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SPOILER ALERT: This story contains spoilers for the Season 4 finale of “Godfather of Harlem,” now streaming on MGM+.
In the Season 4 finale of “Godfather of Harlem,” gangster Elsworth “Bumpy” Johnson (Forest Whitaker) finds himself right back where he started, partnering with the Italian mob to run heroin and cocaine through the streets of Harlem. Throughout Season 4, Bumpy attempts to become a legitimate businessman to honor the wishes of his late friend, activist Malcolm X (Jason Alan Carvel). Unfortunately, the numbers runner and crime boss learns the hard way that you cannot be half a gangster.
It’s 1966, and Harlem is changing rapidly. Without his drug business, Bumpy no longer has the overhead nor the power to prevent the Italians from encroaching on his territory and stripping opportunities from Black Harlemites. Despite his best efforts, his thriving new nightclub, Club St. Clair, was ripped from underneath him in a shady deal helmed by menacing Italian mob boss Joseph Colombo (Michael Raymond-James).
In Season 4, the mob wasn’t Bumpy’s only adversary. He also faced his own mortality. In Episode 6, “The Visit,” Bumpy suffers a shocking heart attack, which forces him to analyze his legacy in a new way. Moreover, he finds himself in a tense battle of wills with a young hoodlum from North Carolina who arrives in Harlem with a chip on his shoulder and a switchblade in his hand. A man seemingly without loyalty, Frank Lucas (Rome Flynn), begins to fracture the close bond that Bumpy has built with his right-hand men, Del Chance (Erik LaRay Harvey) and Nat Pettigrew (Elvis Nolasco).
“With the death of Malcolm, we get to see him start to become legit,” Whitaker tells Variety. “But it doesn’t matter what Bumpy does and what he seems to be doing; he just keeps getting pulled back in, and it’s really unfortunate.”
Variety spoke with Whitaker and co-creator/executive producer Chris Brancato about Bumpy’s brush with death, the promises he’s made to Malcolm and how Frank Lucas will change the game. Together, the duo reflected on some of the most significant moments of Season 4 — and what’s next for The Godfather.
This season, Bumpy is toeing the line between who Malcolm X knew he could be and the gangster that he’s always been. Can you discuss how he navigates this duality?
Forest Whitaker: For a number of years now, Bumpy has been thinking about the way things should be done and the way we should exist. With the death of Malcolm, we get to see him start to try to apply that.
Chris Brancato: He’s sworn off being a drug dealer this season in favor of trying to expand in ways that, while they are still technically illegal, are not going to damage the community in the same way – at least in his mind. He takes advantage of human vices, gambling, prostitution, loan sharking, numbers and games. But at least he’s making an effort to try not to dump heroin or cocaine on his community.
Why did you decide to bring Jason Alan Carvel back as Malcolm X this season, even though he was killed at the end of Season 3?
Whitaker: Bumpy’s relationship with Malcolm was an important one. The decision was made to make Malcolm the voice of Bumpy’s conscience. It was a good decision. It offers a lot to the public about Malcolm’s philosophy of peace.
Bumpy is changing, but we also see Harlem shifting around him, especially with the introduction of Frank Lucas. Why was now the time to introduce this iconic character?
Whitaker: We’ve been excited to get to the period where he would be a part of the show. Rome brings true charisma to the show, with some really great acting that allows us to explore power struggles, partnerships and what constitutes true leadership. This relationship with Frank is somewhat of a mentorship relationship.
Brancato: We were trying to contemplate this 13-month time jump between seasons as we were trying to figure out what we’d add to the crime side of the show to give it some pizazz. The idea of bringing in Frank this year came to our minds. Additionally, since this is 1966, Frank Lucas’ book states that he was Bumpy’s driver. We’re not sure if that’s true because a book written by Bumpy’s wife, Mayme [Ilfenesh Hadera], states otherwise. So we are operating on fictional grounds here, and we decided to bring in a young Frank Lucas.
With Bumpy introducing Frank Lucas into his inner circle, loyalty becomes a central theme throughout the season. These loyalties are on display specifically through the Italians’ kidnapping of Del Chance and Nat Pettigrew’s betrayal. Were you surprised by the fracture in this trio?
Whitaker: I think that Pettigrew’s movement really takes you by surprise. He’s given you hints about how he thinks things could be conducted and how they have other opportunities that they’re not taking advantage of. However, it’s surprising to see him going to Joe Columbo.
Bumpy confronts his own mortality this season when he has a heart attack. It makes him vulnerable in a way that the audience, his family and his colleagues have never seen him before. How does that brush with death change him?
Whitaker: He’s been having to look towards a deeper understanding of mortality for a while. He knows what’s right and what’s wrong, but maybe in his mind, it’s too late. He’s done too many things. He’s trying to find a decent way to live, and an honest way. He’s been trying really from the beginning to bring the 10 Black mob families together. He’s been trying to make them work together as a unit, not to harm each other. But no matter what he seems to do, it always seems to fall apart on him.
Brancato: I can’t tell you what it is because that would be a big spoiler, but there’s going to be a climactic moment for Bumpy before his death [in 1968], which functions as a decision that is the sum total of his entire life and experience in Harlem. He’s going to have to make a decision that is either the greater of two goods or the lesser of two evils, which is always what makes a choice difficult.
One of the other significant themes this season is gentrification and outsiders taking over Black communities. We see that in the tension between Joe Colombo, Bumpy and the struggle for ownership of Club St. Clair. Why is maintaining a Black mecca so important to Bumpy?
Whitaker: It was extremely painful, because Bumpy feels that if he earned the money, he should be able to use it. He’s been offered several opportunities by Columbo to acquire an equal stake in the five families’ business, but he doesn’t take it because what he’s trying to do is show that Black men can have their own. But ultimately, whenever he tries to do that, he’s always being pulled backward. It’s really disappointing.
Brancato: We’re picking up now in an America that’s scarily reminiscent of today, where you have a serious left-right divide. You have people taking to the streets in protest, where you have violent actions occurring, where you have the police mobilized to stop those violent actions and committing violence themselves. So, it’s just a unique and fascinating period. One of the things “Godfather of Harlem” seeks to do is to use the past as a prism through which to look at the present. Bumpy’s goal is to recreate the Harlem Renaissance of the 1930s, where white people would come up from downtown to enjoy the music, the alcohol, the women and all that. He’s trying to recreate that in some ways, almost at the worst possible time to recreate that, given what’s brewing underneath the surface.
A lot of what we see in the series is historical, but some of the timelines do shift. We get to see Colombo’s Italian American Civil Rights League Unity Day, which took place in the 1970s, and we get to see Mayme conversing with Truman Capote and James Baldwin. How do you all decide which major events you want to weave into this story and who you want to see depicted on screen?
Whitaker: The writing staff is really strong. That’s always been a mutual discussion from the beginning because one of the things that we talked about was the power dynamics and the political dynamics. That was the thing that was most interesting to us. Exploring criminality, politics and civil rights was what attracted me to the project in the first place.
Season 4 begins in March 1966, and in real life, Bumpy dies in July 1968. Have you discussed how the show might move forward if and when Bumpy dies?
Whitaker: Bumpy’s grooming Frank Lucas to take over, and we see how that reflects itself in the show. It was definitely something that was thought about, and it’s exciting.
Brancato: At some point, the new Godfather of Harlem will become Frank Lucas when Bumpy passes away. As far as I’m concerned, if Forest wants to do the show for 10 more years, then Forest is the Godfather for 10 more years. But at a certain point, his story will be told, and we will hopefully move on.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
English (US) ·