April 20, 2023 18:17 E10

Did John Leguizamo Just Spoil The Ending Of The Power?

In a breakdown of his most iconic characters, John Alberto Leguizamo's description for his most recent show The Power may have let the electric cat out of the bag for how the show will eventually end

In Amazon's 9-part global thriller The Power, sustained and elevated estrogen causes people across the world to develop a new organ capable of producing and conducting electricity.

Younger people can awaken the Power in older people. Soon enough, most women can do it. Sooner still, non-binary and gender non-conforming people reveal they've got the Power, too.

And with that comes a startling reversal in gender-based power dynamics - and the revelation that how the world responds may merely repeat the mistakes of the past.

The book tells us how it all turns out. But the show? We have to listen to John Leguizamo spilling more spoilers than Tom Holland.

John Leguizamo is a treasure (trove of spoilers)

For The Power, the difference between the book and the show - at least for now - is that the book is over. It has an ending.

Whether the show continues past these 9 episodes and goes the distance, the book tells us what's most likely to happen.

And then there's John Leguizamo, who plays the main character Rob Cleary-Lopez. He just released a video with GQ in which it seems absurdly likely he spoiled a huge part of how the show will end.

It was an innocent error, but it's a kind of image and word association that I just can't see him making without it being the equivalent of a Freudian slip.
Please don't remind me that Freudian slips are long since debunked.

The Cataclysm: how the book ends vs how the show might end

The novel ends just as something awful happens. That awful thing is called the Cataclysm.
What exactly is the Cataclysm? Is it nuclear war? Something else?

A quote from the ancient one gives subtle hints. He's a dummy at math but a genius at innovative hair styles. And that man's name…is Albert Einstein.

"I know not with what weapons WW3 will be fought, but WW4 will be fought with sticks and stones." - Albert Einstein

The novel ends without telling readers who caused the Cataclysm, or even what truly happened to send humanity back to the Stone Age. Instead, the final pages of the novel leap from one era on the brink of an apocalypse to thousands of years later, when society has rebuilt itself into a replica of the one we see today, but with one difference.

Because people with elevated estrogen tended to develop active skeins and that super cool ability to generate and conduct electricity, the power dynamic reversed.

Rather than discard the Strict Father ideology that led to so much war and strife, society reshaped itself under the same ideals, the same standards, the same patriarchy by any other name.

Graphic from "Conservatives Are Cruel Because Cruelty Is Their Point"

The patriarchy reshaped itself into a matriarchy. In the future of The Power, women don't rule with any less evil than men ever did. In the future of The Power, the same toxic culture that elevated people with elevated testosterone now reserves power for those with elevated estrogen.

Season 1 is only halfway over - and John Leguizamo may have already spoiled the ending

At the time of this writing, Amazon has only aired the first five episodes. They've yet to announce whether the show has been renewed for a second season. Audiences are hungry to know how this season will end - and whether the season finale must be taken as a series finale.

But while audiences go full Westworld in deciphering clues to foreshadow the plot - look at the chess pieces for the biggest clues!!! - one of the stars of the show may have already spoiled how The Power will end.

In his video with GQ, John Leguizamo breaks down his most iconic characters. The spoiler comes near the end, when he's discussing The Power.

It's a blink and you'll miss it moment. You'd have to be obsessed with the show to even think it means anything.

Well, just for the record…

Stephenie Magister is obsessed with Naomi Alderman's book and the trans-allied sci-fi series The Power

There we go, just to make it official.

The GQ video is worth watching for more than what Leguizamo says about The Power.

First of all, John Leguizamo's chats about his early role as Luigi in the live-action Super Mario Bros movie are just delightful.

Second of all, I loved his comments on John Wick!!! He says the script gave him ZERO indication how awesome the movie would be. He didn't know until he saw the finished movie and was blown away like everyone else.

And then when he discusses To Wong Foo, my god. He did another interview where he acknowledges that Chi Chi is clearly trans, and if the movie were made today, he would want the character to be both explicitly trans and played by a trans actress.

To Wong Foo (Universal Pictures)Now I see why John Leguizamo was perfect to play the role of Rob in The Power.

As far as The Power, his breakdown video for GQ goes over the early scene between Rob and Joselyn when they're in the car and her power short circuits the radio.

You should watch the full video, but there's just one line I want to draw your attention to:

And the organ, like the brain, like the eyes, gives off an electrical charge. But if they can focus and learn how to use it, it can make like a nuclear blast.

Explaining the Cataclysm and why John Leguizamo's comment might indicate more than it seems

Holy shit, John.

