Who has the power?

I loved reading The Power by Naomi Alderman. I devoured it! She writes very well, with the enviable ability to sketch out an idea, pull it apart and then observe it from different angles. Although there are spoilers ahead, it's not very spoilery to say that the central plot device of the book (and film) is that suddenly young women all over the world develop the ability - the power - to send out electric shocks through the hands.

As might be imagined, this has a major effect on global gender relations since women can now fight back against male violence, although the book does make it very clear that despite the existence of patriarchy, it's not only men who can be assholes. The nine episodes of season 1 do not take the story as far as the book does, making me wonder if we will be blessed with a second series. Development may have been slowed down because of the current writers' strike (full solidarity), or The Power may be destined to become yet another single series show.

The Prime adaptation was created by Alderman alongside Sarah Quintrell and Raelle Tucker. Starting off by roughly following the same structure of the book, we quickly meet a cast of people scattered across the globe such as Roxy (Ria Zmitrowicz) in London, Tunde (Toheeb Jimoh) in Nigeria, Allie/Eve (Halle Bush) in the US and Tatiana (Zrinka Cvitesic) in an unnamed East European country. Also in the US are Margot (Toni Collette), the mayor of Seattle and her daughter Jos (Auli'i Cravalho), part of a ruptured family unit.

Jos is a moody teenager who dislikes her mum's need for political power then eventually supports her in the fight against patriarchy; because we follow Margot's political career closely, this strand dominates throughout the series. That is a shame since it is for me certainly the most boring one - just as I dislike watching politicians point-scoring in "real life", I found it hard to stomach all the meaningless political drama in this show. In the book, I felt Allie's story predominated and whilst early on the paths of Allie and Margot were contrasted nicely in the sense of exploring the ways in which people develop political power over others, I felt the comparison rather dropped away over time.

My fave character in both book and series is Roxy, since she just wants to fuck shit up, when most people want to use the power for good. This is perfectly understandable since her mum is murdered early doors yet it's still hilarious how Roxy is getting her peers to pay her £20 to learn how the electric works. Her counterpart is Allie - I was going to say her polar opposite, but that's not true since they are both killers, but they do have very different attitudes to life. Allie hears a female voice which she can only understand as coming from god. The voice helps her develop her unique power which is stronger than everyone else's. This story strand is not the best since religious revelation, just like political drama, is deeply uninteresting, although we there is always the possibility that Allie is a total psychopath.

Meanwhile, Tunde charges around the world from Saudi Arabia to Eastern Europe, documenting the gender wars first-hand with his camera. Yes Tunde is male - whilst we do have excellent supporting male roles (for example Margot's husband Rob (John Leguizamo)), Tunde is the only male central character and his views regarding the new female ability again provide a different lens to look at things through. Tatiana also gives us another point of reference as the (seemingly) bimbo wife of Viktor the dictator (Alexandru Bindea). At first she mutely poses as he discusses how to subdue the local women rising up; she gets fucked dogged style whilst having a better communication with her dog than her lover. But she too will rise up.

Part of the fascination of this show is the wild plot, which brings loose ends together through outlandish twists. The way in which Tunde and Tatiana meet is funny, likewise with Roxy and Allie. However, this is not a perfect adaptation and now I shall turn to examining what could have been done better. Whilst it does have its finger on the societal pulse, for example with the character of Urbandox, a rightwing blogger who becomes massively popular with emasculated US men (an obvious nod to real life wankers like Andrew Tate) sometimes the show can be preachy, especially when showing the family divisions caused by Margot's teenage son getting into the blogger. Likewise, diversity has to be handled sensitively, not with a sledge-hammer - the show is right-on and of course that's a good thing and much better than simply replicating patriarchal models as so many other shows do, yet sometimes the teachings are heavy-handed.

A question the show raises and does not really answer is who really has power. Sure, women being able to defend themselves against aggression will change gendered interactions, yet so often the repressed overthrow the colonisers only rthen to exert the same power relatiosn over others. This is perhaps the most interesting thing that The Power could discuss, yet it shioes away from the question. Maybe we'll have more in season two?

Read more from me here on vocal.media. Also, I used to record my thoughts on films I'd seen at smashingbobblehead.