Snowfall (TV series)

Snowfall
Genre	Crime drama Serial drama
Created by	John Singleton Eric Amadio Dave Andron
Starring	Damson Idris Carter Hudson Emily Rios Sergio Peris-Mencheta Michael Hyatt Amin Joseph Angela Lewis Juan Javier Cardenas Isaiah John Filipe Valle Costa Alon Aboutboul Malcolm Mays Marcus Henderson Kevin Carroll Devyn A. Tyler Gail Bean Alejandro Edda
Composer	Jeff Russo
Country of origin	United States
Original language	English
No. of seasons	6
No. of episodes	60
Production
Executive producers	Dave Andron Eric Amadio Trevor Engelson Michael London Thomas Schlamme John Singleton Leonard Chang
Producers	Nicolas Stern Julie DeJoie Evan Silverberg Karen Mayeda Vranek
Production location	Los Angeles, California
Cinematography	Robrecht Heyvaert (pilot) Jeffrey Greeley
Running time	41–58 minutes
Production companies	Shoe Money Productions Dave & Ron Productions New Deal Entertainment Groundswell Productions Underground Films FXP
Original release
Network	FX
Release	July 5, 2017 (2017-07-05) – April 19, 2023 (2023-04-19)

Snowfall is an American crime drama television series, created by John Singleton, Eric Amadio, and Dave Andron, that was first broadcast on FX on July 5, 2017. The series follows budding drug-dealer Franklin Saint (played by Damson Idris) as he navigates selling crack cocaine during the 1980s crack epidemic in South Central Los Angeles.

The series, which was first set up at Showtime in 2014, was picked up by FX for a ten-episode season in September 2016. In August 2017, the network renewed Snowfall for a second season, which premiered on July 19, 2018. In September 2018, the series was renewed for a third season, which premiered on July 10, 2019. In August 2019, FX renewed the series for a fourth season which was originally scheduled to premiere in 2020, but filming was temporarily suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The fourth season premiered on February 24, 2021. In March 2021, FX renewed the series for a fifth season which premiered on February 23, 2022. In April 2022, FX renewed the series for a sixth and final season which premiered on February 22, 2023, with the series finale airing on April 19, 2023.

Premise

Set in Los Angeles between the years 1983 and 1990, the series revolves around the first crack epidemic and its impact on the city, and the stories of several characters whose lives are fated to intersect: 20-year-old drug dealer Franklin Saint, Mexican luchador Gustavo "El Oso" Zapata, CIA operative Teddy McDonald, and a Mexican crime boss's niece, Lucia Villanueva.

Cast

Main

• Damson Idris as Franklin Saint, a young drug kingpin and patriarch of The Family, a crew of crack cocaine producers/dealers based in South Central Los Angeles.
• Carter Hudson as Theodore "Teddy" McDonald / Reed Thompson, a CIA operative working undercover for the American government in the war against communism in Nicaragua.
• Emily Rios as Lucia Villanueva (seasons 1–2), the daughter of a Mexican crime boss and heiress to the Villanueva Cartel, a Mexican drug cartel.
• Sergio Peris-Mencheta as Gustavo "El Oso" Zapata, a former Mexican luchador affiliated with the Villaneuva Cartel.
• Michael Hyatt as Sharon "Cissy" Saint, Franklin's mother and a veteran real estate agent.
• Amin Joseph as Jerome Saint, Franklin's OG uncle and a member of The Family who introduces him to dealing drugs.
• Angela Lewis as Louanne "Louie" Saint (née Jones), Jerome's girlfriend, and later wife, a former hustler, and member of The Family.
• Juan Javier Cardenas as Alejandro Usteves (season 1), a Nicaraguan Contra soldier and pilot who works with Teddy as a CIA asset by smuggling cocaine in order to fund a fight against the communists in Nicaragua.
• Isaiah John as Leon Simmons, Franklin's best friend and second-in-command of the Family who is affiliated with the PJ Watts Crips.
• Filipe Valle Costa as Pedro Nava (seasons 1–2), Lucia's cousin and a member of The Villanueva Cartel.
• Alon Aboutboul as Avi Drexler (Hebrew: אבי דרקסלר) (seasons 1–5), an Israeli druglord and the head of a powerful Israeli crime syndicate who is formerly affiliated with Mossad.
• Malcolm Mays as Kevin Hamilton (seasons 1–2), Franklin and Leon's best friend and a member of The Family.
• Marcus Henderson as Andre Wright (season 3; recurring season 1; guest season 2), a sergeant in the LAPD, Melody's father and Franklin's neighbor.
• Kevin Carroll as Alton Williams (season 4; recurring seasons 2–3; guest season 1), Franklin's estranged recovering alcoholic father and a former member of the Black Panthers.
• Devyn A. Tyler as Veronique Turner (seasons 5–6), Franklin's girlfriend and a former lawyer, now works for him as a real estate manager.
• Gail Bean as Wanda Simmons (née Bell) (season 6; recurring seasons 2–5), Leon's girlfriend, and later wife, who develops a strong addiction to crack cocaine.
• Alejandro Edda as Rubén (season 6; recurring season 5), a Cuban spy affiliated with the KGB who works with the Saints as part of a plan to eliminate Teddy.

Recurring

• Reign Edwards as Melody Wright (seasons 1–3; guest season 4), Franklin's on/off girlfriend and Andre's daughter.
• Peta Sergeant as Julia (seasons 1, 3; guest seasons 2, 5–6), Teddy's ex-wife, mother of their son Paul and a CIA agent.
• Nic Bishop as James Ballard (season 1; guest season 2), Teddy's first CIA handler.
• Judith Scott as Claudia Crane (seasons 1–2; guest season 3), the owner of a local nightclub and Louie's former lover.
• Moe Irvin as Santos (season 1; guest season 3), Claudia's head of security.
• Taylor Kowalski as Rob Volpe (seasons 1–3; guest seasons 4–5), Franklin's friend from high school, a crack bagger and a member of The Family.
• Carlos Linares as Mauricio Villanueva (season 1), Lucia's father and the patriarch of the Villanueva Cartel.
• José Zúñiga as Ramiro Nava (season 1), Lucia's maternal uncle and the second-in-command of the Villanueva Cartel.
• Tony Sancho as Eduardo "Stomper" Castillo (season 1; guest season 2), the leader of Los Monarcas, a Mexican street gang.
• Markice Moore as Ray-Ray (season 1; guest season 2), a reckless thief from Compton.
• Craig Tate as Lenny (season 1), a violent thief from Compton and Ray-Ray's friend.
• Justine Lupe as Victoria Grelli (season 1), a young woman who befriends Teddy whilst looking for her missing sister Kristen.
• Michael Ray Escamilla as Hernan Zapata (seasons 1, 3–4; guest season 2), Gustavo's brother who is confined to a wheelchair.
• Wade Allain-Marcus as Diego (season 2; guest seasons 1, 4), a co-leader of the Cali Cartel, a Colombian crime syndicate.
• Izzy Diaz as Danilo (season 2; guest seasons 1, 4), Diego's brother and a co-leader of the Cali Cartel.
• Jonathan Tucker as Matt McDonald (season 2; guest season 3), Teddy's older brother, a Vietnam War veteran and a pilot.
• DeRay Davis as DeJohn "Peaches" Hill (seasons 2–5; guest season 6), a Vietnam War veteran and enforcer for The Family.
• Adriana DeGirolami as Lorena Cardenas / Soledad Caro (seasons 2–3), Pedro's fiancé and an undercover DEA agent.
• Marcelo Olivas as Santiago "Conejo" Estrada (season 2), an OG soldado who works with Los Manarcas.
• Scott Subiono as Tony Marino (seasons 2–3, 6; guest seasons 4–5), a DEA Agent and Lorena's handler who works to stop the crack cocaine trade in Los Angeles.
• Matthew Alan as Stephen Havemeyer (seasons 3–4, 6; guest seasons 2, 5), Teddy's second CIA handler.
• Jordan Coleman as Thaddeus "Fatback" Barber (seasons 3–4), Leon's bodyguard and a member of The Family.
• Bentley Green as C.J. (seasons 3–4), an up-and-coming member of The Family.
• Melvin Gregg as Drew "Manboy" Miller (seasons 3–4), Franklin's associate and the leader of the Compton Crips.
• Calvin Clausell Jr. as Bootsy (season 3; guest season 4), the second-in-command of the Compton Crips.
• Christian Tappan as Rigo Vasco (season 3), a drug lord associated with the Medellín Cartel, a Colombian crime syndicate.
• Asjha Cooper as Eva Walker (season 3), one of Melody's best friends, and Leon's fling.
• Nate' Jones as Shon-Shon (season 3), another of Melody's best friends.
• Jesse Luken as Herb "Nix" Nixon (season 3; guest season 4), a rogue corporal in the LAPD and Andre's friend.
• Evan Allen-Gessesse as Renny (seasons 4–6; guest seasons 2–3), an enforcer for The Family.
• De'Aundre Bonds as Terrence "Skully" Brown (seasons 4, 6; guest seasons 3, 5), the OG Leader of the Inglewood Bloods.
• Corr Kendricks as Cornrows (season 4; guest seasons 3, 5), the second-in-command of the Inglewood Bloods.
• Suzy Nakamura as Irene Abe (season 4), a journalist working for the Los Angeles Herald Examiner who investigates the ongoing drug trade in Los Angeles.
• Stephen Ruffin as Wilson (season 4), Irene's assistant at the Los Angeles Herald Examiner.
• Kwame Patterson as Lurp (season 4), a freelancer, Franklin's bodyguard and a member of The Family.
• Geffri Maya as Khadijah Brown (season 4), Skully's wife, the mother of his daughter, Tianna Brown, and the sister of Manboy.
• Adrianna Mitchell as Tanosse (season 4), Franklin's ex-girlfriend from high school whom he reconnects with.
• Ezana Alem as Dimehead (season 4), a reckless member of the Compton Crips.
• Joey Marie Urbina as Xiamara (seasons 4–6), Nuvia's sister and later Gustavo's girlfriend.
• Christine Horn as Beverly "Black Diamond" Young (seasons 4–5; guest season 6), a bounty hunter and later an enforcer for The Family.
• Taylor Polidore as Dallas Ali (seasons 4–5; guest season 6), a bounty hunter, Black Diamond's partner, and later an enforcer for The Family.
• Quincy Chad as Deon "Big D" Barber (seasons 5–6; guest season 4), Fatback's cousin and the OG leader of the PJ Watts Crips.
• Kamron Alexander as Einstein (seasons 5–6; guest season 4), the brains behind Deon's Crip set.
• Brandon Jay McLaren as Beau Buckley (seasons 5–6), a dirty cop and a leading detective in the LAPD involved in the C.R.A.S.H. unit.
• DeLaRosa Rivera as Eddie Perez (season 5), a detective in the LAPD and Buckley's partner.
• Tiffany Lonsdale as Parissa (seasons 5–6), an Iranian surgeon and old acquaintance of Teddy.
• DeVaughn Nixon as Kane Hamilton (seasons 5–6), Kevin's OG older brother and a former shot caller for the Hoover Crips who, after being released from prison, plots revenge against The Family.
• Nupeir L. Garret as Ricky (seasons 5–6), Kane's second-in-command.
• Damien D. Smith as Top Notch (season 6; guest seasons 3–4), an old friend of Alton's and a private investigator with criminal connections.
• Danielle Larracuente as Amanda Guerrero (season 6), a DEA agent and part of Marino's team.
• Arsenio Castellanos as Oscar (season 6), a DEA agent and another member of Marino's team.
• Tamara Taylor as Cassandra Turner (season 6), Veronique's estranged mother and a con-artist who works with her daughter to recover Franklin's stolen money.

