Episode 5 ended on the note of Femi revealing himself to Wura as a blackmailer, a ticking time bomb. But in the episode after, we are first treated to the full gist of Olumide, nicknamed Cobra, notorious son to the late Pa Kuti and brother to Tumi, who accidentally upturned his father’s corpse from the coffin while trying to get away from some police officers. Labake talks to her son, Femi, about this incident though the latter does not seem to worry about what his mother considers an abomination.
It’s more worrisome, though, that the police are pointing accusing fingers at Mide for the hijacking of Mandy’s car. Now that he is at large, he must keep lying low until the heat cools off. But for how long can this young man keep away from the family that has showered him, immense love, in spite of his black-sheep behavior? Actually, not for so long. Soon, when Mide returns home, he is arrested and locked away; but this, too, doesn’t last as Tumi helps him to get free after meeting and pleading with Mandy. If blood isn’t thicker than water, then what else is? Let’s just say that every person deserves a perennially empathetic loved one like Tumi, a pillar of strength and hope when the chips are down.
Elsewhere, Femi has been up to more mischief. He’s irking the hell out of Wura’s life, and Jeje, already pushed beyond limits, is recommending to Wura a similar fate as Pa Kuti’s for Femi. We are easily reminded of the problem that comes with having a loosely protected bad secret: you might need another secret to protect the first one. That way, secrets keep piling up, and so does a chain of noxious acts overhang your neck, ready to pull you down at the slightest hint of incaution. However, at this point, Wura seems very reluctant to go down that pernicious lane. Instead, she welcomes Femi to the gold mine company in a supervisory role. Though the boy may be annoying, she feels highly disinclined to hurt him for the sake of Labake whose loyalty to her has always been unquestioned.
There’s the innocuous Dimeji, a worker at Frontline who has been secretly crushing on Tumi. Although unmentioned in last week’s review, Dimeji has been in action since the earlier episodes and was on good terms with Pa Kuti before his death. In episode 4, together with his colleagues, he discovered a piece of gold which he gave to Wura. Now, he is rewarded by Lolu for his contribution to that moment of revival and the rest of the workers are promised financial rewards after the sale of the gold.
Meanwhile, Mide is trying to redeem his image at home, and while his mother is slowly regaining his trust, it feels too early to trust Mide not to revert to his moral ambiguity. It is also ambitiously disastrous that a man, on the cusp of his youth, has no plans whatsoever concerning how to lead his family through their economic wilderness. People of Mide and Femi’s kind can easily be spotted in Lagos neighborhoods. You will often find them in beer parlors, pubs, hotels, etc., with gambling, womanizing, and unproductive chitchats being atop their priorities.
Another development is brought to the plot as Femi demands ten percent of the company’s monthly revenues. For Jeje, this is the last straw that breaks the camel’s back. Acting on Wura’s instruction, he starts to secretly monitor Femi’s movements and activities, hoping to discover the trusted friend in whose care Femi claims to have kept the envelope of Wura’s secrets. The queer situationship is discovered by Jeje who escalates the news to Wura. For now, Wura has been careful enough not to confront her son with the knowledge of his sexuality.
Still, in episode 10, Jeje searches Lolu’s room and finds the envelope with the missing earring inside. Now that they have retrieved this package, the only enemy and threat they must exterminate is the mischief maker himself, Femi. The young man is drugged and taken home while his mother is at the Adeleke’s, his unconscious body subjected to one of the possibly worst ways to die— a fire incident.
Meanwhile, suspicions are awakened when Tumi mistakenly finds a written note of her father and seems to take it as a clue. With Tumi opening a personal investigation into Pa Kuti’s death, we can only keep our fingers crossed in anticipation of when exactly Tumi will confront Wura. That would, of course, be gutsy, but Tumi hasn’t looked a tad intimidated by the opulence and grandiosity of the Adelekes.
