Powers - 'The Raconteur of the Funeral Circuit'

Consequences.

In a break from action TV tradition, this episode of Powers deals with consequences. It also makes it clear that incidents like Wolfe's prison break are rare, as the Powers Division holds a wake for the fallen and tempers flare.

Walker is caught between the taste of his old powers and his role as a mundane officer, while some of those who lost partners start to talk about using the drainer to torture Wolfe, or to wipe out the Powers altogether. Meanwhile, Pilgrim's dad, a vice captain, uses the occasion to press the flesh and tell his old stories, acting the life and soul of the funeral while glossing over the parts of his anecdotes where he disappeared large sums of money while his partners' bodies were cooling because of his mistakes. And then there's Hartley, the Iron Man of the setting, getting drunk while he muses on the limits of the drainer. There's Retro Girl, classy and appropriate, and Zora, strictly there on her agent's advice.

Johnny tries to remove the Sway from one of the Simons, but another gives Calista a dose of Sway to unlock the powers she believes she has; whether from kindness or spite is unclear. Meanwhile, just outside the police station, Calista and Krispin - the weirdly preppy kid, who turns out to be the son of Zora's agent and Walker's deceased partner, so I did miss a bunch of stuff in episode 1 - tag the wall and film a car crash caused when a Power tries to stop them. Krispin's online anti-Powers buddy Kaotic Chick doctors the video to look like people were killed and uploads it, to Calista's anger.

Walker and Retro Girl pick Hartley off the floor of the Powers Division's drainer cage. Well into his cup, he tells them that something big is coming; something called Black Swan. Pilgrim breaks with her dad, and then Wolfe announces that he has repented, seeing his evil when his powers were taken, and wants to have them permanently removed.

'The Raconteur of the Funeral Circuit' plays to Powers' strengths, which is to say not showing much in the way of superpowers, but talking about their consequences.