Guest

• Taylor Kowald as Kristen Grelli (season 1), Victoria's sister who is killed by Alejandro to cover loose ends.
• Jonathan Avigdori as Yuda (seasons 1–3), one of Avi's two bodyguards.
• Adam Karst as Muir (seasons 1–3, 5), another of Avi's two bodyguards.
• Mark Harelik as Arnold Tulfowitz (seasons 1, 3), Cissy's former employer and a corrupt real estate tycoon.
• Shaun McKinney as Karvel (seasons 1, 3), a sadist, ruthless gangster and member of The HTB Western Tribe.
• Zabryna Guevara as Elena Usteves (seasons 1–2), Alejandro's wife and the leader of a Contra cell in Nicaragua.
• Frank Merino as Guillermo "Memo" Mendoza (seasons 1–2), an enforcer for Los Monarcas.
• Stephanie Nash as Gladys Warren (seasons 1–2), Teddy's assistant at the CIA.
• Adriana Barraza as Mariela Villanueva (seasons 1, 3), Lucia's mother and the matriarch of the Villanueva Cartel.
• Manuel Uriza as Miguel Villanueva (seasons 2–3), Lucia's paternal uncle who is a private investigator.
• Alanna Ubach as Gabriella Elias (season 2), the leader of La Fuerza, a high-ranking gang in the Mexican Mafia.
• Herve Clermont as Stern (seasons 2–6), a Detective in the LAPD Homicide Division.
• Hector Hugo as Muñoz Avilés (seasons 2–3), Stern's partner and a Detective in the LAPD Homicide Division.
• John Diehl as Colonel Robert McDonald (seasons 3–4, 6), Teddy and Matt's estranged father.
• Sabina Zúñiga Varela as Nuvia Zapata (seasons 3–4), Hernan's step wife.
• Ariel Eliaz as Lior (seasons 3–4, 6), an enforcer for Avi's Crew.
• Antonio Jaramillo as Oscar Fuentes (season 4), the corrupt police chief of the Tijuana Police Department.
• Jeremiah Birkett as John Baxter (season 4), a homeless crack cocaine addict and single father at Alton's homeless shelter.
• Brent Jennings as Henry Nelson (season 4), Irene's ex-husband and an independent journalist.
• Steven Williams as Paul Davis (seasons 4, 6), a real estate tycoon with political ties.
• Troy Blendell as Charlie Cass (season 4), the acting Editor-in-chief at the Los Angeles Herald Examiner.
• James Moses Black as Brother Jamal (season 4), the radio talk show host for CO-INTELPRO.
• David Sullivan as Grady Williamson (season 5), a CIA agent who replaces Teddy as the CIA plug.
• Benjamin Earl Turner as Maurice (seasons 5–6), an amateur rapper who lives in the projects overseen by the PJ Watts Crips.
• Santiago Veizaga as Clever (season 5), a young gangbanger in Bell Gardens.
• Raymond J. Barry as Old Man James (season 5), an elderly man who collects hunting trophies and keeps a pet tiger at his house in Bell Gardens.
• Jon Root as William Cox (seasons 5–6), an accountant hired by Teddy to set up untraceable bank accounts.
• Darin Cooper as Jacob (seasons 5–6), a KGB agent and Rubén's handler.
• Aaron Bledsoe as Todd (season 6), a cookhouse manager for Kane's crew.
• Omar Dorsey as Clyde (season 6), an old friend of Jerome's who runs an auto repair shop.
• Page Kennedy as Percy (season 6), a pimp who specialises in torturing people for information.
• Max Arciniega as Miguel Flores (season 6), a professional locksmith hired by Franklin.

Episodes

Series overview

Season	Episodes		Originally aired
			First aired	Last aired
1	10		July 5, 2017 (2017-07-05)	September 6, 2017 (2017-09-06)
2	10		July 19, 2018 (2018-07-19)	September 20, 2018 (2018-09-20)
3	10		July 10, 2019 (2019-07-10)	September 11, 2019 (2019-09-11)
4	10		February 24, 2021 (2021-02-24)	April 21, 2021 (2021-04-21)
5	10		February 23, 2022 (2022-02-23)	April 20, 2022 (2022-04-20)
6	10		February 22, 2023 (2023-02-22)	April 19, 2023 (2023-04-19)

Season 1 (2017)

No. overall	No. in season	Title	Directed by	Written by	Original air date	Prod. code	U.S. viewers (millions)
1	1	"Pilot"	Adil El Arbi & Bilall Fallah	Dave Andron & Eric Amadio & John Singleton	July 5, 2017 (2017-07-05)	XNF01001	1.36
In Los Angeles, June 1983, nineteen year-old Franklin Saint sells marijuana for his uncle Jerome. His favorite wrestler, Gustavo "El Oso" Zapata, works a side job as an enforcer for the Mexican Villanueva Cartel, and is tasked with burglarizing a house by his contact, Pedro Nava. A man enters in the middle of the robbery, and Gustavo accidentally kills him in a struggle. After CIA agent Logan Miller dies of a cocaine overdose, Contra soldier Alejandro Usteves approaches Miller's coworker Theodore "Teddy" McDonald and asks him to pick up his job of moving cocaine. Franklin's friend and customer Robert "Rob" Volpe asks him to get him cocaine from Israeli drug lord Avi Drexler, who gives him a kilogram to sell within a day. Jerome refuses to help Franklin for fear of his nephew's safety, but his girlfriend Louanne "Louie" Jones overhears them and introduces Franklin to nightclub owner Claudia Crane. He convinces her not to kill them by citing his connection with Avi, and she buys the cocaine on the condition that he brings her more. As he and Louie drive away, he notices his homeless, alcoholic father Alton Williams walking down the street, but refuses to speak to him.
2	2	"Make Them Birds Fly"	Adil El Arbi & Bilall Fallah	Dave Andron & Eric Amadio & John Singleton	July 12, 2017 (2017-07-12)	XNF01002	0.965
Gustavo learns that the man he killed worked for Pedro's father Ramiro, and that he stole from Ramiro's house. Pedro and his cousin, Villanueva heiress Lucia, stole so they could buy cocaine and start their own business. Pedro claims to Ramiro that the dead man was conspiring to rob him, so he kills the man's brother and demands the return of the money. Teddy bungles his and Alejandro's deal with Avi, but successfully sells cocaine to Gustavo and Lucia. Avi has Franklin dump one of his wounded men at a hospital before he can receive more cocaine. His crush and next door neighbor Melody Wright finds it, but he brushes her off. He sells it to Claudia, but is brutalized and mugged by rival dealers while leaving for taking away her business from them.
3	3	"Slow Hand"	Dan Attias	Leonard Chang	July 19, 2017 (2017-07-19)	XNF01003	1.05
Franklin gets the names of the muggers from Claudia: Compton-based Lenny and Ray-Ray. While picking up a shipment of rocket launchers with Alejandro, Teddy notices U.S. serial numbers on them and worries that they could be traced back to the CIA. He and Alejandro grind them off manually, but he is called away by his agent wife Julia, who has discovered what he is doing. She is unable to get him to step away, and he returns to find that an annoyed Alejandro has left and taken the launchers. Gustavo, Lucia and Pedro agree on who should be framed for the robbery and Gustavo is sent to kill him, but he is unable to after seeing the man living peacefully with his boyfriend. They select another target and stake out his home. Franklin takes his friend Leon Simmons to Compton, where they enlist local man Karvel to help find the thieves. He leads them to Lenny's house and they break in, but he still refuses to give up the money. Karvel beats and rapes him until he gives up, and Karvel takes the money for himself. Franklin asks Jerome for a gun, which he reluctantly hands over.
4	4	"Trauma"	Hiro Murai	Emily Grinwis	July 26, 2017 (2017-07-26)	XNF01004	1.00
The man nearly kills Lucia in the struggle and Pedro freezes, but Gustavo narrowly saves her life and kills him. While Pedro convinces Ramiro that the man was the robber, Gustavo and Lucia bond. Teddy tracks Alejandro to his Contra camp in Nicaragua so they can finish removing the serial numbers. He becomes friendly with a young boy, only to realize that he is an FSLN spy. Alejandro's wife Elena kills the boy when Teddy informs her. While Alejandro leaves to go drop off cocaine, Elena gives Teddy a photo of their family to give Alejandro, asking him to pass along the message "don't forget." Franklin and Leon go to Karvel's house and find that he has used the money to buy a new car. They kidnap him and try to give the car to Avi as payment, who refuses to take it and advises them to kill Karvel and bury him in the Mojave Desert. Karvel breaks out of the trunk as they drive and flees into the wilderness. They find him by following his blood trail, but Franklin is disturbed by Karvel asking them to spare him and Leon kills him instead. Franklin sells his motorbike and Karvel's car to pay Avi back, but rejects Avi's offer of more cocaine and decides to stop selling.
5	5	"seven-four"	Lawrence Trilling	Jerome Hairston	August 2, 2017 (2017-08-02)	XNF01005	1.01
On the Fourth of July, Teddy and Alejandro's plane breaks down in a Mexican desert, and Alejandro is rendered unconscious from a head injury. He eventually wakes up and flies them back to the U.S., while Teddy gives him the photo. Pedro sets Gustavo up in a meeting with Ramiro and Lucia's father Mauricio, and Gustavo tells Lucia he can bring someone who they can sell to so long as he is brought into the operation as a full partner. Franklin learns that Alton is in jail and bails him out, so he comes uninvited to Jerome's holiday party and reveals to Franklin that he knows he is selling drugs. The police arrive when Jerome sets off fireworks and almost choke Franklin out, and Alton slips away without bothering to help. Franklin asks his friend Kevin Hamilton if he can borrow his aunt's car so he can drive to Avi's.
6	6	"A Long Time Coming"	Michael Lehmann	Tatiana Suarez-Pico	August 9, 2017 (2017-08-09)	XNF01006	0.845
Lenny and Ray-Ray stalk Franklin as he goes back to selling cocaine with Leon and Kevin, and Melody's police officer father Andre unwittingly saves their lives when he notices the two sitting outside Franklin's house. Teddy goes to D.C. to ensure a shipment of guns to the Contras gets to them without issue and has sex with Julia despite their recent estrangement, and she warns him not to hide any more of the truth from her. Gustavo takes Lucia to his estranged paraplegic brother Hernan and asks to meet with Eduardo "Stomper" Castillo, the boss of his former gang, Los Monarcas. When a Monarca hits on Lucia at the meeting and Gustavo steps in, he is challenged to a fight and wins, impressing Stomper and getting him to agree to their terms. Franklin meets with an ex-drug dealer associate of Jerome's, who he pays for the location of the Monarcas so he can sell to them. The gang tries to rob Franklin but Gustavo rescues him when he recognizes him as a fan. He thanks Gustavo and offers him his services should he ever need anything. Teddy notices Alejandro staring at a missing poster for a woman named Kristen Grelli, who he admits he killed along with two others for being present the night Miller died.
7	7	"Cracking"	Zetna Fuentes	Aaron Slavick	August 16, 2017 (2017-08-16)	XNF01007	0.814
Pedro observes Gustavo and Lucia having sex and later expresses annoyance at her setting up a deal without him. He later asks to talk to Ramiro. Alejandro and Teddy trace the number on Kristen's poster to her apartment where they spot her sister Victoria, who put up the poster. Teddy finds Victoria at a police station and pretends to be a concerned friend of one of the women. Kevin takes Franklin and Leon to Oakland to meet with his cousin, part of a motorcycle club, to set up a deal with the club's boss. Tired of waiting for the boss at the club's party, Franklin wanders the neighborhood and comes across a decrepit Black Panthers building that Alton used to work in. He finds a woman smoking crack inside, and, intrigued, asks to meet her dealer. He pays the dealer to be introduced to the cooks, who let him watch as they take his cocaine and cook it into crack. He returns to the party to find that Leon and Kevin were thrown out after he missed the deal. When they ask why he missed it, he shows them the crack, claiming it is "our future."
8	8	"Baby Teeth"	Solvan "Slick" Naim	Story by : Margaret Rose Lester Teleplay by : Emmy Grinwis & Sal Calleros	August 23, 2017 (2017-08-23)	XNF01008	0.847
Franklin convinces Leon, Kevin and Jerome to distribute crack for free to get people interested, but has a fight with Leon over payment. He and Kevin find that they have a horde of customers waiting to buy the next day. Teddy beats up a man who tries to extort Victoria over Kristen's last known location, a nightclub. They go and get Alejandro's address from a waitress, but Teddy fakes being drunk to stall for time. When they arrive at the address, an agent he called at the club pretends to be the homeowner and orders them to leave. Lucia visits a dying Mauricio, while Ramiro tells her that he knows about their operation as well as Gustavo killing his men. Lenny shoots Leon when he goes to Franklin's house to try and make amends, and Franklin finds him and calls 911. Leon urges him to hide the crack, and he takes it to Melody's and hides it in her closet while she is out.
9	9	"Story of a Scar"	Meera Menon	Leonard Chang & Jerome Hairston	August 30, 2017 (2017-08-30)	XNF01009	0.914
Franklin returns home from the hospital to find his mother Sharon "Cissy" Saint waiting for him. She accuses him of selling marijuana for Jerome and kicks him out, while he learns from Leon that Lenny shot him. He gets the crack from Melody's closet, leaving her outraged that he put her at risk. Lucia tells Gustavo that Ramiro will let them operate independently so long as they stop doing business with the Monarcas and he is killed, but instead tries to give him money to leave town. He rejects it and convinces Stomper to plan an attack on the cartel. After the Contra camp is raided, Alejandro meets with the Cali Cartel in hopes of getting a new cocaine supplier. Teddy learns that Victoria has a picture of Alejandro taken by the club's photographer. Lucia realizes that Ramiro is setting her up to be replaced as Pedro gets a call from Mauricio's house. She and Ramiro find him having succumbed to his illness. Franklin gets Claudia to set up a meeting with Ray-Ray on the condition that he gets Louie to agree to see her, the two of them being on and off lovers. He and Ray-Ray meet, agree on something, and part ways.
10	10	"The Rubicon"	John Singleton	Dave Andron	September 6, 2017 (2017-09-06)	XNF01010	0.854
Jerome requests to be brought into the business for half the profits, but Franklin reminds him that he turned him down at first and agrees on twenty-five percent. He returns home to get his things and learns that Cissy has been fired from her job, trying to pay her and leaving drug money on the table when she rejects it. Avi raises the price on cocaine when Jerome tries to get him to lower it, and he suggests to Franklin that they get someone to follow whoever sells to Avi. Alejandro wants to kill Victoria, but Teddy asks him to leave town until he shuts down the investigation. He discovers some of his tools missing and rushes to Victoria's house, where he finds Alejandro cutting up her body and kills him. He asks his supervisor James Ballard to let him out of the operation, but learns that the Contras are back up and running and that Ronald Reagan is impressed with his work. He meets with the sibling captains of the Calis, Diego and Danilo, and agrees to move cocaine for them. Realizing that she will never be respected in the cartel as a woman, Lucia goes to Gustavo and asks him to go through with the attack at Mauricio's funeral. At the funeral, her mother Mariela informs her that Mauricio was not put off by her being a woman, but instead intimidated by her ambition. The Monarcas arrive and kill Ramiro. Ray-Ray brings Lenny to a field where Franklin is waiting for him, and he forces Ray-Ray at gunpoint to kill Lenny. Rob follows Teddy after he sells cocaine to Avi. Franklin and his crew, now "The Family", purchase a house and begin to cook out of it.

