The Power is a 2023 science fiction series based upon the book by Naomi Alderman, developed by Alderman, Raelle Tucker, and Sarah Quintrell. It stars Toni Collette, Auli'i Cravalho, and John Leguizamo.
The story begins as teenage girls across the world suddenly develop electrical superpowers. As more and more women tap into this ability, the balance of power in the world reverses.
The series premiered on Prime Video March 31, 2023.
The Power contains examples of the following:
- Action Girl: Roxy is the most action-oriented of the female characters starting out, as a tough young woman who's a tomboy Cockney with a mob boss as her father. She is the most prone to use violence, even without the skein, while even starting an online tutorial teaching other women in doing martial arts.
- Action Mom: Zoia is heavily pregnant when she leads the slave revolt which frees her and the other women. She then leads them when they form into a rebel army, and doesn't let giving birth stop her. The last iconic shot of her in the first season is her holding a rifle in one hand as she simultaneously breastfeeds her baby, smiling joyfully after her forces defeat the Army.
- Adaptational Angst Downgrade: In the book, Allie was frequently raped by her foster father, finally killing him the latest time as her power activated. She shocks him during his attempted rape here, and she's only just come into his house so he hadn't attacked her before. Granted, this is still awful so not an extreme downgrade.
- Adaptational Diversity: The series has more explicit minority characters than were in the books.
- Although her race is not stated, Jos was presumably white in the book. Here, she's half Latina, as her dad is Latino, which also goes for her siblings. In accord with this, Jos' last name has been changed to Cleary-Lopez (not just Cleary) as she gets her Latino dad's last name as well.
- Roxy's now bisexual, whereas in the book this wasn't shown to be the case.
- The nuns who take in Allie here include women of color, their leader Sister Veronica (who's Asian-American) most prominently. Sister Maria is also a trans woman. While possible, there are no such details in the book. Further, they are renegade Catholics who broke off from the mainstream Church due to being LGBT-affirming (see Sister Maria). In the book, they are still part of the mainstream Church.
- Adaptational Location Change:
- Margot's hometown in the book was never specified, but it was implied to be Boston, or at least somewhere in New England. In the series, meanwhile, she's the mayor of Seattle.
- The convent which takes in Allie was originally within New York City. Here, it's in rural Ohio.
- In both the book and the show, Tatiana comes from a poor, Romanian-speaking Eastern European republic that's depicted as a hub of sex trafficking. In the book, it was the real-world nation of Moldova. The show changes it to a fictional one, Carpathia.
- Adaptational Sexuality: Roxy here likes women, with this not shown in the book (though her sexual orientation wasn't explored). It's later shown she also likes men.
- Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: Jos is embarrassed to see her mom put up a video of her in a hat that she hated for Christmas, which she took off, as it's publicly viewed by so many people. Later she tells her mom about how being seen that way made her feel, who apologizes.
- Amazon Brigade: Women in Carpathia, once they gain the skein, start forming into a rebel army while revolting against the repressive patriarchy that exploited them for so long. They defeat the Carpathian Army in a pitched battle after Tatiana tips them off so they can surprise the soldiers, since their skeins combined with guns were proven to be very effective.
- Artistic License – Biology: The titular power is thousands of times stronger than the stated natural equivalent (eels) and it does whatever the plot requires, e.g. will strike distant targets, rather than flowing via the shortest path to earth, like any normal electricity. Further, the electricity organs in eels take up much of their bodies, while here the skein is small, no longer than the collarbone and have somehow remained dormant without previous signs or detection. In-Universe, nobody finds this odd, but it goes against everything known of how this works biologically and would overturn a lot of our existing scientific models.
- Asshole Victim: Allie finishes off her foster father after electrocuting him first to stop his attempted rape. It's also implied that he's a serial rapist who raped many prior foster daughters of his, so few will probably care.
- Attempted Rape: After she defies him and Mrs. Montgomery, Allie's foster father Mr. Montgomery attempts to rape her. She ends up killing him with her power, shocking him initially in self-defense.
- Awful Truth: Roxy slowly learns her mom was not really murdered by random burglars. Rather, that her dad whom she loves and wants to impress ordered it done.
- Bad Influencer: Urbandox is an anonymous internet presence hidden behind a voice-changer and highly idealized computer generated avatar who is whipping up hatred of and paranoia about women in general and women with 'EOD' in particular.