Let me explain the significance of what he said. But before that: A WARNING!
I will be spoiling certain parts of the end of the novel The Power that the show is based on. The show has already made some adaptation decisions that mean it literally cannot be a word-for-word adaptation of the book, but that doesn't mean it won't borrow different pieces that I might mention.

If you want to skip the spoilers, just click here to see a funny pic of John Leguizamo in his early role as Luigi in Super Mario Bros the live-action movie.

BEGIN BOOK SPOILERS FOR THE POWER: Explaining The Cataclysm

At the end of The Power, forces across the world have taken shape in everything we dreamed Game of Thrones would become.

In one section of the world, men still have power. And they are threatening to send nukes.

In other parts of the world, almost every main character we've met in the show is either hiding out from the coming war or taking direct steps to initiate that war.

That war is called the Cataclysm.

The book doesn't really explain what happened in the Cataclysm. That's in fact part of the conceit of the novel - it's told from the POV of Neil, a writer attempting to reconstruct what happened thousands of years after the novel begins.

The Power (Viking): Epilogue
For one thing, of course, we don't have original manuscripts dating back more than a thousand years.

All the books we have from before the Cataclysm have been re-copied hundreds of times. That's a lot of occasions for errors to be introduced. And not just errors. All of the copyists would have had their own agendas. For more than two thousand years, the only people re-copying were nuns in convents.
I don't think it's at all a stretch to suggest that they picked works to copy that supported their viewpoint and just let the rest molder into flakes of parchment. I mean, why would they re-copy works that said that men used to be stronger and women weaker? That would be heresy, and they'd be damned for it.

This is the trouble with history. You can't see what's not there. You can look at an empty space and see that something's missing, but there's no way to know wha tit was. I'm just…drawing in the bank spaces. It's not an attack.

What the hell led to that kind of twisted future?

Let's get more specific about little details from the book. These are not huge spoilers, but they are quite big if you care about anything being spoiled at all.

A few specific spoilers for the end of The Power

The Power (Prime)As the different chess pieces across the world make their final moves, Joselyn reads news updates on her cell phone. And they are horrifying.

War is brewing across the world but is getting particularly feisty in Eastern Europe. The South Moldovans (that's Bessapara run by Tatiana) are winning, they're fighting the North Moldovans (the old regime run by men), and the Saudis may be involved somehow.

Did any of you read Manhunt by Gretchen Felker-Martin? Remember the armies of TERFs that went around castrating and murdering anyone they declared didn't count as human?

In Manhunt, the armies of TERFs killed whoever fit their definition of men. Unfortunately, that would have included trans women like Sister Maria.

In The Power, the TERFs take a gender-reversed shape. Tatiana's nation of Bessapara is running experiments on boys born with skeins. In order to understand and control the Power, they are cutting open boys with skeins in order to find out what's happening to them.

Then they're feeding them big glops of Glitter. That's the drug that some say is like cocaine. It seems to fix or enhance a person's skein, but you quickly become dependent on it. Others, of course, say that's patriarchal bull shit. Gender-affirming medical care is simply what some people need to be whole.

It's UrbanDox or sites like that who tell girls that the purple-white powder makes girls with skein abnormalities worse. It increases the highs and the lows, they say. Your system becomes dependent on it. But that's the kind of bull shit a man would say to keep you from accepting good medical care.

No one knows for sure, but people are pretty sure the North Moldovans are funded by the House of Saudi in exile. They think this war with Bessapara may be a proving ground for an attempt to retake Saudi Arabia.

Tunde reports that UrbanDox has joined up with BabeTruth (omg lol these names, but Reddit and 4chan were taken) and they're threatening to send nukes.

Joselyn may be reading about all of this stuff on her cell phone, but she also becomes a BIG player in the Northstar wars. And that means that while she doesn't die, she does become a kind of casualty.

Margot will never see anyone hurt Joselyn again.

Does Margot cause the Cataclysm?

Some readers believe Allie causes the Cataclysm. There's good evidence for this in the novel - least of all Allie herself.

But there are other candidates for who sends the first missile.

Margot is a mamma bear who refuses to ever see her daughter hurt again. This is what the show is setting up in episode 5 when Joselyn convinced her mom to finally activate her own skein. Joselyn showed her mom that this power is a gift - and then people hurt Joselyn in a way Margot will never forgive.

In a way Margot will never let happen again.

She goes on TV and tells the world about Joselyn's injuries. But she doesn't stop there. She adds, "Terrorism can strike anywhere, at home or abroad. The most important thing is that our enemies, both global and domestic, must know that we are strong and that we will retaliate."

Margot speaks to the President about new research proving domestic and international threats of terrorism. This is Game of Thrones taken to its ultimate end.

