<em>Snowfall</em>’s Compelling Second Season Is All About Power
What does power look like, really? In the infinitely improved second season of Snowfall, John Singleton’s FX drama about the origins of the crack epidemic in America, power takes a multitude of forms: brute aggression, political maneuvering, financial capital, bravado. But it’s embodied most memorably in the third episode, when the furious, grieving drug dealer Kevin (Malcolm M. Mays) briefly aims his gun at his boss’s head. Franklin (Damson Idris) doesn’t flinch. He cocks his head slightly to one side and peers at Kevin quizzically, as if to say, Is this really a good idea?
The biggest issue with of was that it felt more like scene-setting for future episodes than often struggled to convey why the sweet-natured Franklin or the pragmatic Lucia would be so desperate to get involved in the drug trade—particularly when the human cost so obviously appalled them both.