Season 2 (2018)

No. overall	No. in season	Title	Directed by	Written by	Original air date	Prod. code	U.S. viewers (millions)
11	1	"Sightlines"	Dan Attias	Dave Andron	July 19, 2018 (2018-07-19)	XNF02001	1.16
Four months later, Avi and Leon are arrested during a buy. Leon's bail bondsman and his brother are killed by Jerome's veteran bodyguard, DeJohn "Peaches" Hill, when they break into his house (where Franklin now lives) because of how easily he paid Leon's bail. After the Calis are late to a drop, two of Gustavo and Lucia's runners quit, forcing them to do business with another gang. They demand Lucia prove the crack's quality, and she smokes it in front of them. She meets with the gang's leader, Gabriella Elias, and convinces her to work with them, and later discovers Pedro, missing since Ramiro's murder, in their stash house. With Congress refusing to fund the Contras, Ballard informs Teddy that he needs to up his cocaine distribution. He convinces his veteran brother Matt to act as a pilot for the operation, and gets the files on Avi and Leon's arrest, getting a picture of Franklin from them. He follows Franklin as he leaves Jerome's house, running his car off the road and tasing him.
12	2	"The Day"	Sunu Gonera	Leonard Chang	July 26, 2018 (2018-07-26)	XNF02002	0.888
Pedro explains that he fled because he thought he was going to be killed after Ramiro, and met a woman, Soledad Caro. He asks to return to the operation, but Lucia, uncomfortable with Soledad knowing their business, tries to get him to leave. Franklin awakens tied up with Leon, who Teddy also kidnapped. After verifying that Leon was bailed out instead of flipping on Avi to the police, he reveals that he caught Rob following him and asks how The Family works. Franklin explains the crack market, and Teddy agrees to sell cocaine to Franklin. Teddy drives him home, and Franklin warns him never to endanger him or his people again before announcing to The Family that they are moving to the "big leagues." Lucia gives two Family dealers, one of them Kevin's cousin Delroy, her number to pass along to Franklin. At a meeting with Stomper, she mentions where she saw them. Realizing that they are selling on his territory, Stomper sends his man Santiago "Conejo" Estrada to murder the dealers. Franklin visits Cissy, who tells him he is only allowed home when he stops selling. He visits Melody and apologizes for hiding crack in her closet. She accepts his apology and invites him in.
13	3	"Prometheus Rising"	Alex Graves	Walter Mosley	August 2, 2018 (2018-08-02)	XNF02003	0.930
At a pickup with the Calis, Diego and Danilo are late, and Teddy's aggressive attitude almost gets Matt killed. The brothers arrive and ask Teddy and Matt to take twice the weight for the last missed drop. They give them a list of demands and Matt agrees despite Teddy's objections. Kevin rallies Jerome and Leon after learning about Delroy, but Franklin stops them and calls Lucia, arranging a meeting with her. She refuses to give him Conejo's name, but promises to try and make a deal for compensation, leaving Kevin enraged. Rob notes that with Avi in jail, the Valley is an untapped market and offers to start selling, which Franklin agrees to. Melody visits Franklin to have sex, but they are interrupted by Andre knocking on Jerome's door, having noticed the bondsman's car parked down the street and warning him to stay away from Melody. Franklin returns to her, but she is no longer in the mood, having heard everything. Police beat up Alton when he refuses to leave a homeless camp.
14	4	"Jingle Bell Rock"	Deborah Chow	Emmy Grinwis	August 9, 2018 (2018-08-09)	XNF02004	0.975
On Christmas Eve, Cissy reluctantly brings Alton home from the hospital. Louie leaves The Family after an argument with Jerome. Teddy gets Franklin set up with a bank to help with money laundering and learns that the city is digging up Prado Regional Park for the upcoming Olympics. He takes Matt to dig up Victoria and Alejandro's bodies, which are buried there. Noticing how disturbed Matt is, he offers to let him leave the operation. After two Family dealers are mugged, Franklin learns from Jerome that dissent is growing amongst his men. He takes them to Claudia's for a night of partying, where he spots Louie with her and fails to convince her to return. He again argues with Kevin about finding Conejo, and learns that Kevin unauthorizedly took money from The Family to give to Delroy's family. Soledad stands up to INS agents that raid the stash house and gets them to leave, impressing Lucia. She later meets with DEA agent Tony Marino, her real name actually Lorena Cardenas, and he praises her for her good work in the staged raid. The next day, Teddy wakes up to find Matt is still there, and Franklin leaves Cissy a statue he took from the bank before going to run the cook house alone.
15	5	"Serpiente"	Solvan "Slick" Naim	Sal Calleros	August 16, 2018 (2018-08-16)	XNF02005	0.923
Avi is released from prison. Despite Teddy's warnings that he will be upset, Franklin demands they go to meet him together, not trusting Teddy to not sell him out. Avi is enraged to find that Teddy is now supplying for Franklin and stops working with the latter. Teddy deals with Avi to get untraceable guns from Panama. Alton approaches Franklin after learning that Cissy is having financial troubles, but he assumes Alton to be untrustworthy and goes to her, appalled that they are living together. She claims that she is happy with Alton and does not need Franklin's help. Gustavo's palm reader warns him that there is a "serpent" in his life. The Monarcas arrive to drop off their drugs and Stomper mocks Pedro for Ramiro's murder. When Gustavo steps in, Stomper threatens him, and Gustavo kills him when he notices a snake tattoo on his arm. Cardenas kills Stomper's men, and Lucia is shot in the shoulder during the struggle. Lucia later orders Gustavo to stop all shipments, having deduced from the way Cardenas shot the men that she is law enforcement. As they realize that she is building a case against them, Gustavo wonders if Pedro knows who she is.
16	6	"The Offer"	Michael Lehmann	Janine Salinas Schoenberg & Aaron Slavick	August 23, 2018 (2018-08-23)	XNF02006	0.822
Cardenas convinces Marino to give her two more days to get Teddy and Matt before Lucia and Gustavo are arrested. She and Pedro, actually an informant, stake out Teddy's office. Teddy buys the guns from a Panama City kingpin before meeting with Elena to finalize their weapons deal. He and Matt drink together, arguing about their absent mother and tough father Robert. Upon returning to L.A., Teddy notices Cardenas's car and leads her away, getting Matt to write down her license plate before evading her. Franklin learns that Alton is being sued by the LAPD for assault, but refuses to sign the forms that will keep him out of jail. Rob's father steals two kilograms from his son and sells them, but Rob stops Jerome from beating him up by offering to pay for the loss himself. Franklin gives Alton the signed paperwork and hires a lawyer for him, warning him to do right by Cissy. Gabriella, also in control of the Monarcas, meets with Lucia about Stomper's disappearance and quickly deduces the truth through her shoulder wound. Lucia promises to hand over the recipe for crack in exchange for her life. She and Gustavo meet with Franklin, offering him Conejo and payment for the recipe, but he refuses. They track down Kevin and offer him Conejo, a consistent cocaine supply, and finanically covering his family for the recipe, giving him Lucia's number.
17	7	"The World Is Yours"	Clark Johnson	Dave Andron & Aziza Barnes	August 30, 2018 (2018-08-30)	XNF02007	0.815
Franklin catches Leon's girlfriend Wanda Bell selling stolen crack at a party and orders Leon to take her out of The Family. Franklin pays off Cissy's mortgage against her will. Claudia notices Louie trying to run the club herself and viciously insults her in front of guests, leading to an argument that turns physical and ends with Claudia unconscious. Louie calls Jerome and he takes her back in. Teddy runs Cardenas's plates and learns that she is DEA. Avi demands money for the guns he has already gotten from the Panamanians, but it is in Teddy's monitored office. When he and Matt go to drop cocaine for Lucia, the Calis, believing they are trying to flee, take Matt hostage until they get their money. Gustavo and Lucia take Kevin to the park where Conejo is allowed to see his daughter under the terms of his custody, and Kevin gives them the recipe. With her two days up, Marino orders Cardenas to arrest Lucia and Gustavo. Lucia holds a gun on Pedro and gets him to admit that he is an informant and that he worked with her to bring the operation down as revenge for Ramiro's murder. She shoots him when he brings up her dead sister, and accuses her of becoming what Mauricio feared as he dies.
18	8	"Surrender"	Logan Kibens	Leonard Chang	September 6, 2018 (2018-09-06)	XNF02008	0.752
Gustavo is arrested by the DEA. Lucia gives the recipe to Gabriella and allows herself to be arrested, refusing to leave town without him. Teddy goes to D.C. looking for Ballard so he can get the DEA off his back, but finds that he was fired. He fails to get Julia, the two of them now divorced, to take over Ballard's position. He convinces agent Stephen Havemeyer to take over in exchange for giving up Diego and Danilo. Jerome convinces Louie that they can fix their relationship. Franklin buys Kevin and Leon new houses, but Kevin is appalled to discover that the houses are registered in Franklin's name and tells Leon that Franklin knew who killed Delroy the entire time. Addicted to crack and wanting more, Wanda robs the cook house, and Leon ties her up in his house until she cleans up. Kevin goes missing and Leon mentions their conversation, and Franklin realizes he gave Lucia the recipe and is going to kill Conejo. He calls Lucia while she is trying to sell out Matt and Teddy, and Cardenas has her tell him where Kevin is going so they can catch Franklin. Franklin and Leon arrive at the same time as Kevin and Franklin tries to stop him, blaming Delroy for his own death. Kevin calls him "a traitor to your people" and Franklin shoots him in the leg when he fires at Conejo, which Cardenas witnesses. Conejo sees Lucia in Cardenas's car as he flees.
19	9	"Aftermath"	Sunu Gonera	Story by : Emmy Grinwis Teleplay by : Sal Calleros	September 13, 2018 (2018-09-13)	XNF02009	0.855
While the Calis force Matt to do large amounts of cocaine, Avi busts into his house to get his money. His men and the Calis come to an understanding and party together, and the police come to investigate a noise complaint. Matt refuses them entry and Teddy arrives just as they arrest him, freeing him and finally getting the money from his office to pay Avi and the Calis. Matt collapses from the cocaine. Lucia identifies Franklin to Cardenas. The CIA shuts down the investigation into Teddy and Matt, redirecting the DEA towards the Calis. Marino releases Lucia and Gustavo, but Cardenas refuses to give up her pursuit. She approaches Teddy, who offers to explain everything. Lucia is attacked by Conejo, believing her to be responsible for the attack, but Gustavo fights him off despite being badly wounded. Detectives inform Cissy that Franklin is wanted for Kevin's shooting, and she storms over to Jerome's to look for her son. She blames him for Franklin turning out the way he did, but he argues that all of the adults he grew up with are to blame. Andre learns from the detectives that they are after Franklin. Leon returns home to find Wanda has escaped, while Jerome and Louie offer to send Franklin away after learning Cardenas saw Kevin bleed to death. Franklin takes the offer and goes home, promising Cissy that when he returns, he will give up selling for her. Having suspected Franklin would go to Cissy, Andre sends the police to the house and they arrest Franklin as Cissy promises she loves him.
20	10	"Education"	John Singleton	Dave Andron	September 20, 2018 (2018-09-20)	XNF02010	0.783
Cardenas identifies Franklin as Kevin's killer and he is placed in a county jail. At his arraignment, he is denied bail and transferred to a detention facility until his trial in a few months. Ray-Ray, also in the facility, beats him. Leon visits and encourages him to "show them who the fuck you is." After Alton visits him and tries to offer advice, an enraged Franklin rejects him and beats up an inmate who stole his shoes. When he is released from solitary confinement, he threatens Ray-Ray's family, getting him to back off. Teddy explains what he does to Cardenas and convinces her that the war on drugs is futile. He asks her to wait until the Contras win their war, and then he will hand over everyone he did business with. Franklin sends Louie to meet with Teddy and ask him to get Cardenas to recant her statement. After Cardenas agrees to help him sell cocaine, he asks her to recant and she reluctantly does. Upon release, Franklin pays Avi a large sum to get back in his good graces and meets with Teddy at Kevin's grave, claiming his mistake was that he gave Kevin too much power and that he needs to be stricter. He and Teddy confirm they are back in business, and later, Franklin realizes Teddy works for the government.