UrbanDox threatens end what they see as an eternal winter by sending their version of dragons: nuclear missiles.

Margot believes that the United States must appear strong. The United States must act now.

Now here is where shit gets…weird

The book isn't clear what The Voice is. In the show, Allie appears to have first heard the Voice when her skein awakened. I mistakenly identified it in my episode 1 recap as a sign of schizophrenia.

But in the book, Allie remembers that the Voice has been with her from a young age. And in her final moments in the book, that Voice reveals that it is not a hallucination. It is not a delusion. It is ancient.

The Voice once acted in service of a Prophet who told the Voice some of its friends wanted a King. The Voice warned what would happen. The same thing it's warning will happen if this war moves forward.

The Voice

Allie says: "Are you trying to tell me there's literally no right choice here?"

The Voice: "There's never been a right choice, honeybun. The whole idea that there are two things and you have to choose is the problem."

And that is the last time Allie ever hears the Voice. But that doesn't mean the Voice is gone.

It is a force of nature, like the Skeins. Who knows? Maybe Allie's earlier guess that it's God who caused people to develop this new organ was close, but only half right.

The Voice is not good or bad. Those words, like "man" or "woman," are just shell games. Like the demon passing from one body to the next in that old Denzel Washington movie Fallen, the Voice now passes to a new host.

The Voice passes to Margot

Some terrible stuff happens to Joselyn over the course of the story, and every time Joselyn gets hurt, Margot goes full mamma bear and offers a proportional response.

When something truly shocking happens to Joselyn near the end of the book, Margot awakens to what she's facing as a mother for Joselyn and everyone else she sees as worthy of protection.

Graphic from "The Voice Behind Disney's Moana Comes Out SINGING For Trans Rights

"Margot asks, "How can we stop it happening again?"

And the Voice says: "You can't get there from here."

The iconic words that signaled Allie's awakening at the beginning of the story.

Margot sees it all in that instant, the shape of the tree of power. Root to tip, branching and re-branching. Of course, the old tree still stands. There is only one way, and that is to blast it entirely to pieces.

Roxy
Roxy goes to see Allie (who is sort of running her own nation state of rebel nuns) and says hey man, put me in charge of the armies in the North before this shit goes to shit.

You know, in case Allie hasn't watched that new John Leguizamo interview and heard that people with skeins can focus their Power into a nuclear blast. Y'all are going to get everyone killed, or at least send humanity back to the Stone Age.

Yep. The book hinted that nuclear war wasn't just imminent. It was what sent humanity back to the Stone Age.

The book just never explained who sent the first shot.

But if John Leguizamo is to be believed, it wasn't actual nuclear missiles. The blast came from a nation of Power who learned to channel their ability into the force of about 300 kilotons.

Whether the first shot came from Margot, Allie, or some dummy who calls himself BabeTruth, only one thing's for sure.

When the blast comes, you better hope there's a fridge close by.

Anyway, for more recaps of Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull, subscribe to my Substack!
END BOOK SPOILERS

Now listen everyone, I am very likely making something out of nothing

Please do not get John Leguizamo in trouble. It was an innocent comment that probably doesn't mean anything. It's a testament - hey, there's my Margaret Atwood reference for the day - to the quality of The Power that it can inspire such endless and obsessive speculation over where the show is headed by the end of the first season and beyond.

As for the rest of John Leguizamo's comments, I literally fist pumped when I heard him declare the Power goes to non-binary people.

Cool, huh? Maybe it's Joselyn's friend Cat who figures out how to channel an electric charge into a nuclear blast.

Let me know whether you think John's comment is foreshadowing where the show is going. The show thus far has been pretty deliberate about this sort of stuff.

In my episode 5 recap, I made a huge deal about chess pieces in the Zoia and Tatiana flashback. In that scene, Zoia circles a Queen around a Rook.

I thought wait, did every character get paired with a different chess piece in at least one scene?

Yes! Some of them did! An early scene between Margot and Daniel Dandon takes her to his home, where they sit on opposite sides of a chess table.

"Toni Collette Rewatches Hereditary, Knives Out, The Sixth Sense & More" | Vanity Fair with a still from The Power (Prime)

In this clip, the chess pieces are undisturbed save for that single pawn pushed forward.

Are there any chess experts out there? Does that pawn's placement represent any particular strategy?

Other stuff I read this week
"Ironic Fiction Doesn't Tell You Who Trans People Really Are" by Tucker Lieberman
"Transphobia Since the 1970s" by Tucker Lieberman
"Is Spoutible Fighting With Romance Writers and Fans?" by Anne Marble
"Genre Grapevine Twitter Update (Including Info on Alternatives)" by Jason Sanford

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