaKeisha’s death and called a truce. HollywoodLife spoke EXCLUSIVELY with Joseph Sikora about Tommy’s reconciliation with Tasha in the finale and whether it’s actually for real.
“You know, it’s really interesting. The path that it went down was surprising to me in the Power show because they were so tight,” he said. “Tommy and Tasha shared this brother-sister relationship. We had such great chemistry in that familial way, Naturi [Naughton] and I did, so I was sad to see that there was going to be no more 420s, that there was going to be no more Tommy and Tasha Mustang times or the private times between them like going to get shots at the Irish bar.”
He continued, “But when it did get down to the nitty-gritty, Tommy did love LaKeisha. I think that was the girl for him. I think that she did obviously choose her son first and foremost, but I think Tommy was ready to accept that that was his place in that relationship. It really hurt him that it was Tasha who killed her obviously and that Tommy didn’t want to know all of those details in the final 5 episodes of the Power show. We saw those 5 different perspectives of kind of the same day. Tommy didn’t want to hear that LaKeisha was going to rat out everybody possibly, that she did sign the papers. We as an audience saw LaKeisha not do everything that Tasha said that she did, so we knew that it wasn’t all true. So you wonder what the truth is, and I think that if I learned anything from those 5 episodes is that the truth lies somewhere in the gray area. So with Tommy and Tasha, is that reconciliation real? Is it a reconciliation? Is it a truce? Because a truce implies that there will be a final. There’s only a winner and a loser. A true fight will continue. Is this a pause? So I’m not sure what that reality is, and I thought Brett Mahoney did a really great job of setting up that possibility of going either way.”
But does Tommy trust Tasha? Can he ever really trust her again? Joseph weighed in on those questions. “I think that Tommy has to struggle with that trust,” the actor said. “Part of what I hope was portrayed onscreen is I tried to bring with me Tommy’s just this total utter overwhelming situation, just right at that point. He’s bringing Chicago with him. He’s bringing a new family with him. I mean, he tells her that he’s got a brother. He’s got a nephew. He has an actual family. But at the same time, he’s dealing with the present moment. That’s Tommy. That’s why we love Tommy, right? When Tommy is talking to you, he’s talking to you. I appreciate that because I try to be like that in my real life, but I’m not as pure as Tommy is. I think that there’s a huge amount of conflict. I thought that you get a lot with a little. I enjoyed when the camera was really tight on Tommy. You could see that there was something thinking there. There was a lot going on in his mind. I’m excited to see what happens. I’m excited to see if Tariq ever makes it out to Chicago.”
Before Tasha knocked Tariq out and saved Tommy, it seemed like Tariq might actually pull the trigger on his Uncle Tommy just like he did with his father. HollywoodLife asked Joseph whether or not Tariq really had it in him to kill another person so close to him.
“I mean, I think of it like this: when you think of the privileged, I think that it’s the privileged that get away with being a little bit more sociopathic than most people realize,” Joseph noted. “You think of those the CEOs of these corporations who just have people listed as nameless numbers. They’re doing a lot more harm than the one individual who’s fighting the system from the outside. They are the system and they crush and kill, and a lot of that comes out of privilege and non-existential existence in a lot of ways. Now that Tariq is existentially viewing the streets and living in those streets, I think he’s living and learning and becoming a different person than he would have otherwise.”
Tommy bid farewell to New York and Tariq once again before heading back to Chicago. Tommy will make his triumphant return in season 2 of Power Book IV: Force, which will be released later this year. Joseph revealed that he’s thrilled to have Gary Lennon back as showrunner, who also ran Power back in the day.
“The glove fits perfectly. If there’s a glove for this hand, it’s Gary Lennon,” Joseph said. “He’s just really got the ins and outs of the character. And that doesn’t mean that you see Tommy swimming, soaring, and winning. You see Tommy groveling and pushing and pulling and getting knocked back down — but getting back up. It’s Power. It’s the Power show, and the power is back in season 2 of Power Book IV.
Joseph also revealed that the ending of Ghost season 3 sets up Tommy’s arc in Force season 2. “It sets Tommy up in a way that he’s got a lot further to go than he thought he did,” the actor teased. “I think that what we saw was Tommy landing on his feet a lot in season 1 of Power Book IV and getting to the top for all intents and purposes pretty fast. But when there’s only one direction to go, and it’s straight down. I think we saw a lot of that in the finale of our first season directed by Deon Taylor, as was the finale of our second season, which I think is a really great episode as well. You see Tommy far more building and thinking and losing. You see him having to think differently.”
He added, “I really think that the audience is just going to love season 2. Chicago is going to love season 2. There’s a huge Mexican-Puerto Rican presence now in it because that’s really representative of Chicago’s community and culture. We have such a diversification of the African American population in Chicago from the South Side to the West Side. It’s just expanded and just has a much truer authenticity that I think the audience is going to just soak up dig and love and be on the ride with Tommy.”