Season 3 (2019)

No. overall	No. in season	Title	Directed by	Written by	Original air date	Prod. code	U.S. viewers (millions)
21	1	"Protect and Swerve"	Dan Attias	Dave Andron	July 10, 2019 (2019-07-10)	XNF03001	0.997
Five months later, Cissy, backed by Franklin, tries to get into the real estate market by bidding on an apartment. Teddy's new supplier, Medellín Cartel head Rigo Vasco, requests that he helps him open a nightclub. Matt has a heart attack and Teddy takes him back to Robert's home in Kansas City. When he tries to give them money, Robert rejects it. He tracks Gustavo to Tucson and asks him to help move cocaine, claiming it might get him closer to finding Lucia, who has gone missing. Jerome's new speaker store is ransacked and Louie learns through her police contact that Claudia was responsible. Instead of telling him, she goes to Claudia, who asks her to inject her with crack while she is bathing. She later returns to Jerome in distress. Three Crips try to rob a Family distribution truck with information supplied by Wanda, but two are killed by Leon and Family man Thaddeus "Fatback" Barber. Their leader, Drew "Manboy" Miller, goes to Franklin and offers to buy and distribute their crack. Leon tracks down the third robber and kills him. Disturbed by the way crack is destroying his neighborhood, Andre meets with Franklin, who tries to convince him to join him. When Franklin claims he does not care about the effects of crack, Andre vows to destroy him.
22	2	"The More You Make"	Tanya Hamilton	Leonard Chang	July 17, 2019 (2019-07-17)	XNF03002	0.698
Claudia is found dead in her bathtub and Andre arrests Louie. He tries to coax her into confessing to killing Claudia, but makes a mistake by claiming the crime had a witness, leading her to realize he is bluffing. Her lawyer frees her, and Andre tells his captain about the recent outbreak of crack. Manboy buys crack from Franklin and promises to not sell on his territory, and he meets with Avi to talk about offshore banking. Gustavo and Teddy meet with Mariela and get permission to use Villanueva resources to move cocaine. Gustavo stays to negotiate percentages, and admits that he and Lucia were in love but she vanished after treating the wounds he sustained fighting Conejo. The Sandinistas begin hijacking shipments of weapons to the Contras, so Julia informs Teddy she will be helping him run guns through Costa Rica. Cardenas tells Marino that she plans to take down the Villanuevas using Teddy's new alliance. Franklin holds a Family meeting and asks them to start giving cocaine to a handful of distributors, as he plans to start directly selling to only a few high-level clients.
23	3	"Cash and Carry"	Alonso Alvarez	Walter Mosley	July 24, 2019 (2019-07-24)	XNF03003	0.696
Avi takes Franklin to Panama City so he can deposit his money in a bank. He seduces a local woman and finds that Avi is stalling on depositing, so he has her deposit his money in a local bank. He gets Avi to admit that he is losing money to the Israeli government over blackmail and cannot pay the Panamanians, so he was trying to get Franklin comfortable so he could borrow money. Franklin points out that if any of his men tried this, he would kill them, but gives him a loan with interest. Teddy and Julia go to Costa Rica to meet with a Contra leader, who requests that they drink drug-laced tea as part of a ritual. They do, and have sex under its influence. Leon discovers that Wanda is having sex with Manboy and his men for crack when he goes to drop off cocaine, starting a fight. Louie makes the drop in his stead, but orders Manboy to get rid of Wanda if they want to keep doing business after she mocks Claudia's death. He kicks Wanda out and almost kills her when she insults him. Gustavo and Mariela's truck full of cocaine breaks down, and she kidnaps a police officer so they can use his vehicle to jumpstart theirs. Gustavo spares his life against Mariela's orders, and upon arriving at Teddy's drop point, they find that he has sent Cardenas to pick up the drugs. Gustavo kills her.
24	4	"The Game That Moves As You Play"	Logan Kibens	Story by : Gary Phillips & Natalia Mejia Teleplay by : Gary Phillps & Natalia Mejia & Dave Andron	July 31, 2019 (2019-07-31)	XNF03004	0.758
Teddy and Gustavo dissolve Cardenas's body with chemicals, and Teddy plants drugs and money in her apartment to cover her disappearance. Someone outbids Cissy on the apartment. Gustavo offers to pay move Hernan and his family to San Ysidro. Andre's testimony mobilizes the LAPD to raid several Family houses, including Jerome's, and Andre watches as officers nearly kill him when he fights back. Franklin has Leon kill the supervisor of one of the houses that was raided when the man blames him for the police activity, while Melody questions Andre on why he let Jerome be hospitalized, though he insists that he had it coming. She goes to Jerome's as he returns from the hospital and begs Franklin to stop selling for his safety. When she blames Jerome for his own beating and Cissy has to restrain Louie from attacking her, Franklin angrily orders her to leave.
25	5	"The Bottoms"	Michael Lehmann	Enzo Mileti & Scott Wilson	August 7, 2019 (2019-08-07)	XNF03005	0.827
Franklin has Louie's sister seduce and drug Andre so she can steal his gun and badge. He has Leon make peace with Manboy so he can set up a meeting with Bloods leader Terrence "Skully" Brown, the husband of Manboy's sister Khadijah, and have him distribute cocaine in Inglewood. They meet him at The Bottom, a Bloods stronghold, and he agrees to distribute, though Leon is unsettled by his violent nature. Cissy learns that her old boss was the one who outbid her, and he sends men to her house when she and Franklin try to convince him to let it go. Franklin beats them up and leaves them in the man's ransacked office, and he drops the bid. Vasco refuses to continue selling until Teddy gets him his club, which he asks Julia for help with. After internal affairs brings up the complaints lodged against Andre about the raid and his holding of Louie, the LAPD suspends him. He asks his colleague Henry "Nix" Nixon to find out where Franklin lives.
26	6	"Confessions"	Erin Feeley	Tash Gray	August 14, 2019 (2019-08-14)	XNF03006	0.819
Alton learns that Franklin is working with the government and warns him with a story about his Black Panther cousin turned informant that was killed by the FBI. Franklin orders Avi to find out Teddy's real name, having done all his business under an alias, and he gives Franklin several photos of Teddy, who realizes that he works for the CIA. At the same time, he looks into the story about Alton's cousin and gets conflicting information, so he confronts Alton directly, who admits that he killed him after he was outed as an informant to save him from Black Panther torture. Teddy gets Vasco the club. Nix fails to find anything on Franklin, and when Andre tries to follow him, he is pulled over by white police officers because he does not have his badge. Suspecting that Cardenas is dead, Marino asks Julia to investigate Teddy, unaware of their connection. Gustavo buys a house for Hernan in Tijuana. His wife Nuvia tells Gustavo that her abusive ex-husband Ivan threatened to kill her when he learned she was moving, and Gustavo asks for his address. Melody agrees to leave town and go to college, but is pressured into trying crack when she goes out to party.
27	7	"Pocket Full of Rocks"	Alonso Alvarez	Justin Hillian	August 21, 2019 (2019-08-21)	XNF03007	0.982
Melody returns home, steals money from her college fund, and takes Andre's car to buy more crack. She encounters Wanda, who helps her buy it for cheap, but the car is stolen in the process. After they run out of crack, Wanda steals the necklace that Melody's mother gave her and tries to trade it for more, but Melody brutally beats her and takes it back. Gustavo kills Ivan. Julia posits her and Teddy taking their son and running away, considering the Contras are now well-supplied. After finding his car stripped and abandoned and realizing Melody's fund is light, Andre asks Franklin for help finding her. Cissy pressures him to help, and he orders Fatback to put out word that anyone who sees Melody should call him. Young Family man C.J. tells him and Leon that he saw Melody with Wanda. Manboy's lieutenant Bootsy gives them the name of Wanda's drug dealer, but they find it to be a dead end. Franklin gets a call and finds Melody in a crack house, having lost the necklace, and takes her home.
28	8	"Hedgehogs"	Carl Seaton	Emmy Grinwis	August 28, 2019 (2019-08-28)	XNF03008	1.035
Melody's addiction worsens. Franklin catches her buying crack and tries to emotionally appeal to her, but gives up on her when she knees him in the groin. Bootsy gets into a fight with Leon over territory, and Manboy tells him to let him take care of it. After again arguing with Teddy about abandoning the operation, Julia gives Andre Franklin's address and he steals his file on Teddy, discovering that the CIA is funding the cocaine trade. Learning from his man in the DEA that Marino named him as a connection to the Villanuevas, Vasco almost kills Teddy until he tells him his real name and occupation, offering to bring him in as a CIA asset. Realizing that someone is trying to take down his suppliers and Franklin, Teddy calls them to warn them, and Avi is shot at as he flees his house. He concludes that Julia is responsible and confronts her, and she admits that she wants the operation to end for his own safety. Disgusted, he promises to destroy her career. Realizing that Andre is the one who broke in, Franklin goes to his house with his stolen gun. Andre agrees to move Melody out of town, but promises to come back and take him down. Franklin shoots him in the head, stages it as a suicide, takes the file back, and leaves.
29	9	"Blackout"	Ben Younger	Story by : Leonard Chang Teleplay by : Leonard Chang & Walter Mosley	September 4, 2019 (2019-09-04)	XNF03009	0.945
Melody discovers her bedroom window, the way Franklin always entered her house, is unlocked. She convinces Nix that Franklin killed Andre, but when Nix threatens him, Franklin instead hires him. Manboy demands Franklin lowers the price of cocaine if he continues to protect Leon. Franklin refuses, but later berates Leon for his recklessness. Teddy visits Avi in hiding, who explains that he sold weapon parts on the black market that ended up in the hands of the IRGC and he has been paying Israel's government since, but Julia's exposure of him made them decide to kill him. Teddy asks Havemeyer to get Mossad off of Avi and finalize Vasco as an asset, then meets with Franklin and implies he knows he killed Andre, sympathizing with his guilt and promising that they will be partnered until the operation ends. He stonewalls Julia when she begs him to leave with her and does cocaine after she goes. Gustavo introduces him to Hernan and Nuvia, and explains that they are digging a tunnel to go across the border that will come out in the San Ysidro house. Franklin follows Melody from Andre's reception to her house, believing she is looking for crack, only for her to retrieve a gun and shoot him three times.
30	10	"Other Lives"	Sunu Gonera	Dave Andron	September 11, 2019 (2019-09-11)	XNF03010	1.044
Franklin is enrolled in Claremont McKenna College, a homeless Alton has been beaten to death by the police, Leon lives with Wanda and their child, and Louie and Jerome are having a baby. After attending a CIA recruitment seminar hosted by Teddy, Franklin is kicked out when the college's budget is cut under Reaganomics and he attacks his financial aid officer after being insulted. As he helps Jerome bag marijuana and takes up a job at a corner store, Teddy approaches him and invites him to join the CIA. Karvel robs the corner store and nearly kills Franklin, but he is saved when Andre kills Karvel. Cissy begs him to leave L.A., knowing he is too "big" for it, and he wakes up in the real world, having survived being shot and being tended to by Alton for the past few months. War between the Bloods and Crips has broken out, and Manboy and his men kill several residents of The Bottom. Franklin's parents try to stop him from getting back into selling, but he insists that his absence will leave a vacuum in the area and the war will only escalate. Now walking with a cane, he meets with Teddy and finally acknowledges crack's destructive influence, but decides he is too far along to get out. He reveals he knows Teddy works for the CIA, then agrees to take on more cocaine and reminds him of the promise that they would be partners until the end. He holds out his hand for a shake, and Teddy looks at it.

