Episode 316 Recap: "The Heart of a Man"

At the tow yard, Warlock watches over Benny, secretly holding a gun to him from his pocket as he awaits Candace's call confirming she has his money. Mitch arrives outside and plants a spare tire filled with drugs in War's car. He knows Candace owes War money and that War is dangerous, so Mitch sets War up, hoping to protect her.

Mitch enters the office and finds Benny with War. Benny is eager to confront David about his interference with the tow yard, and Mitch wants to join him, but War tries to stop them. Mitch questions why War doesn't want Benny to leave and why War himself won't leave. Just then, War receives a message from Candace and abruptly leaves.

As Mitch and Benny prepare to pay David a visit, Mitch puts his plan to take down War in motion.

Jeffery brings Melissa to the unsettling nursery his mother prepared for them and confronts her, hoping to devise a way out of Veronica's plan for them. Jeffery scoffs at Melissa for agreeing to Veronica's money terms, but Melissa reminds him that she's only accepting the money to help her parents. Jeffery is determined to find a way to outfox his manipulative mother but has yet to develop a plan.

Melissa gives Jeffery an ultimatum: find another way to get money for her parents or fake their marriage. Jeffery refuses to live a lie.

"If you can find a way to get me out of this with some money for my parents, then I will take that bitch of a mother down with you," Melissa says.

Jeffery tries his best to behave how his delusional mother, Veronica, has blackmailed him to act—that is to say, like a straight man—at least until he and his faux fiancée can plot a way to tear Veronica down without consequence. David shows up unexpectedly at Veronica's home, unknowingly crashing the young, unhappy couple's engagement party.

David is there to rescue his son from his estranged wife's evil clutches, not to celebrate Jeffery's farce of an engagement. Veronica asks David to leave if he's not willing to celebrate with them.

"I'm leaving, but I'm not leaving you here," David says to his son.

Although Jeffery would like nothing more than to leave his diabolical mother's home for good, he knows that Veronica's knowledge of his complicity in Quincy's murder could destroy his life. "I have to stay," Jeffery says defeatedly.

Just then, a phone call for Veronica disrupts the family dispute. It's Katheryn with news of Wyatt's death.

"Listen, I'm on my way over there. I'm coming over right now," Veronica says before hanging up.

"So much drama," she says, looking annoyed. "He's going to want to come with me," Veronica tells her estranged husband. She then breaks the news of Wyatt's death—without even a note of sympathy in her voice.

David runs off to the jail to check on his friend Jim, whose only remaining child has died, leaving Jeffery grief-stricken and in the company of his heartless mother, whose only prerogative is to force her son to be heterosexual by any means necessary.

"You've always got Melissa and the baby," she says to him.

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Candace meets Warlock at the rendezvous point and delivers him $2 million in cash. War tells her how close she came to losing Benny and that he's pleased she came through with the money. When Candace wonders whether they're square now, War reassures her that they are and Benny will be safe.

"Look, I keep my word. I'm not the one that lies. I do what I say I'm going to do," War tells her.

Candace thanks him for giving her more time to come up with the money and the two apologize to each other; yet, Candace is still tense, trying her best to placate the volatile War. Candace asks War whether he still plans to stop by her house unannounced. When War agrees to call her before he comes over from now on, Candace is relieved. As War drives away, Candace breaks down in tears in her car, finally feeling free of War's wrath.

The truce between Candace and Warlock doesn't last long. Just after War drives off with his fortune (in cash), he's pulled over by the police and told to step out of the car with his hands on his head and to get down on his knees.

"Man, I ain't do nothing!" War yells. "You need to tell me why you're pulling me over!"

War denies the officers permission to search his vehicle when they ask, but they search it anyway. "You ain't supposed to be in there!" War says.

"We got a call about you dealing, War," one of the officers tells him.

"Man, how you know my name?" War demands.

The police then proceed to look through War's trunk after finding a large sum of cash in a duffel bag in his front seat.

"I ain't giving you all permission, so that's illegal," War says.

"Not if we got a tip on you, big dog," one officer retorts. The officer cuts into a tire inside the trunk and finds a large package filled with a white powdery substance. "Dude, that's a lot of time right there, War," the officer tells him.

"That is not mine," War assures the officer, but before he knows it, he is being escorted to the back of the police car to be taken in and booked. There's no doubt in War's mind that Candace set him up as retribution for extorting her.

When Jeffery and Veronica arrived at Katheryn's home to pay their respects to the mother who just lost her only son, they never anticipated the violence that would soon transpire.

Jeffery, still reeling from news of his best friend's death, cries beside Katheryn on the couch. As he does so, his unfeeling mother berates him for being overly sensitive. With each added verbal blow from Veronica, Jeffery's temper rises, until he tells her how much he'd love to hit her over the head with the wine bottle just within arm's reach. Even after the threat, Veronica continues to cut her son down, telling him that he doesn't have the heart it takes to fight her.

"You see, real men need heart to go to battle," Veronica sneers into her son's ear.

"I am a man," he says.

"A man who's sitting here crying over another man," Veronica says to him, getting to the real matter at hand: Veronica's intolerance of her son's sexual orientation.

"Look at all these women in this room. Do you see any of them behaving the way you're behaving right now?" Veronica screams at her son, indicating Katheryn and Hanna. "Now what does that tell you?"

"What should it tell me?" Jeffery asks, tiring of his mother's mania.

"It should tell you that you're out of line," she informs him. Veronica turns to Katheryn and Hanna. "Can you imagine? He wants to hit me in the head with a bottle," she says with disdain, adding, "That's like some kind of ghetto bitch in the club."

But Jeffery has had enough. He lunges not for the wine bottle but for the dinner knife lying nearby, and in a fit of rage, he plunges the blade into Veronica's chest. Her shocked eyes search his in disbelief, and Jeffery stares back with murderous resolve.

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