- Bastard Angst: Roxy is not happy at all to be sidelined as a result of being her dad's love child, which is shown especially after he doesn't even mention her when listing his children while making a speech. She blames his wife, her half-siblings' mom, for this.
- Brainwashed: It turns out that the power is capable of affecting people's minds and changing their thoughts, via manipulating the electricity in their brains. Eve uses this on Sister Veronica, stopping her alerting the police to Eve's location.
- Bratty Teenage Daughter: Jos is embarrassed by her mom, dislikes her being mayor due to how much attention this gets them along with her having little time, and leaves negative comments on her online to hit back.
- Broken Pedestal: Roxy is horrified to learn that her dad arranged her mom's murder. She'd looked up to and loved him, while even wanting to join his crime family.
- Bullying a Dragon: It takes unusual levels of commitment on the part of a high-school bully to harass someone that A) is known to have "EOD", B) is the daughter of a big-city mayor that has recently announced a Senate run, and C) is currently flanked by a security detail due to terrorist threats related to B.
- Butch Lesbian: Roxy is a short-haired, tough tomboy attracted to women who favors fairly masculine outfits most of the time (although she also likes men, so more of a butch bisexual).
- Child by Rape: Tatiana's sister Zoia is heavily pregnant when she's introduced, held in sex slavery with other women. As a result, obviously there's no realistic chance her baby was conceived by anything except rape.
- De-power: As fear of the power grows, governments start researching ways to remove the skein that causes it surgically, or suppress this with a drug.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Carpathia enacts capital punishment for using the power at all (which is often no worse than a mild shock).
- Elective Mute: Allie refuses to speak at first when she's placed in the care of the Montgomery family, while the psychologist they see identifies this as selective mutism, and a common response to childhood trauma. She later starts to speak after she's urged to by the voice.
- Emotional Powers: A lot of women and girls can only use the power initially when angry or fearful, such as while being attacked, with this spontaneoulsy activating due to their stress.
- Expecting Someone Taller: When they finally meet in the season finale, Eve tells Roxy that she thought she'd be taller.
- Eye Scream: Jos accidentally injures her younger brother Matty's eye when they're having a spat over the remote, unleashing her power inadvertently and shocking him.
- Fat Bastard: Tatiana's husband Viktor Moskalev is obese, started "dating" her when she was only in her late teens or early twenties while he was decades older, later ruling their country Carpathia harshly, especially mistreating the country's women.
- Feeling Oppressed by Their Existence: A large number of men are clearly disturbed by the general idea of so many women developing electrical powers rather than anything in particular they have seen or experienced. Highly patriarchal countries like Saudi Arabia and Carpathia view it as a particular threat, with the latter making any use of it punishable by death.
- Frame-Up: After killing Viktor, Tatiana murders Solongo and then makes it appear like she's his killer.
- Gender-Restricted Ability: The electricity powers are mostly exclusive to women or girls, as people soon realize. However it turns out Ryan, who's intersex but identifies as a man, also has it. Ryan guesses that it's due to higher estrogen levels in his body.
- God Before Dogma: The convent which takes in Eve is run by Sister Veronica, a "rebel nun" who supports LGBT+ people (like Sister Maria, a trans woman), which had gotten her excommunicated by the Catholic Church. It didn't stop her, and she's now apparently set up a sect of her own to help people the Church wouldn't, currently taking in "wayward" girls who had run off or been kicked out over their developing the power.
- Groin Attack: A group of women held as sex slaves in Carpathia revolt against their captors, while the first blow struck is one using the power to zap a gangster right in the groin, very appropriately.
- Hearing Voices: Allie begins hearing a female voice in her head which offers support and guidance. She initially freaks out, naturally, but comes to accept its help.
- He-Man Woman Hater: An online anti-femininst named Urbandox gains a large following by saying the evolution of the skein in women is a result of men having given up their "rightful place" running things through going soft and calls on them to "retake it". Margot's teenage son Matty listens to and starts accepting his ideology, claiming that she's "emasculated" her husband, his father Rob, who does some traditionally female things like him cooking dinner for the family, even though she in no way forces him to (it's his preference). His views increasingly alarm Matty's family, especially Jos and Margot, driving them apart.
- Hydro-Electro Combo:
- Roxy mildly electrocutes a man while he's in the pool, which makes the guy lose control of his bowels.
