'Snowfall' Season 3 premiere 'Protect and Swerve' sees Franklin Saint pit against officer Wright in fight for neighborhood
This article contains spoilers for 'Snowfall' season 3 episode 1 'Protect and Swerve'
'Snowfall' season 3 picked up after where we left off at the season 2 finale - Franklin Saint (Damson Idris) realizes Reed Thompson (Carter Hudson) works for the government, and so his crew now works for them too. Police officer Andrew Wright (Marcus Henderson) cruises the neighborhood in his patrol car, giving us a view of how nothing has changed.
He walks in on an ongoing drug deal and comes face to face with the fact that there is very little he can do to change this neighborhood. The one that is rotting at the core because of addiction. Kids are now walking to Leon asking for an opportunity to sell rocks, begging for an opportunity more like and its understandable why Officer Wright would feel deflated.
Franklin and his family, on the other hand, have cause for celebration. Franklin, his partner and mother Cissy Saint (Michael Hyatt) have just finalized on a building they would like to buy. Franklin's uncle Jerome (Amin Joseph) and aunt Louie (Angela Lewis) are set for a new beginning - a club opening. Jerome, a black man owning a business in a Black neighborhood is a big deal and Franklin's father Alton (Kevin Carroll) is particularly proud.
Reed and Lorena (Adriana DeGirolami), on the other hand, are working together on something much bigger. They partner up and face Rigo, of the Medellin Cartel, only they are forced into a partnership to run a club with Rigo. Reed has to think ahead, and the fact that Jerome has already launched his club, in some way, indicates a conflict we are certain to see in the future. Trouble, as usual, doesn't stay too far behind in the lives of these people.
Levon and Dijon, two brothers who work for Manboy, who operates on the Eastside of the city, try to rob Franklin's operation, get shot at and are killed. Manboy comes over to Franklin's turf to talk it out, goads him into attacking but when that doesn't work, they ransack Jerome's club and destroy everything inside.
This is all Claudia Crane's (Judith Scott) plan to incite conflict feels aunt Louie, but is it really? Louie, in fact, wants to tell Claudia to let the past go and not hinder their project. But when she does face Claudia, there is not much that Louie seems capable of doing.
Amid all this, in a meeting with Reed, Franklin in a moment of frustration over the hike in the price of crack, mentions how he had assumed Reed would be immune to DEA's action against the Colombian cartel. Reed is surprised, no doubt, because clearly, it was not in his plans to let Franklin know of his affiliation to the government.
Reed also warns Franklin from going down further along his chain of thought. Between Jerome's club, the rising price of shipments and his own guilt for selling rocks, "something that does real damage out there," as Officer Wright says, there is a lot Franklin is dealing with at the moment.
Is it affecting him at all? Officer Wright asks him "How are you sleeping in the night son?" and he replies with a wide grin and says "Like a baby", and that's how he makes the officer one of his biggest enemies in the neighborhood. The fact that Franklin is deeply affected by what he does, but refuses to acknowledge its effects on the neighborhood, propels him further into the crack industry. This is also what will keep us invested in Franklin's journey this new season.
The first episode also additionally wants to demarcate how the black neighborhood in Los Angeles is split in two - with people like Franklin and his family trying to do the best with the cards they were dealt, making a good life for their family; and people like officer Wright, who are trying to live on the right side of law, pay their taxes and do right. Their world collides in two ways. First, with Franklin's on-again-off-again girlfriend Melody Wright, Officer Wright's daughter, and second when Officer Wright decides to go all out against Franklin and everyone he is in cahoots with.
If and how he manages that will be explored in the upcoming episodes. The second episode of 'Snowfall' will air July 17 at 10 pm ET on FX. The first episode was dedicated to the late creator and producer of the show, John Singleton.