Season 4 (2021)

No. overall	No. in season	Title	Directed by	Written by	Original air date	Prod. code	U.S. viewers (millions)
31	1	"Re-Entry"	Kevin Bray	Dave Andron	February 24, 2021 (2021-02-24)	YSN401	0.707
On New Year's Eve, Franklin is still holding on to a birthday card Melody has sent him. Herald Examiner reporter Irene Abe tracks Melody down to her aunt's house in Odessa, Texas. She asks her to talk about Andre's death and Franklin's shooting, writing a piece on increasing L.A. crime. Teddy and Gustavo are arrested while moving cocaine in Tijuana and brought before new chief Oscar Fuentes, forcing them to negotiate a deal. Teddy learns that Avi's shipment of guns to the Contras never arrived, and he partially deafens Avi's man Lior to scare Avi into figuring out where the guns are. Franklin invites Teddy and Gustavo to a party at Louie's new club, though Leon is enraged to see the latter, who he blames for Kevin's death. He storms out when Franklin protects Gustavo. With the gang war getting worse, Teddy advises Franklin to play both sides until he can choose the more profitable victor. The Bloods crucify Bootsy and Franklin offers his services to both gangs. As they prepare for a fight, Franklin prepares to go to them, but Alton stops him and tries to get him to stay home. Though moved, Franklin still leaves.
32	2	"Weight"	Karena Evans	Leonard Chang	February 24, 2021 (2021-02-24)	YSN402	0.643
Franklin sides with the Crips, and they ambush Skully when Franklin stages a meeting with him, starting a gunfight. Skully is shot, but Franklin learns through his ex-girlfriend Tanosse that he survived. He asks Nix to arrest the Bloods involved in the shootout, but when he arrives at The Bottom, he observes the amount of firepower and believes Franklin set him up to be killed. Irene goes to the homeless shelter that Alton runs at the same time as Nix, and stops him from attacking Alton as he demands higher payment as compensation. She asks to talk to Alton after Nix leaves. Short on cocaine, Leon refuses to do business with Gustavo and instead has C.J. set him and Fatback up with a Mexican gang. The gang tries to rob them and they narrowly escape, but Leon is still determined to do business independent of Franklin. Gustavo, Hernan and Teddy offer to double their payment they made to the previous chief for Fuentes, but he demands twenty times it, which Teddy is appalled by and refuses. Gustavo later finds Hernan and Nuvia killed by Fuentes's men in their home.
33	3	"All the Way Down"	Ugla Hauksdóttir	Walter Mosley	March 3, 2021 (2021-03-03)	YSN403	0.706
Teddy makes contact with the DFS to stop Gustavo from charging Fuentes's police station and reveals his real name and identity. They get Fuentes's killing sanctioned by the DFS so long as they follow their guidelines, so Gustavo kills one of his men publicly, sending him running to his compound. Teddy massacres Fuentes's men and Gustavo waits in his car, strangling him when he tries to flee in it. Cissy has Franklin buy a local bookstore and sell the deed to real estate giant Paul Davis, as it was one of the few holdouts in the space of a business complex he is trying to build. Nix tries to threaten Franklin with what he knows about Andre, but Franklin points out that he has taken money and is complacent in the murder. Nix kidnaps Cissy and beats her in front of Andre's grave, telling her that Franklin killed him, and in retaliation, Franklin has Davis get him demoted. Irene meets with one of the detectives that investigated Kevin's death, and learns that the files on the murder and Franklin's jailing have vanished. He reports that Cardenas, the only witness, vanished, and gives Irene Marino's name, warning her to be careful.
34	4	"Expansion"	Greg Yaitanes	Hiram Martinez	March 10, 2021 (2021-03-10)	YSN404	0.600
Wanda is shot saving Leon from a Bloods shooting. He hires a private investigator to follow Skully and learns that he regularly visits his grandmother. Avi informs Teddy that the money he gave him for the guns was properly deposited, but Teddy asks Havemeyer to look into Avi's bank deposits to be sure. Franklin agrees to take double the cocaine from Teddy in hopes of resolving the Contras' war faster and ending his service. Louie suggests expanding to Little Rock to sell the new product. Nuvia's sister Xiamara, now taking care of her orphaned children, refuses Gustavo's money, but he leaves it for her anyway and departs. Alton stops an altercation between addict and shelter regular John Baxter and his son. Irene tries to talk to him again, but he turns her down. Marino approaches her after learning she is searching for him and gives her evidence of the CIA's involvement in the drug trade. Leon and his men wait outside Skully's grandmother's house when a car full of Bloods drives by. A gunfight erupts that kills C.J., and Leon shoots who he believes to be Skully but turns out to be his young daughter Tianna, riding with Khadijah.
35	5	"The Get Back"	Logan Kibbens	Justin Hillian	March 17, 2021 (2021-03-17)	YSN405	0.683
Franklin finds Leon in Alton's shelter and has him hide in one of Cissy's apartments. Haunted by guilt and anxiety and receiving no support from his mother or Franklin, Leon is comforted by Cissy. A drunken Gustavo is arrested after Xiamara mistakes him for a burglar when he breaks into her house to see his nephews. Teddy frees him and he promises to clean up so long as he finds out what happened to Lucia. Irene interviews an imprisoned Diego and Danilo, who agree to talk after learning Teddy sold them out. Impressed, her boss agrees to back the story and advises her to look for a weak link in The Family. Manboy makes peace with a devastated Skully and Khadijah because of their familial connection and promises to help kill Leon. When Leon's identity as the shooter is made public, Louie suggests that Franklin take him outside the city and kill him. When he goes to fetch Leon, he finds that he has fled, and Skully finds and pursues Leon, who is narrowly saved by Jerome and Franklin. Manboy meets with Franklin and tells him that the Crips no longer work with The Family.
36	6	"Say a Little Prayer"	Logan Kibbens	Dave Andron & Ihuoma Ofordire	March 24, 2021 (2021-03-24)	YSN406	0.775
Robert informs Teddy that Matt died of a heart attack two weeks prior and they had his funeral without Teddy. Havemeyer confirms that Avi did not steal from Teddy, and he leaves the country to help the Contras with their weapons. Wanda is forcibly sobered up in the hospital and calls Leon for help, who points her towards Alton's shelter. Leon and Franklin convince Fatback to testify to witnessing C.J. kill Tianna. Fatback is arrested for his involvement in the shooting, and before Franklin can pay his bail, Khadijah has him abducted and tortures him for Leon's location, killing him when he refuses to give it up. Louie takes Jerome with her to Little Rock, and they teach her childhood friend how to cook crack. As they leave, she tells Jerome that Teddy is a CIA agent. Irene again visits Alton and gives him an ultimatum: agree to interview with her, or she will go after his family and the shelter.
37	7	"Through a Glass, Darkly"	Alonso Alvarez	Leonard Chang & Jeanine C. Daniels	March 31, 2021 (2021-03-31)	YSN407	0.608
Teddy and Avi go to Panama City to find out what happened to Teddy's money, and they learn that a bank employee stole it. When the bank refuses to give up the man's name, Teddy tracks him down, paranoid from his frequent cocaine use and believing the man is an undercover agent. He waterboards him until the police arrive and flees. Leon, now working with Franklin again, fumbles a meeting with Deon, Fatback's cousin and a member of a subset of Crips. Jerome persuades Deon to work with The Family, and one of his men later saves Leon's life when a woman tries to collect the bounty Khadijah put out on him. Alton finds Baxter dead of a crack overdose outside the shelter. After learning that Baxter's children will likely end up in foster care, he agrees to Irene's terms and tells her everything he knows about Teddy and the CIA's involvement with Franklin. Cissy suspects something is wrong and alerts Franklin, and Alton admits what he did when they confront him. Alton states that the black community cannot survive the spread of crack and Franklin hits him when he accuses him of killing his own people.
38	8	"Betrayal"	Alonso Alvarez	Walter Mosley & Tyger Williams	April 7, 2021 (2021-04-07)	YSN408	0.676
Teddy goes to Nicaragua to meet with Elena, only to find her and several of her comrades killed by the Sandinistas. The sole survivor informs him that he arrived too late to help them, and he gives her some money before leaving. Teddy breaks into Irene's house and threatens her after the article releases. Alton begs Cissy to flee to Havana with him, but she refuses. She informs Franklin that Davis is cutting ties with them because of the article and she plans to move out of town. Khadijah tasks bounty hunters Beverly "Black Diamond" Young and Dallas Ali with killing Leon at Fatback's funeral. They attack, but instead hit Louie. Believing Manboy to be responsible, Jerome takes his men to get revenge against Franklin's orders. Manboy orders Tanosse, who has been feeding him information in exchange for her imprisoned brother's safety, to find out who Franklin gets his cocaine from. She suggests to Franklin that he put Manboy in contact with Teddy to get him back on his side, but he suspects something is off and follows her home, confronting her on her allegiance to Manboy.
39	9	"Sleeping Dogs"	Carl Seaton	Justin Hillian	April 14, 2021 (2021-04-14)	YSN409	0.802
Tanosse explains that Manboy first tried to pay her, then threatened her into trying to find Teddy, which is the reason why she reconnected with Franklin. Franklin fights Jerome to stop him from attacking the Crips and has him meet with Tanosse, who explains that Khadijah was responsible for the funeral shooting. Tanosse lures Manboy to her apartment and Franklin kills him, ordering Tanosse to stage his death as a robbery. Khadijah doubles Leon's bounty, and Franklin has Wanda pretend to give up Leon so Black Diamond and Dallas can be lured to a meeting, where he hires them full time. They take Khadijah to Leon, who gives her the opportunity to let things go, and Jerome kills her when she refuses. Irene goes on a radio show and threatens to expose Teddy's identity if the CIA does not acknowledge her article. Havemeyer pulls Teddy out of the operation, and he meets Irene at a bar and pretends to turn on the CIA, letting her record his recounting of the past year and a half. She passes out at the wheel as she drives away, Teddy having drugged her drink, and he suffocates her before taking the recording. Alton sees a news report about Irene's death and flees.
40	10	"Fight or Flight"	Carl Seaton	Dave Andron	April 21, 2021 (2021-04-21)	YSN410	0.881
As a child, Franklin gets in trouble at school for refusing to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. Alton, who encouraged him to not stand, pulls him out of school and tells him that as an adult, he will have to choose who he is but Alton will support him. In the present, Alton goes on the radio show and blames Teddy for Irene's death, promising to expose his identity to the world. Franklin finds him at his house planning to kill Teddy, and a vengeful Skully breaks in and is shot by both of them before Alton knocks Franklin unconscious and leaves. Skully goes to Louie's hospital room, who stalls for time long enough for Jerome to return and fight him off. Teddy gives Franklin the location of his and Alton's meeting. Alton tries to threaten Teddy into cutting Franklin loose and leaving his family alone, only for Franklin and Cissy to arrive, the latter agreeing to take Alton away to Havana and never return in exchange for his life. Teddy follows Alton to Havana and kills him. Havemeyer gives Gustavo Lucia's information, and he learns that she now lives in Miami. Louie and Jerome inform Franklin that they plan to start their own trade and buy cocaine from him. Despite Franklin's desperation to keep The Family's inner circle together, Leon advises him to let them go and admits he is also thinking about stepping down. He goes to see Melody in Odessa and tells her that he will kill her if she talks to anyone about The Family again. She promises to never speak about him if he admits to killing Andre. He nods, sets his cane down, and walks away without limping.