- Later, Eve gives the young women she meets at the convent a sensation by electrocuting them while they're all in the ocean together.
- Declan is electrocuted when he's crossing a river in Carpathia by the female rebels there after he insults them. Later it's seen that many Carpathian soldiers were as well, their bodies floating in the water.
- Roxy meets Eve when she's using her electrical discharges to create water spouts in the ocean.
- Interrupted Suicide: Eve stops Savannah, another young woman who she meets at the convent, from jumping to her death.
- Karma Houdini: Allie's foster mother suffers no direct repurcussions for being an accomplice to multiple rapes.
- Kosher Nostra: The Monkes are a Jewish crime family operating in London. Roxy wants to be a part of it, but Bernie, her dad who's the boss, resists this.
- Lightning Gun: The titular power often does this for a more TV-worthy visual effect.
- Man on Fire: General Miron dies this way, after he was set on fire during the losing battle with the Carpathian rebels.
- Missing Mom: Roxy's mom is murdered by two thugs who break into their house.
- Mother Goddess: Eve begins to start a religion, insisting that God must be female since creating life belongs to women. Her voice had told her this already even before she'd proclaimed the doctrine.
- No Woman's Land: Women in Saudi Arabia and Carpathia (a country that is based on Moldova) have it worse than most. Therefore, it's no surprise they revolt (with varying levels of violence) after developing the skein and realizing they can change things for themselves using it.
- Old Man Marrying a Child: Tatiana, when barely in her twenties at most, is pressured to marry Viktor Moskalev, who's middle aged and Carpathian finance minister. She at first resists, but later ends up his wife nonetheless.
- One-Hit Kill: The power is capable of killing someone with a heart attack on command if precisely used.
- Only Known by Their Nickname: Roxy's full name, Roxanne, only gets used when she's being called to the desk at the airport.
- Parental Abandonment: It turns out that Eve's mother simply left her at a Walmart when she was three, never to return, while her father is not mentioned.
- Parental Neglect: Margot is the mayor of Seattle, thus she's quite busy with her job, to resentment from her teenage daughter Jos, who thinks she doesn't get any time with her.
- Persecution Flip: Much like in the book. As women learn of their newfound electricity power, they start to use this for fighting back against abuse, then inflicting it too.
- Women in highly partiarchal countries like Saudi Arabia start fighting back against oppression using it, despite this being banned. A young woman named Amal there having been beaten for this leads to a revolt by Saudi women, starting with one electrocuting a cop. Later another electrocutes a man (possibly her father, as he's older) trying to stop her being in a protest over Amal's beating. Saudi police shooting some of them makes others fight back lethally, electrocuting the cops. However, at first they show restraint when the police and soldiers are shamed into standing down rather than attacking them. Later though one tortures a wounded man using her power, with Tunde shocked as well after he tries to stop it. He's only saved from worse by Nourah claiming he's with her.
- Roxy, after threatening a bouncer at a nightclub, tells him to smile because he looks nicer when he smiles, clearly relishing being able to turn a common dismissive remark about women's looks upside-down.
- Pet the Dog: The heavily tattooed thugs in Carpathia give Tunde advice, and a pistol, without asking for any (additional) payment.
- Police Brutality: Saudi police open fire on local women protesting a woman's beating when they didn't pose an immediate threat. In this case, the women lethally fight back with their electrical powers, killing them. Later, they start beating protestors and threaten opening fire against them, but are shamed to stand down by one's mother.
- Power Incontinence: Initially, the newfound ability women and girls have is often uncontrolled by them, triggering without this being intended.
- Power Perversion Potential:
- Some young women soon discover use of the power in mildly stimulating the vagina can cause them to have sexual pleasure.
- Later we learn it can also enhance orgasm if a woman slightly uses this while having sex with a man (or, presumably, a woman).
- Queer Establishing Moment:
- Early on, Roxy is revealed to be attracted by women, kissing one while they have an intimate moment. Later it's shown she also likes men, having a threesome with a man and woman.
- Ryan reveals he has the skein to Jos, which is the result of him being intersex (as otherwise only cisgender women and girls are getting it then).
- Later Sister Maria reveals she's transgender to Eve. It also turns out she's got the power, which is implied to result from her estrogen treatment, showing at least some trans women are getting this too.
