“I need to know everything you know about Tariq St. Patrick,” declares Mary J. Blige’s drug queenpin Monet Stewart Tejada in the latest teaser for the forthcoming Power Book II: Ghost, and you get the impression it isn’t about the now Ivy Leaguer’s GPA.
Having dropped earlier today on the Starz App, the adrenalized look at the first of the Power spinoffs has superstar Blige, Tariq himself Michael Rainey Jr, a lot of familiar faces and some newbies – as you can see in the 30-second spot above.
Delayed because of the coronavirus pandemic and now set to debut in September, the Courtney Kemp created show kicks off almost right after the events of the Power series finale, that aired on February 9.
All of which means, as the newest glimpse of Ghost reveals with some footage we’ve seen before, that Tariq is balancing life in a prestigious university and getting street level in the family business of the drug trade to get his mother Tasha (Naturi Naughton) out of the clink. The matriarch took the fall for Tariq after the Rainey portrayed character killed his ambitious once drug lord father James/Ghost (Omari Hardwick) off near the end of Power’s sixth and final season.
“I have to do anything to help my mother,” a dead serious Tariq says in today’s teaser, which means the apple didn’t fall far from the tree in this ménage
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Executive produced by series creator and showrunner Kemp through her company End of Episode, and Curtis ’50 Cent’ Jackson through his G-Unit Film and Television, Ghost also stars Cliff ‘Method Man’ Smith as cocky defense lawyer Davis MacLean and Power alum Shane Johnson is back as federal prosecutor Cooper Saxe.
Besides Ghost, fellow Power spinoffs in the works for the Lionsgate-owned Starz include Power Book III: Raising Kanan and the Empire State politics of Power Book IV: Influence. There is also Power Book V: Force, which sees mothership show vet Tommy Egan (Joseph Sikora) out of the Big Apple and now up to no good in the City of Angels.