Season 5 (2022)

No. overall	No. in season	Title	Directed by	Written by	Original air date	Prod. code	U.S. viewers (millions)
41	1	"Comets"	Ben Younger	Dave Andron & Leonard Chang	February 23, 2022 (2022-02-23)	YSN501	0.793
Fourteen months later, Boston Celtics draft pick Len Bias dies from a cocaine overdose. Teddy scopes out the home of Franklin's new CIA contact Grady Williamson. One of Rob's dealers kills a man at a party over a line of cocaine. Franklin tasks Wanda with helping a crack-addicted Rob sober up, but later catches him trying to sneak out. Franklin forces him to kill his dealer, who brings up Franklin's connection to the CIA while begging for his life, and they take his body out to the desert to bury it. Franklin thinks about an earlier promise he made to his pregnant girlfriend Veronique Turner to keep their family safe from his criminal life no matter what, and, realizing Rob cannot be trusted, kills him. Later, Franklin asks Veronique to swear her loyalty, as others have betrayed his trust in the past, and she does.
42	2	"Commitment"	Ben Younger	Leonard Chang & Dave Andron	February 23, 2022 (2022-02-23)	YSN502	0.556
Eleven months prior, Teddy asks to return to the operation. Some time later, he learns from Avi that Williamson is doing a poor job, gets Havemeyer's permission to return to L.A., and learns that Williamson is doing real estate business with Franklin and taking some of the Contras' money for himself. Havemeyer allows him to take back the operation, but Williamson refuses to give it up, so Teddy kills him by poisoning his drink. Wanda quits her job at a sex hotline when her boss underpays her and goes to Leon, still working for Franklin and commanding Deon's men, asking for a Family job, but he turns her down. Teddy meets Franklin in Williamson's stead and informs him that they are starting back up again, and that he will be raising the prices back to what Williamson lowered them from. When Franklin refers to him as his alias, he tells him that he will be doing business under his real name from now on.
43	3	"Lions"	Damian Marcano	Jeanine Daniels	March 2, 2022 (2022-03-02)	YSN503	0.539
Teddy's refusal to keep the price low makes it harder for Louie and Jerome to buy and sell to the Bloods. With Skully increasingly unstable, his lieutenant offers to buy cocaine at a higher price if they help him kill Skully, giving them the location of his fortune teller. Louie and Jerome ambush him there and return to the man, only to reveal that they struck a deal with Skully, who kills him. Franklin makes Wanda his new secretary at his real estate agency. He meets with Teddy, who denies having anything to do with Alton's disappearance when asked and states that the price cut was only an issue because Williamson was selling to Jerome and Louie as well as Franklin. At his next deal with Gustavo, Franklin suspects that Teddy is listening in on them, confirming it when he finds the vantage point Teddy spied on them from. He meets with Louie and Jerome and asks them to come back to The Family so they can fix the problem with Teddy's pricing, and warns them to stay out of his way when they turn him down.
44	4	"Revolutions"	Damian Marcano	Tyger Williams & Gary Phillips	March 9, 2022 (2022-03-09)	YSN504	0.616
Cissy returns from Havana. Over dinner with her family, she states her belief that Teddy killed Alton and asks to help Franklin with The Family. Jerome discovers that a local man is writing raps about The Family's war with the Bloods and Crips and forcefully takes all his tapes to prevent them from being used as possible evidence, later relistening to the parts that mention him, troubled by his depiction. The area Leon controls is raided by a CRASH team and Louie's police officer Beau Buckley, and he is horrified by the police brutality he witnesses. Desperate to kill an officer in return, both Avi and Cissy warn him against taking physical action, and he asks Franklin why they never use their wealth to help their community. Cissy meets with a man named Rubén and confirms that Franklin is working with Teddy again. She promises to help him and the people he works for kill Teddy in exchange for her family's protection and confirmation that Teddy killed Alton.
45	5	"The Iliad: Part 1"	Kevin Rodney Sullivan	Sal Calleros & Davia Carter	March 16, 2022 (2022-03-16)	YSN505	0.545
Franklin asks Veronique and Cissy to sit down with Jerome and Louie to talk about investing in a real estate deal. Rubén gives Cissy a listening device hidden in a pen to bug Franklin and gather information on Teddy. At a deal with Teddy and Gustavo, both of them are shot by a group of men and Franklin hauls Gustavo away. Teddy drives to the house of his surgeon associate Parissa, who removes the bullet. She discovers cocaine in his trunk when she goes to move his car. While calling Jerome for help, Franklin overhears him and the women get shot at by another group of men. They are detained when the police arrive, but Louie rescues them by calling Buckley and getting him to free them. While doing an arms deal with Avi, Leon and his men are shot at as well. Franklin and Gustavo are attacked by a street gang who notices their bag of money and break into the house of an elderly man named James to use his phone, but are drugged by him. They wake up in a cage next to one with Gertie, James's pet tiger, inside.
46	6	"The Iliad: Part 2"	Kevin Rodney Sullivan	Sal Calleros & Davia Carter	March 23, 2022 (2022-03-23)	YSN506	0.688
The cage divider jams as James tries to feed Franklin and Gustavo to Gertie, and Gustavo kicks the cage and causes James's leg to fall into it. Gertie rips it off and he bleeds to death, while Franklin grabs the dropped keys and leaves the cage open. They are caught by the gang, and Franklin convinces their leader that he hid the money in James's house. They leave Gustavo with the gang and go back, where the leader is killed by Gertie and Franklin steals his car. He takes Jerome and Leon to save Gustavo, while The Family finds one of Franklin's safe houses robbed and suspects the absent Peaches's involvement in the attacks. After Cissy warns her of the danger Franklin's business will bring her and their child, Veronique requests that Franklin not be involved with her romantically until he leaves the drug trade. Parissa demands double her payment after finding the cocaine. Black Diamond and Dallas inform The Family that Kevin's older brother Kane, recently released from prison, was responsible for the attacks. Franklin meets with Kane, who does not deny that Peaches helped him, and Franklin tells him he will let things go for now but will not give him another chance.
47	7	"Lying in a Hammock"	Carl Seaton	Leonard Chang	March 30, 2022 (2022-03-30)	YSN507	0.639
Leon agrees to talk to Kane to prevent Louie and Jerome from killing him and starting a war. He convinces Kane that Kevin's death was an accident and that moving cocaine for The Family would be a lucrative opportunity, and Kane agrees to work with them. Franklin is furious to learn about what Cissy said to Veronique and orders her to stay out of The Family's business. She considers bugging his office with the pen, but decides against it. Havemeyer sets Teddy up with accountant William Cox, and Teddy and Parissa have sex. While looking for Peaches in a VA hospital, Jerome meets a friend of his who takes him to a crack house that Peaches frequented, leaving Jerome shocked that he was addicted. The man claims Peaches announced his plan to help Kane and then flee, while Jerome is horrified by the sight of the addicts. He later proposes to Louie, who accepts. Still angry at Kane, Louie organizes a hit on him with Buckley.
48	8	"Celebration"	Katrelle Kindred	Walter Mosley	April 6, 2022 (2022-04-06)	YSN508	0.636
Louie meets with Teddy and strikes a deal to start buying cocaine from him. He breaks into Franklin's house and photographs financial documents. Cissy gives Rubén information about Louie and Jerome's wedding, where he disguises himself as a waiter and Franklin is the best man. After the ceremony, Skully spikes the chocolate fountain with LSD, and Franklin hallucinates Rob and Veronique berating him for his failures, as well as being confronted by Cissy on his greed. He calls Teddy and promises to kill him first if he ever tries. He sees a vision of himself that confronts him on the controlling murderer he has become, taunting him with the idea that everyone will turn on him, though Franklin is adamant he can keep The Family together. Cissy accuses Rubén of drugging them and reveals he is with the KGB. After a talk with Avi, Leon decides to vacation in Africa and invites Wanda to go with him, who rejects him. Louie and Jerome affirm their love for each other and she admits that she killed Claudia. As the drugs wear off, she and Franklin dance, and while he tries to apologize for not treating her as his partner, she states she needs to follow her own path. Buckley and a CRASH team pull up outside one of Kane's spots.
49	9	"Departures"	Karena Evans	Dave Andron	April 13, 2022 (2022-04-13)	YSN509	0.509
Buckley shoots Kane in the back but is stopped from finishing him off when Kane's men kill his partner. Buckley is suspended and Louie refuses to pay him because Kane is still alive, but offers to hire him full time. Franklin warns Leon not to retaliate against Louie for violating their deal with Kane. Avi agrees to up his shipments of arms as the Contras are close to winning the war. Aware of who Avi is because of the wedding, Rubén breaks into one his warehouse and incapacitates Avi when caught. Franklin tells Veronique about hallucinating her while on LSD and admits he is thinking of leaving the drug trade. Wanda and Leon admit that they still love each other. Louie informs Franklin of the deal she made with Teddy. He meets with Teddy and apologizes for the threatening call he made while high before informing him that their partnership is over due to Teddy making a deal behind his back. He wishes Teddy well, shakes his hand, and leaves.
50	10	"Fault Lines"	Alonso Alvarez	Dave Andron	April 20, 2022 (2022-04-20)	YSN510	0.592
Franklin decides he is out of the drug trade and suggests to Veronique that they get married. With the Anti-Drug Abuse Act being passed through Congress as a result of Bias's death, Leon plans to retire and tries to get his crew out of the game as well, but they refuse. He and Wanda leave for Africa. Ruben takes Avi to a KGB safe house, and he gives up the location of his files on Teddy. Xiamara finds a listening device in her house and calls Gustavo, who believes that Teddy planted it, and he convinces her to leave with him and their nephews. Franklin's entire fortune is stolen by Teddy with help from Cox. Teddy gives Havemeyer some of Franklin's money so he can be brought back into the CIA and goes to Avi's house to retrieve the files, only for Rubén to get them first. Rubén notices Parissa, who drove Teddy, and Teddy emerges to find her gone. Rubén kills Avi when he admits that he lied about Teddy's position in the CIA to try and save his own life. Gustavo calls Franklin and Franklin begs him for help, but he regretfully tells him he needs to protect his own family. He retrieves his money but is arrested by the DEA. Franklin meets with Louie and asks her to help ambush Teddy at their next deal, pulling a gun on her when she refuses. Buckley disarms him and Louie agrees to let him live because of Jerome, but tells Franklin that their relationship is over. Franklin takes Black Diamond and Dallas to rob Louie and Jerome's spots, then informs a hospitalized Kane that Louie was responsible for his shooting. He points out to Cissy that he tried to deal with Louie fairly and gives her the chance to walk away. She admits that she is dealing with the KGB now and wants to help kill Teddy. Franklin notes that "we gonna have to burn this whole motherfucker to the ground," and she responds "then let's go."

