(I nearly turned my laptop off when he said his apathy toward police brutality was due to being called a “ redbone” once upon a time.) “I need to know that there is trust here,” Louie explains, realizing no true solidarity can be forged between them (on account of his lack of integrity rather than his light skin). He goes on to explain his dissociation as a reaction to intramural delineations. “Since when the fuck are they my people?” he retorts. Attempting to convey the raid’s damage and establish an assumed mutual investment in the well-being of Black South Central, Louie asks Buckley what could be “worse than siccing dogs on your own people?” Unsurprisingly, the officer rejects her suggestion of communal concern and scoffs at her presumptuous use of the word our. “He need to be dealt with,” he tells her. Louie learns of her contacts’ involvement in the raid when Jerome informs her of the unchecked brutality. The cops proceed to raid the projects, siccing a dog on one of Big Deon’s precocious young helpers and taking battering rams to the doors of random apartments. Of course, it isn’t Jerome’s fire to extinguish. To explain how integral rap is to his existence, Maurice remarks that he “slid out my mama rhyming.” (A newborn exiting the womb and delivering its first bar in its first breath sounds like the beginning of a SoundCloud rap horror movie.) Later, when the LAPD shows up, Jerome plays it cool despite recognizing Office Buckley (Louie’s strip-club regular and police contact) in the hopes of de-escalating the situation. When Jerome, Big Deon, and a few other PJ Watts Crips affiliates overhear a rap song by Maurice, a young artist from the projects, they key in on his explicit naming of street violence and its major players and decide to confront the rapper for “putting business out on Front Street.” While Big Deon and his crew resort to aggression, Jerome takes a few tapes and begins to ask Maurice about his craft. As a couple and individuals, they face danger, assess the damage, and try their hardest to salvage the relationships worth saving. This season’s resident firefighters are arguably Louie and Jerome. After all, as the episode argues, to borrow from Billy Joel’s 1989 classic, we didn’t start the fire. This episode asserts that where there is constant fire, there will be those who are reduced to ash, those who search for water, and those who want smoke with the architects of arson. Typically, one might say “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire,” but this season takes the expression to its limits. I wanna help, but I also don’t want to be kept in the dark, not anymore.” As Cissy’s reintegration into her family and life in South Central proves precarious, it also becomes evident that her family’s warm welcome will be no match for the heat of the social and political fires that continue to ravage her community. “I didn’t come back here to be a burden, Franklin. I lost my husband because of it, and now the man responsible is back in our lives,” she responds. “Welcome home, Mama.” On the car ride home, Cissy presses Franklin about keeping her out of the loop on the danger they face. “Cissy Saint, you built this house,” he says, gesturing to his expanding empire. “I left him with a heavy burden.”Īt a Japanese-steakhouse dinner celebrating her return, Franklin makes a toast to his mother. “Franklin is lucky to have you,” Cissy tells her. Truth be told, there wasn’t anything for me back there.” Showering Veronique with affection, she emphasizes her appreciation for her son’s companion. A grandmother-to-be, Cissy explains her return as a strictly maternal one, an instinctual response to finding out that Franklin and Veronique were expecting a child. “I hope it’s been a safe space for you,” she tells her. Wanda is understandably nervous when the two women finally meet, but Cissy is cordial. Stray heels, messy sheets, and Jet magazine issues decorate the old Saint home, indicating that Wanda has taken up lodging there. As she walks through the home she abandoned last season, she encounters signs of new life, rather than the makings of a haunted house. Cissy is back from Cuba with fresh braids and a quiet fervor. Who doesn’t love a reunion? Opening with the return of none other than Cissy Saint herself, “Revolutions” starts like a slow burn as its star matriarch tiptoes around her old home.
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