- Race Lift:
- Allie was said to be mixed race in the book, with her exact heritage unsaid. On the show she's clearly just black.
- Jos in the book was presumably white. Here, she's half Latino on her dad's side, with her last name changed to Cleary-Lopez in reflecting this.
- Rage Breaking Point: Tatiana finally erupts in anger after Viktor kicks her little dog Vadim. She snaps and beats Viktor to death for this.
- Reality Has No Subtitles: The Cleary-Lopez family members speak in Spanish sometimes that isn't always translated.
- Rebel Leader: Zoia, Tatiana's sister, is the leader of the women rebels in Carpathia, having previously led the revolt by her fellow sex slaves as well.
- The Runaway: Allie runs away after fending off attempted rape by her foster father and killing him, hitchhiking or walking as best she can to get away, learning she's wanted for questioning over his death as well.
- Ruritania: Carpathia is a stand-in for Moldova, being a poor Eastern European country with an authoritarian government and very patriarchal society that has the most sex trafficking of women in the world.
- Self-Immolation: At the end of "Sparklefingers" an anti-feminist man sets himself on fire after Margot announces her candidacy for US Senate, shocking and horrifying onlookers.
- Serial Rapist: The voice is confident that Mr. Montgomery, Allie's foster father, is one and he had raped many other girls he fostered before. Given he unhesitatingly tries to rape her, it's very probable.
- Setting Update: The original book came out in 2016. In the series, the COVID pandemic was mentioned as having occurred, setting it past 2019 and probably into the present day now.
- Sex Slave: Many women are trafficked for sex in Carpathia by gangsters. It's stated the country has the highest rates of sex trafficking in the world.
- Shell-Shocked Veteran: Roxy has traumatic flashbacks of her mom's death after this happens, breaking down and crying over it later in the next episode. She copes by using cocaine.
- Shock and Awe: Girls and women all over the world develop electricity based powers. Gradually they begin learning more uses for this, not only shocking people to harm them using it, but also mind control through manipulating the electricity in the nervous system. Some of them then even learn how to resurrect recently dead living beings through "jumpstarting" their electricity. At first, only young women or girls have the power. Before long though it's discovered older women have it dormant as well, which younger ones can spark in them. Later on Roxy finds she's capable of limited lightning blasts.
- Slave Liberation: Women held as sex slaves in Carpathia discover the power, killing their captors using it and then fleeing the area where they were being kept. The revolt spreads quickly, with more women doing this and before too long organizing themselves into rebel groups against their repressive patriarchal government.
- Supernaturally-Validated Trans Person: The show goes both ways on this. On the one hand, a male-identifying character develops the organ that allows women to project electricity because he's intersex. On the other hand, a trans woman taking estrogen develops the same organ.
- Sympathetic Murderer: Allie finishes off her foster father after she's already incapacitated him through an initial shock from her power, at the voice's urging. Since he had just tried to rape her and it's implied he's a serial rapist, she stays pretty sympathetic.
- Tattooed Crook: The Carpathian gangsters whom Tunde meets have many tattoos.
- Threeway Sex: Roxy has sex with Gabriel in "Just a Girl" and it turns out she'd also been with Becca, who's disappointed that they finished without her.
- Toplessness from the Back: Ndudi is shown this way while having sex with Tunde in "Sparklefingers". She's riding him with the covers around her waist while her back remains bare.
- Villain with Good Publicity: Mr. Montgomery, Allie's foster father, is an upstanding church member according to his wife and so far as the public overall know. Allie thus clearly realizes that saying he tried to rape her and this is why she killed him won't help, running away instead.
- We Have Become Complacent: Urbandox, an online anti-feminist, says men have grown weak due to quality of life improving, with women taking their "rightful" power away increasingly, and says it caused them evolving the skein. He calls on men to "retake" their power by any means necessary, and has a significant following.
- World of Action Girls: As women develop the skein around the world, it causes this increasingly since they learn how to use their electrical-generating ability as a weapon. Those in Saudi Arabia revolt first, then also the Carpathian women, as the skein becomes a potent equalizer (and soon a superior attribute).
- Wrong Genetic Sex: Due to his intersex condition, Ryan (though he appears outwardly male and identifies as a man) also has the skein, while otherwise it's only developed in women or girls (who are cisgender). It is then revealed in "The Shape of Power" that trans women (implied for only those on hormone therapy) can develop a skein.