Season 6 (2023)

No. overall	No. in season	Title	Directed by	Written by	Original air date	Prod. code	U.S. viewers (millions)
51	1	"Fallout"	Ben Younger	Dave Andron	February 22, 2023 (2023-02-22)	YSN601	0.608
The father and young daughter of one of the men killed during the robberies find his body at the crime scene. Franklin offers to sell Deon cocaine for cheaper than he is buying from Louie and Jerome and sends Black Diamond and Dallas to drop off the product. Gustavo returns to Xiamara and states they can no longer leave town. Now a DEA informant, he visits Marino, actually the one who bugged him, who asks to see the border tunnel. Teddy goes to Avi's house and finds that Lior has taken over his business, who refuses to do any further deals with him. Havemeyer informs him that he needs to tie up loose ends to be brought back into the CIA, and he later finds Parissa in a police station's cell. Rubén requests that Cissy set up a meeting with Franklin, and he hesitantly agrees. Jerome finally manages to get in contact with Franklin, who refuses to return the money. Deon refuses to do business with Jerome but tells him when and where Black Diamond and Dallas are making the drop, and after they do, Jerome pulls them over. He asks them where Franklin hid his money, and when they cannot answer, brutalizes Black Diamond and tells Dallas to pass along the message that he will not stop until he gets his money back.
52	2	"The Sit Down"	Ben Younger	Jeanine Daniels and Dave Andron	February 22, 2023 (2023-02-22)	YSN602	0.438
A flashback reveals that Parissa escaped from Rubén but was detained by the police. Teddy has a sketch artist draw Rubén from Parissa's description of him, and Gustavo realizes he is the waiter from Louie and Jerome's wedding. Black Diamond dies from her injuries and Dallas retires. Gustavo shows Marino the tunnel. Franklin meets Rubén and agrees to help expose the CIA in exchange for catching Teddy. Rubén's handler informs him that the KGB is getting their Sandinista contacts to intercept Avi's last gun shipment. Gustavo meets with Franklin, who offers him payment and Rubén's name in exchange for Teddy. Kane demands that Franklin help him take revenge on Louie and Buckley. Veronique sets Franklin up with her con woman mother Cassandra, who agrees to help get his money back for a ten percent cut and the ability to be part of Veronique's life again. Jerome sits down with Franklin, who tries to get him to agree to leave each other alone, but he instead expresses disappointment in the way Franklin turned out. When Franklin insults Louie, Jerome hits him and Franklin pulls a gun but leaves, unable to kill his uncle.
53	3	"Door of No Return"	Alonso Alvarez	Walter Mosley	March 1, 2023 (2023-03-01)	YSN603	0.464
Now in Accra, Leon learns about the history of Africans selling their own as slaves and makes a connection between it and selling crack to his community. He vows to use his wealth to help his people, although Wanda wants him to stay in Accra and they get married. They return to L.A. to find that the feud between Franklin, Louie, and Jerome has sparked into a war, with Kane and Deon also getting involved. Cassandra tracks down Cox and plans to break into his office the next day. Rubén follows Gustavo and observes his next meeting with Marino. Teddy and Gustavo travel to Costa Rica and hire mercenaries to help them kill the Sandinistas. Teddy discovers a note in Russian hidden amongst their belongings, realizing the KGB is attacking the operation. Leon tries to talk peace with Louie and Jerome, but they ignore him. He meets with Franklin, who warns him to either pick a side or take Wanda back to Ghana.
54	4	"Projects Boy"	Alonso Alvarez	Sal Calleros	March 8, 2023 (2023-03-08)	YSN604	0.450
Cassandra lures Cox out of his office and Veronique tricks his assistant into letting her photograph Teddy's files. They learn that only Teddy knows where the money was transferred, and Franklin sends the Turners to Kansas City. Franklin inspects Kane's cook houses when they do not cook enough to be profitable, and when Todd, one of the house's managers talks back, Franklin burns his face on a stove. Enraged that Kane will not let him take revenge, Todd goes to Louie and Jerome, who sanction a hit on Kane. He and his men attack Kane's house, but he and Franklin kill them and escape. After an argument with Xiamara about his recent secrecy, Gustavo is met by Rubén at a bar, who offers money and an escape from the CIA and DEA if he helps get Teddy and Havemeyer arrested. A nearby Teddy watches Rubén as he leaves. Leon is unnerved by the decay of his old neighborhood brought on by Deon. When he catches Deon shooting out streetlights he had repaired, they fight and Leon barely wins after a brutal struggle.
55	5	"Ebony and Ivory"	Jade Holmes Christian	Davia Carter	March 15, 2023 (2023-03-15)	YSN605	0.502
While staking out Robert's nursing home, Cassandra warns Veronique that her relationship with Franklin may not last and advises her to leave him. Cassandra poses as a resident of the home and seduces Robert, convincing him to run away with her to his old house, where he admits that he wishes he could have fixed things with Teddy before Matt died. Realizing that the neighborhood will devolve into war if someone does not take Deon's place, Leon reluctantly establishes himself as the new boss. Jerome, troubled by the lack of code and honor he sees around him, goes to visit an old friend. While there, he notices what he believes to be someone following him and pulls his gun in a panic, and the friend asks him to leave. Gustavo admits to Xiamara that he is working with the DEA, while also informing Teddy of his encounter with Rubén, causing him to hide his cocaine and unknowingly ruin a planned DEA raid. Teddy breaks into Rubén's apartment and finds evidence that he is gay. Franklin goes to Robert's house with Veronique and asks to use his phone to call the nursing home. He instead calls Teddy and demands that he return his money, but when he refuses, Franklin kills Robert and warns him that Julia and their son are next. He burns the house down and drives away.
56	6	"Concrete Jungle"	Katrelle Kindred	Dave Andron and Jeanine Daniels & Davon Briggs	March 22, 2023 (2023-03-22)	YSN606	0.590
Teddy calls Julia to warn her about Franklin and visits Rubén, revealing that he knows about his sexuality and offering him the chance to leave the KGB with help, but makes it clear that he will kill him if he continues to interfere with the CIA. He later posits the idea of taking the money and fleeing with Parissa. Horrified by Robert's murder, Cassandra leaves and begs Veronique to come with her, but she refuses because of the wealth Franklin has given her. Marino ponders shutting down the operation down and sending Gustavo to jail, forcing him to work against Teddy with Franklin so he, Xiamara and their family can get away. A drunken Jerome returns to Louie, planning to quit the drug trade and accusing her of enjoying the thrill of their dangerous life when she tries to get him to stay. Louie is kidnapped by Kane's men, where he has her tortured to get her to give up Buckley. After she promises Franklin that she will help him catch Teddy, he orders Leon to tell Jerome where Louie is, convincing him to work with him to save her. Jerome pages Buckley for help, who is occupied with getting high. He and Franklin sneak into Kane's compound and open the gate, and before Louie can be raped, Franklin, Jerome, Leon, Skully, and the Bloods massacre Kane's men. Jerome and Kane face off while the latter puts a gun to Louie's head and tries to bargain for his life. Jerome rejects the offer, and they shoot and kill each other.
57	7	"Charnel House"	Logan Kibens	Walter Mosley	March 29, 2023 (2023-03-29)	YSN607	0.552
A depressed Louie asks Skully how he dealt with his grief after losing his family, and he admits he is still grieving over it but believes their spirits are with him and would not want him to do anything reckless. Julia visits Teddy and, upon learning of his conflict with Franklin, advises him to return the money. He refuses, and she accuses him of destroying their family in an attempt to impress Robert with his illegal dealings. He calls Louie and demands she help him capture Franklin, which she promises to do after Jerome's funeral. Rubén visits Gustavo at his home and orders him to take a shipment of cocaine and stash it in Teddy's warehouse to get him arrested. When Xiamara enters, Rubén quietly threatens her and leaves, and she makes plans to leave with her family without telling Gustavo where she is going. He admits to Franklin that he is working with the DEA, but promises to help him capture Teddy instead if he can get his family out. Cissy gives Wanda control of Alton's shelter. At Jerome's funeral, Buckley claims that Jerome did not page him for help when Louie was kidnapped. Franklin meets Louie at the coffin and reminds her of her promise. She tells him that "you are the Devil," and he sighs "yeah, I know" before leaving.
58	8	"Ballad of the Bear"	Amin Joseph	Sal Calleros	April 5, 2023 (2023-04-05)	YSN608	0.592
Havemeyer tells Teddy that he will be reinstated after he transfers Franklin's money to the CIA. Unable to transfer it because of Franklin's attempts to get it back, Teddy accepts that his return to the CIA cannot happen and proposes to Parissa when she finds the ring he was saving for her. Xiamara leaves and takes her family with her. Gustavo goes with Amanda Guerrero, one of Marino's agents, to pick up the cocaine, Marino also wanting to use it to arrest Teddy, but is arrested when Marino discovers that Xiamara is gone. Rubén runs Marino's car off the road and kills Guerrero, freeing Gustavo and ordering him to take him to Teddy. Franklin has Louie rough him up and hand him over to Teddy, who takes him to the warehouse and suspends him from the ceiling with a noose to keep him from trying anything. As he prepares to sedate Franklin, Gustavo and Rubén enter, the latter restraining Teddy. Knowing that siding with Franklin will benefit him the most, Gustavo attacks Rubén, knocking the bucket keeping Franklin from strangling over in the process. He narrowly saves Franklin's life, leaving Teddy at his mercy.
59	9	"Sacrifice"	Ben Younger	Dave Andron	April 12, 2023 (2023-04-12)	YSN609	0.601
Louie's house is raided by the DEA and she is rescued by Buckley. Suspecting that he lied to her, she forces him at gunpoint to give him her pager, determines the truth, and takes his car. Franklin takes a captive Rubén and Teddy to one of his stash houses and sees Gustavo off as he leaves for Mexico. Rubén tells Cissy that his superiors will leak recordings they have of Franklin's illegal dealings if he does not contact them soon, while Teddy claims that he actually had Alton arrested and can take her to him. Teddy refuses to give Franklin access to his bank account and both Leon and Cissy try to stop him from going too far, but Veronique informs him that they are soon going to lose one of their properties without the money. She helps him torture Teddy, and when he still refuses to talk, Franklin asks why he stole from him. Teddy reveals that he only did it because he was hurt Franklin stopped doing business with him, and gets him to agree to split the money evenly. Franklin agrees to give Havemeyer Rubén and Teddy. Enraged that he is letting Teddy go, Cissy insists on accompanying him to the drop but promises Franklin that they will never speak again afterwards. Havemeyer meets them at a payphone and Teddy calls his bank, snapping at Cissy that he killed Alton when she bugs him about details. She shoots and kills him before he can give the bank his password and surrenders to the police as Franklin flees the scene.
60	10	"The Struggle"	Alonso Alvarez	Dave Andron	April 19, 2023 (2023-04-19)	YSN610	0.694
Franklin gives Rubén to Havemeyer to keep him from going to prison. He begs Leon for a loan, but Leon, believing that Cissy killed Teddy to keep Franklin safe from him and the destructive power of the money, refuses despite Franklin threatening him. Wanda leaves for Accra. Cissy pleads guilty to Teddy's murder and is given a life sentence without parole. Franklin visits her and asks why she killed Teddy, but she refuses to speak. She admits to Leon that Franklin is "lost" but that he is one of "my greatest surprises," advising him to follow Wanda. Veronique tries to sell their stakes in some properties behind Franklin's back, and he informs her that he sold his South Central properties to Cissy's old boss before almost choking her for her duplicity. She later runs away with his remaining money and he visits Cissy again, begging her to sell her house to keep him afloat. When she still refuses to speak, he tells her he wishes that Teddy killed her and needs to be hauled away by the guards. Three months later, Franklin's man gives him the location of Peaches's lavish Monrovia house. Peaches tells Franklin that the money he stole is in a safe, and Franklin kills him when he shoots at him. He hides the body and calls a locksmith to get the safe open, but is interrupted by Peaches's friend arriving, who he kills in front of the man. After finding that almost all of the money is gone, he lets the locksmith have the remainder and lets him go, but changes his mind and kills him. Two years later, Marino is hunting and almost catches Louie, while Gustavo works as a wrestling teacher and is contacted by Xiamara, who invites him to see their family in North Carolina. One more year later, Leon return to South Central to start a free legal clinic and finds that Franklin is now a rambling alcoholic living in the Saint family's dilapidated house. He offers to give Franklin a job at the clinic, but Franklin turns him down. They return to the house to find the LAPD about to seize it for unpaid property tax, and Franklin rejects Leon's offer to help, triumphantly declaring that he is now "free from all of it." He tells Leon he is proud of him and walks away, ignoring a weeping Leon calling his name, only turning around after he leaves and then continuing to walk. The episode is dedicated to series creator John Singleton, who died in 2019.

Broadcast

Outside of the United States, Snowfall premiered on BBC Two in the United Kingdom on October 8, 2017. It is also available for view on BBC iPlayer.

Reception

Critical response

On Rotten Tomatoes, the first season has an approval rating of 62% based on 63 reviews, with an average rating of 6.2/10. The site's critical consensus for the first season reads, "Snowfall struggles to create a compelling drama from its separate storylines, despite Singleton's accurate recreation of 1983 Los Angeles and a strong lead performance from Damson Idris." On Metacritic, the series has a score of 63 out of 100, based on 47 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews." A 100% approval rating for the second season was reported by Rotten Tomatoes, with an average rating of 7/10 based on 7 reviews. A 100% approval rating for the third season was reported by Rotten Tomatoes with an average rating of 9/10 based on 5 reviews.

