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OPINION: The Tejada family matriarch, played vigorously by Mary J. Blige on the show “Power Book II: Ghost,” probably never gets Mother’s Day cards.
Editor’s note: The following article is an op-ed, and the views expressed are the author’s own. Read more opinions on theGrio.
Like many people in African America, I’m a huge fan of the Power Cinematic Universe. I watched every season of “Power” and cheered when James St. Patrick was shot by — spoiler alert — his son, Tariq St. Patrick, whom I hated with my whole heart. I, like many, hated Tommy Egan during the first season of “Power,” but by the show’s end, he was my favorite anti-hero and oddly the crew’s moral compass. I was invested. I watched (and will watch when it returns) “Power Book IV: Force” despite it not being very good, and I’m all in on “Power Book III: Raising Kanan,” probably the best spinoff series.
But most importantly, I watch “Power Book II: Ghost,” where Tariq goes to Ivy League-esque Stansfield and is somehow broke while wearing $1,000 outfits every single day. And I say “most importantly” because “Ghost” introduces us to the Tejada family, featuring husband Lorenzo Tejada, mother Monet Tejada and kids Cane, Dru and Diana. There is also cousin/son Zeke but we’ll get to him in a minute. The Tejadas are the head of a Queens, N.Y., drug empire. The reason I’m excited to have been introduced to the Tejadas is that Monet, played by Mary J. Blige, is the actual worst mother of all time. Whew, chile, is she horrible. Allow me to paint a picture.
Oh … all of the spoilers.
Monet — who is married to Lorenzo, who she has killed (we’ll get to that as well) — has a secret kid, Zeke, whom she had when she was like 16 years old but sent to live with her sister or somebody down South. Lorenzo doesn’t know this, by the way, hence the secret.
Zeke becomes an NBA prospect, and she brings him up to go to Stansfield University because she views Zeke as a way out of the game for the family. Because Zeke is supposed to be a shoo-in for the league, millions await them. So Monet brings her son whom everybody thinks is their cousin to New York City to use him to make millions but basically ends up getting him killed when Zeke’s daddy shows back up and Monet starts playing in his face like she really wants that old thang back. How does she get Zeke killed? By making her husband, Lorenzo, jealous enough to try to track down Monet’s old boo, Mecca, who comes back to New York from wherever he was to claim his family. Lorenzo kills both Mecca and Zeke in what is basically a fit of rage. So Monet gets her son killed. That’s bad enough. She ALSO kills her son’s inappropriate girlfriend, Professor Cari Milgram. She straight up hangs her. Oh, this is before she got her son Zeke killed.
So she brings her secret son to New York, ends up killing his boo and then ends up getting him killed. Sure, there’s some nuance here and ways we can just blame other people like Tariq, but the truth is Monet is the problem. Let’s dig deeper.
Monet and Lorenzo have three other kids. She finds out that Lorenzo accidentally killed Zeke and manipulates her son Dru’s boyfriend, Gordo, into killing Lorenzo. Lorenzo had Gordo’s father Frank killed because he was a snitch. Anyway, Monet gets Gordo to kill Lorenzo. So she has her OTHER children’s FATHER KILLED. By the way, the kids actually LOVED their father. But not only that, Dru finds out that Monet basically had Gordo kill his father and then Dru kills Gordo. MONET HAD DRU KILL THE MAN HE LOVES. If you’re keeping track, Monet has been responsible for the deaths of her son, her son’s girlfriend, her other son’s boyfriend, and her husband and has put the pieces all in play to make these things happen.
When her children confront her about what they know, SHE TRIES TO FIGHT THEM. Diana, her daughter who seriously was born into the wrong family, is pissed at her mother for her various manipulations and gets told by Monet that she can catch a beatdown. Monet is ready to beat Diana down. WHAT?!?!?!
This is just the main stuff, folks. Monet is terrible for many other reasons, but she has literally ruined all of her kids’ lives. Cane is the only one who isn’t entirely phased but he’s also kind of a psychopath and built for the drug-and-violence game. It is, for this reason, I don’t even know who might belong on this list of possible worst TV/movie mothers of all time, but one thing I’m sure of, Monet is at the top of that list.
Monet Tejada is the worst mother of all time.
Panama Jackson is a columnist at theGrio. He writes very Black things and drinks very brown liquors, and is pretty fly for a light guy. His biggest accomplishment to date coincides with his Blackest accomplishment to date in that he received a phone call from Oprah Winfrey after she read one of his pieces (biggest), but he didn’t answer the phone because the caller ID said: “Unknown” (Blackest).
Make sure you check out the Dear Culture podcast every Thursday on theGrio’s Black Podcast Network, where I’ll be hosting some of the Blackest conversations known to humankind. You might not leave the convo with an afro, but you’ll definitely be looking for your Afro Sheen! Listen to Dear Culture on TheGrio’s app; download it here.