“Paint It Black” is episode five of season one of Powers.
At the end of the previous episode, “Devil in a Garbage Bag”, Wolfe was still loose inside the Federal Powers Containment Facility with only a tenuous grasp on his sanity. Wolfe had found a room with a Power locked in it, and Walker was trying to stop him from entering – unsuccessfully, as it happens.
This episode opens back in 1994 at The Sanction Lounge, a club frequented by Powers kids. Retro Girl is there, as well as a rather young (and, it seems, rather immature) Walker, as well as Johnny Royalle, when Wolfe enters. Wolfe was their teacher back then, but there are flashes of the same club splashed liberally with blood, so its evident that something bad is going to happen, and that Wolfe will probably be responsible. Flashes of this event appear throughout the episode.
It seems that the Sway Walker took is having some sort of effect. He seems to be getting inside Wolfe’s head, and from what is seen, it looks like eating people wasn’t something ‘Big Bad’ Wolfe suddenly started doing. Wolfe may have been eating people for most of his, very long, life; it’s only more recently that he’s become more indiscriminate and unable to control his appetite.
Attempts to restrain Wolfe in the facility are not going well. Of the original team of four that stopped Wolfe back when he first escaped, one is dead, one has lost his powers and Retro Girl is still dealing with the hurricane. Zora decides that this is the time to make her presence known as a Power, despite the wishes of her publicist. The Sway is giving Walker some sort of advantage, though, as he proves more capable of taking on Wolfe than he should be. Or, indeed, more than anyone else is.
Calista is getting close to Krispin, the son of Walker’s deceased partner, and the latter is more than a little anti-Power, given that his father was killed by one in “Pilot”.