Things appear to be taking a drastic turn for Labake after her house is razed and her son Femi is believed to have been killed. Wura opens up her affectionate and hospitable side: she will gift Labake a new apartment and will permit her to stay with them while she mourns her losses. At the end of episode 11, there is a silver lining, which mitigates the possibility of Femi’s death. It seems the show directors suddenly realized the need to keep him alive for as long as the plot was unwilling to suffer.
While recuperating, Femi stays away from family. Lolu locates him in the home of a friend, and the lovebirds seem to enjoy the brief moment of reunion. But more moments come along, and it turns out Femi has not learned his lesson the hard way. Or will there be a harder way to instill in the obdurate young man the bitter lesson of how not to toy with society’s high and mighty?
Wura— powerful, but not protected enough
Sometimes, it is difficult to believe Wura is the wife of a police commissioner when we barely see her in the company of police escorts, which makes her vulnerable as this casts doubts on the quality of her character. Also, instead of having Femi or Tumi and Mide barge into Wura’s office unannounced, perhaps the show directors should have introduced a front desk officer or receptionist, who would serve as an intermediary, bringing Wura and Jeje information about the presence of visitors beforehand. For a woman believed to own and run what is arguably the biggest gold mine in the country, her security circle is poor. The sight of only Jeje, doubling as PA and unofficial bodyguard, is insufficient and unpersuasive for a big Nigerian woman. It seems the only time when Wura really looks like a person privy to arbitrary authority is when she shows up at Pa Kuti’s burial flanked by Jeje and a policeman— though around that time, ironically, she struggles to overcome feelings of guilt that seem to detract from her confidence.
The “death” and resurrection of Femi
One moment, Femi is thought dead, the next moment–only a few scenes away from the first–he is confirmed alive. There could have been more time put in between these antithetical developments, and the revelation should have occurred rather gradually and with more suspense. It is also a puzzle how Femi survived the fire when it was glaring Jeje set him ablaze first before burning the entire building. If Femi truly survived the furnace, he should be in a more critical condition than how he is pictured after the incident. The show directors will need to fill this gap with plausible backstory, or else the film fails the verisimilitude test.
Is Jeje being used?
Jeje deserves more appreciation than he gets from the Adeleke household, and it is very easy to label him as an extended branch, an outlier. True, he enjoys the privileges, but he has also been the target of the police commissioner’s disparaging remarks few times. Remember, for instance, the scene from episode 2 where, after introducing Jeje to his friends, Tony adds (as translated from Yoruba), “he’s never enjoyed a good life until he started living with us”.
It seems the character also has a lot to be grateful for. As Wura reveals, he’s an ex-convict, though up till this point, we do not know the full gist of his backstory. The appalling thing, however, is Wura constantly pushing Jeje to clean up the mess caused by her, threatening to have the poor young man suffer a life of imprisonment should the big secret get spilled. Not that Jeje is a saint— of course, a man who recommends putting the blackmailer to death can’t be absolved of evil intent—but the character of Wura has helped to untame the beast in him. If this isn’t a matter of Jeje getting manipulated to the selfish advantage of his principal, what then is it?
Labake’s reaction to her son’s sexuality
Queer characters are more likely to be demonized by religious and conservative people. This is especially true in Nigeria where such people are wrongly treated as sub-humans and earmarked for exorcism. So, when Femi tells his mother his preference for a same-sex relationship and the religiously inclined Labake receives the information with calm, it is difficult to believe. One would expect her to have gone all “I rebuke the devil!” or “Blood of Jesus!”. For a while, we cannot reconcile this version of Labake with the same woman who nags almost every day about Femi’s indolence. Funny to also think this Labake, being the conservative she is, has been very critical of Mide’s behavior towards his father’s corpse. Her reaction to Femi’s queerness knowledge just didn’t stay consistent with the kind of personality she previously emitted.
Going forward
How far can Tumi and Mide go with the inquisition into their father’s death? How long would Femi continue to play his ignoble hide-and-seek game and where would this lead to? How much more do Dimeji and other supporting characters have to offer? And back to what is perhaps the scariest would-be revelation: how long would it take Tony to realize that his wife isn’t as pitch-perfect as he thinks outside their marital space?