Matt Zoller Seitz of Vulture called Snowfall a clever constructed thriller that reaches the "standard Scorsese/Tarantino," praising "the attention it pays to the sights, sounds and textures of people's lives in 1983 Los Angeles, and to fine details of characterization — in other words, the sort of stuff that would never get a dramatic series a green light unless drugs and violence were attached to it." He further stated: "rather than go for a vibe like The Wire or Steven Soderbergh's Traffic, which explored the drug trade with a newspaperman's anthropological detachment, Snowfall aims for a bouncier, more seductive vibe." Seitz also praised the "phenomenal" acting of Idris, Peris-Mencheta, Hudson, and Rios. James Poniewozik of The New York Times praised the performances of the actors, found the series emotional, and complimented its story. Brian Tallerico of RogerEbert.com found the series narratively ambitious and applauded the performances of the cast members, stating the actors represent the show's greatest asset, writing, "Idris is a fantastic find, conveying a combination of intelligence and innocence that makes Franklin's arc feel genuine. [...] Rios is even better as a more-experienced player in the drug game who has yet to lose her hope for something bigger. Finally, McDonald vacillates in fascinating ways from a pencil pusher to someone willing to do whatever it takes to redeem his legacy as an agent."

Ed Power of The Telegraph rated the series 4 out of 5 stars, saying, "It’s slick and breezy – far too enamoured with its roguish characters to do justice to a cathartic chapter in the history of modern Los Angeles. But the show has a giddy energy and, amid the blizzard of gangster clichés, Idris shines brightly as star in the making." Melissa Camacho of Common Sense Media rated the series 3 out of 5 stars, writing, "Snowfall is a dark and gritty series about the crack cocaine trade and that it is intended for adults. [...] The characters are complex and live by ambiguous codes, but most seek personal gains by buying/selling drugs. Those old enough to handle it will find a series that's complex and intelligent, but sometimes hard to watch.

Alan Sepinwall of Uproxx gave a mixed review of the series, criticizing the show's clichéd storytelling and pacing; the latter he observed, "oddly feels sluggish and rushed at the same time, lingering over certain tasks and story beats... but then oddly jumping over story points in a way that had me frequently checking to be sure I hadn't skipped an episode by mistake." He further emphasized: "Snowfall's not a bad drama at this stage, just more generic than it should be, especially on a channel known for making old TV ideas feel brand-new."

Historical accuracy

The plotline that the CIA fostered the crack epidemic through cocaine trafficking in order to raise money for the Contras in Nicaragua is based on Gary Webb's controversial 1996 investigative series in the San Jose Mercury News and its follow-up book Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion. According to executive producer Dave Andron, the show's writers worked with the premise that Webb's reporting was factual; however, he acknowledged that he did not "think there was any conspiracy to bring crack to the inner city or destroy a people." Patricia A. Turner, a dean of the UCLA College who studies folklore and conspiracies theories related to Black culture, said the idea that the CIA introduced crack cocaine to Black communities is a conspiracy theory that has persisted since the 1980s.

Ratings

Snowfall : U.S. viewers per episode (thousands)

Season		Episode number										Average
		1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
	1	1361	965	1045	1003	1010	845	814	847	914	854	966
	2	1163	888	930	975	923	822	815	752	855	783	891
	3	997	698	696	758	827	819	982	1035	945	1044	880
	4	707	643	706	600	683	775	608	676	802	881	708
	5	793	556	539	616	545	688	639	636	509	592	611
	6	608	438	464	450	502	590	552	592	601	694	TBD

Audience measurement performed by Nielsen Media Research

Season 1

Viewership and ratings per episode of Snowfall

No.	Title	Air date	Rating (18–49)	Viewers (millions)	DVR (18–49)	DVR viewers (millions)	Total (18–49)	Total viewers (millions)
1	"Pilot"	July 5, 2017	0.6	1.36	—	—	—	—
2	"Make Them Birds Fly"	July 12, 2017	0.4	0.965	0.5	1.01	0.9	1.98
3	"Slow Hand"	July 19, 2017	0.5	1.05	0.5	1.10	1.0	2.15
4	"Trauma"	July 26, 2017	0.4	1.00	—	—	—	—
5	"seven-four"	August 2, 2017	0.4	1.01	0.5	0.97	0.9	1.98
6	"A Long Time Coming"	August 9, 2017	0.4	0.845	0.5	1.04	0.9	1.88
7	"Cracking"	August 16, 2017	0.4	0.814	0.5	1.14	0.9	1.96
8	"Baby Teeth"	August 23, 2017	0.4	0.847	0.5	1.03	0.9	1.88
9	"Story of a Scar"	August 30, 2017	0.4	0.914	0.6	1.10	1.0	2.02
10	"The Rubicon"	September 6, 2017	0.4	0.854	—	—	—	—

Season 2

Viewership and ratings per episode of Snowfall

No.	Title	Air date	Rating (18–49)	Viewers (millions)	DVR (18–49)	DVR viewers (millions)	Total (18–49)	Total viewers (millions)
1	"Sightlines"	July 19, 2018	0.5	1.16	0.5	1.26	1.0	2.43
2	"The Day"	July 26, 2018	0.4	0.888	0.5	1.09	0.9	1.98
3	"Prometheus Rising"	August 2, 2018	0.4	0.930	0.4	0.84	0.8	1.77
4	"Jingle Bell Rock"	August 9, 2018	0.4	0.975	0.4	0.83	0.8	1.81
5	"Serpiente"	August 16, 2018	0.4	0.923	0.5	1.10	0.9	2.03
6	"The Offer"	August 23, 2018	0.4	0.822	0.3	0.82	0.7	1.64
7	"The World Is Yours"	August 30, 2018	0.4	0.815	0.4	1.04	0.8	1.86
8	"Surrender"	September 6, 2018	0.3	0.752	0.5	1.10	0.8	1.86
9	"Aftermath"	September 13, 2018	0.4	0.855	0.4	1.01	0.8	1.87
10	"Education"	September 20, 2018	0.3	0.783	0.4	0.84	0.7	1.63

Season 3

Viewership and ratings per episode of Snowfall

No.	Title	Air date	Rating (18–49)	Viewers (millions)	DVR (18–49)	DVR viewers (millions)	Total (18–49)	Total viewers (millions)
1	"Protect and Swerve"	July 10, 2019	0.4	0.997	0.4	1.03	0.8	2.03
2	"The More You Make"	July 17, 2019	0.3	0.698	0.4	1.08	0.7	1.78
3	"Cash and Carry"	July 24, 2019	0.3	0.696	0.4	1.06	0.7	1.76
4	"The Game That Moves As You Play"	July 31, 2019	0.3	0.758	0.4	0.93	0.7	1.69
5	"The Bottoms"	August 7, 2019	0.3	0.827	0.4	1.00	0.7	1.83
6	"Confessions"	August 14, 2019	0.4	0.819	0.4	1.17	0.8	2.00
7	"Pocket Full of Rocks"	August 21, 2019	0.4	0.982	0.3	0.87	0.7	1.85
8	"Hedgehogs"	August 28, 2019	0.4	1.035	0.4	1.01	0.8	2.04
9	"Blackout"	September 4, 2019	0.4	0.945	0.5	1.01	0.9	1.95
10	"Other Lives"	September 11, 2019	0.4	1.044	0.4	0.91	0.8	1.95

Season 4

Viewership and ratings per episode of Snowfall

No.	Title	Air date	Rating (18–49)	Viewers (millions)	DVR (18–49)	DVR viewers (millions)	Total (18–49)	Total viewers (millions)
1	"Re-Entry"	February 24, 2021	0.3	0.707	0.4	0.82	0.7	1.53
2	"Weight"	February 24, 2021	0.3	0.643	0.4	—	0.7	—
3	"All the Way Down"	March 3, 2021	0.3	0.706	0.3	—	0.6	—
4	"Expansion"	March 10, 2021	0.3	0.600	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD
5	"The Get Back"	March 17, 2021	0.3	0.683	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD
6	"Say a Little Prayer"	March 24, 2021	0.3	0.775	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD
7	"Through a Glass, Darkly"	March 31, 2021	0.3	0.608	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD
8	"Betrayal"	April 7, 2021	0.3	0.676	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD
9	"Sleeping Dogs"	April 14, 2021	0.4	0.802	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD
10	"Fight or Flight"	April 21, 2021	0.4	0.881	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD

Season 5

Viewership and ratings per episode of Snowfall

No.	Title	Air date	Rating (18–49)	Viewers (millions)	DVR (18–49)	DVR viewers (millions)	Total (18–49)	Total viewers (millions)
1	"Comets"	February 23, 2022	0.3	0.793	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD
2	"Commitment"	February 23, 2022	0.2	0.556	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD
3	"Lions"	March 2, 2022	0.2	0.539	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD
4	"Revolutions"	March 9, 2022	0.2	0.616	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD
5	"The Iliad: Part 1"	March 16, 2022	0.2	0.545	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD
6	"The Iliad: Part 2"	March 23, 2022	0.2	0.688	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD
7	"Lying in a Hammock"	March 30, 2022	0.3	0.639	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD
8	"Celebration"	April 6, 2022	0.2	0.636	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD
9	"Departures"	April 13, 2022	0.2	0.509	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD
10	"Fault Lines"	April 20, 2022	0.2	0.592	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD

Season 6

Viewership and ratings per episode of Snowfall

No.	Title	Air date	Rating (18–49)	Viewers (millions)	DVR (18–49)	DVR viewers (millions)	Total (18–49)	Total viewers (millions)
1	"Fallout"	February 22, 2023	0.2	0.608	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD
2	"The Sit Down"	February 22, 2023	0.2	0.438	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD
3	"Door of No Return"	March 1, 2023	0.2	0.464	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD
4	"Projects Boy"	March 8, 2023	0.2	0.450	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD
5	"Ebony and Ivory"	March 15, 2023	0.2	0.502	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD
6	"Concrete Jungle"	March 22, 2023	0.2	0.590	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD
7	"Charnel House"	March 29, 2023	0.2	0.55	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD
8	"Ballad of the Bear"	April 5, 2023	0.2	0.592	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD
9	"Sacrifice"	April 12, 2023	0.2	0.601	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD
10	"The Struggle"	April 19, 2023	0.3	0.694	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD

Accolades

Year	Award	Category	Nominee(s)	Result	Ref.
2017	African-American Film Critics Association	Top 10 TV Shows	Snowfall	Won
	California on Location Awards	Location Manager of the Year - One Hour Television	Brian M. O'Neill	Won
		Location Team of the Year - One Hour Television	Tisha Jefferson, Alex R. Moreno, William O'Brien, Caitlin McCarty, Justin W. Hill	Won
2018	Imagen Foundation Awards	Best Actor - Television	Sergio Peris-Mencheta	Nominated
2020	NAACP Image Awards	Outstanding Directing in a Drama Series	Carl H. Seaton	Nominated
2021	Black Reel Awards for Television	Outstanding Drama Series	Dave Andron	Nominated
		Outstanding Actor, Drama Series	Damson Idris	Nominated
		Outstanding Supporting Actor, Drama Series	Amin Joseph	Nominated
		Outstanding Supporting Actress, Drama Series	Michael Hyatt	Nominated
		Outstanding Directing, Drama Series	Carl Seaton	Nominated
		Outstanding Writing, Drama Series	Justin Hillian	Nominated
		Outstanding Guest Actress, Drama Series	Gail Bean	Nominated
2022	American Society of Cinematographers	Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography in Episode of a One-Hour Series for Commercial Television	Tommy Maddox-Upshaw	Won
	Society of Camera Operators	Camera Operator of the Year in Television	Manolo Rojas, Pauline Edwards	Won
	Black Reel Awards for Television	Outstanding Actor, Drama Series	Damson Idris	Nominated
		Outstanding Writing, Drama Series	Walter Mosley	Pending
2023	NAACP Image Awards	Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series	Amin Joseph	Pending
	American Society of Cinematographers	Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography in Episode of a One-Hour Commercial Television Series	Christian Tico Herrera	Pending

External links

• Official website
• Snowfall at IMDb