Power Book III: Raising Kanan Creator Breaks Down Shocking Season 3 Finale — and That Epic Surprise (Exclusive)

This post contains spoilers from Friday’s episode Book of Power III: The Rise of Kanan.

in Power world, no one is ever safe.

Sascha Penn knows this intimately as a creator and showrunner Book of Power III: The Rise of Kanan. The show’s final installment, Season 3, shows the story “a little bit around the corner,” Penn tells PEOPLE.

“It’s become really big in a way that I didn’t foresee at all. Look, when Raising Kanan came out, it didn’t have any of the original actors from Power. It was a period piece. It was a completely new cast. Yes, we had those two characters — Kanan and Jukebox — but we had adolescent versions of them. So I know there was some initial caution about the series. People said, ‘What is this? Why do they even do that? Who cares?'” he explains.

He continues with the audience’s unwavering support and passion for the characters, “I think what happened is that by Season 3, they finally bought into it.”

At its core, it’s a story about family — and how young Kanan Stark (Mekai Curtis) becomes the grown-up drug lord that fans first met in 2014. Power like 50 Cent.

“We always felt like Kanan was a product of the people he was around growing up — the notion of that takes a village. And so each season is a cornerstone in terms of who Kanan will eventually become when fully realized by 50 Cent in the original PowerPenn continues. “Each season we try to understand more and more how he becomes what he has become. So I think this season is another part of that story.”

Following the show’s jaw-dropping third season finale, Penn details all the major moments — and the near misses — for PEOPLE.

Raising KananMekai Curtis says executive producer 50 Cent ‘passed the baton’ Power Book III (Exclusive)

Patina Miller and Mekai Curtis in ‘Raising Kanan’. Starz

PEOPLE: There are a lot of big moments in this episode. Kanan kills Ronnie (Grantham Coleman), Raq (Patina Miller) kills Howard (Omar Epps), and at the end we get a very shocking surprise. How did this episode – and these deaths – affect Kanan’s story in general?

Penn: That’s another building block. He looks at his mother [Raq] kill his father [Howard], which is traumatic in the best of circumstances. But look, the backbone of this show, its heart has always been Kanan’s relationship with his mother. That was always the defining relationship and everything else revolved around it on some level. I think the important part of Howard’s death, on some level, is again how it affects the relationship between Raq and Kanan. This is certainly something we see in the following episodes.

Many characters’ fates hang in the balance in this episode. What was your idea for this episode? Because there are so many stories, so many characters — a million things are happening at once.

We tried to get the audience to care about these characters, to invest in them and their lives, and I think the vision for this season is the vision for every season on some level, which is to keep people engaged. I think what we tried to do – and I trust the audience to see if we were successful – was to create an arc for these characters, to start them in one place and take them somewhere else. I mean, again, in terms of something that’s really gratifying how people have responded to Marvin [London Brown] and his story, for example.

So many people will hit us and say, “Oh, Marvin reminds me of my uncle.” “I grew up with a guy like him.” That’s the other part of it that’s so incredibly satisfying and speaks to the privilege of doing what we do – that people have an emotional connection to the work.

Obviously, we have to talk about the last scene. Unique (Joey Bada$$) is alive! I was totally shocked when I watched the episode. What was the cast’s reaction to this big twist?

People were quite amazed. To be honest, we were hitting the ball pretty well, so I think people were pretty shocked. It was definitely a dramatic moment because he doesn’t have any dialogue, he just appears. Joey just showed up [the screen], because the table reads on Zoom. You always know when you hit it because the cast just starts clapping and shaking their heads, and we had a lot of that, which was a real pleasure.

I spoke with Joey (Bada$$) and he shared his thoughts on how the conversation with you went when he realized he just couldn’t leave Unique behind him just yet. How did that conversation go for you and what influenced Unique to come back to life?

Definitely as soon as he said he wanted to come back, I wanted him back. There are no questions. But I can’t lie, we had already written the scripts, so it wasn’t an insignificant adjustment to make. I told Joey early on when he said he was done, “Look, I’ve got to be honest, a role like this, an opportunity like this, can happen once in a lifetime.” And that’s not me patting myself and the other writers on the show on the back. He took this thing and turned it into something iconic. That doesn’t always happen to an actor. I felt like, wow, it’s hard to walk away from this. And you know what, I wasn’t the only one having that conversation with him. 50 [Cent] I also talked to him about it, and in the end, Joey got it, and we were all able to adjust to it, and I think the show was far, far, far better for it.

Raq (Patina Miller) and Unique (Joey Bada$$) in ‘Power Book III: Raising Kanan’.

STARZ

Joey Bada$$ reacts to it shockingly [SPOILER] in Book of Power III: The Rise of Kanan: ‘Boy, Was I Wrong’ (Exclusive)

Were there a lot of changes you had to make in the script or were you thinking more about that finale and how that would play out and the right way for Unique to come back?

Honestly, the end of the season is completely reconstructed. I’ll put it this way: it was not an insignificant amount of work. It wasn’t and it required a complete reimagining of the engine — not just Season 3, but Season 4. In some ways, Season 4 had the biggest impact.

What does Season 4 of Unique look like?

As you can imagine, the original version of season 4 didn’t have Unique in it, and now Unique is very much in it. And also, without giving too much away, there’s a part of season 4 that actually explains how Unique survived and helps the audience understand that journey as well. Because we felt strongly that we didn’t just want this to be some kind of bulls— Deus Ex Machina the kind of thing where he miraculously survives and we never understand how it happened.

One of the things that’s really important to us on this show is, honestly, how much we respect this audience. I think they know this show and this world, in a way, better than any of us.

Obviously there’s going to be a big fan reaction to this big reveal, but there’s also been a big reaction to his death. There was a lot of anger. Did you expect the level of reaction that death received?

I’ll be honest, I didn’t. It’s just amazing. It’s such an amazing experience, to be honest. The other thing that was really interesting was that the initial reaction to Ronnie was so vicious. Now it’s a complete 180. Ronnie has become a fan favorite. I hope that the audience will learn to trust us at some point. It may not always work out the way they want, but ultimately, we have their best interests at heart.

Joey Bada$$ as unique in ‘Raising Kanan’.

STARZ

It is Raising Kanan at the end of the day. How does season 3, as a whole, fit into Kanan’s story and how he was raised – or maybe not raised?

I think this season is a real big step forward for Kanan to realize his own independence from his mother. I think this season really feels like a bridge in a way between Kanan as a child and Kanan as a young adult, where he finally says, you know what, enough is enough. I will be my own man. I can’t trust the people around me. The only person I can really trust is me, and I will do my own thing. I think that’s actually the story of Kanan in season three.

Season 4 is underway as we speak. How does this new iteration of the story feel? How does it look from where you are right now?

I’m really, really, really happy with season 4. It’s still early, but I believe it will be our best.

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Seasons 1-3 of Book of Power III: The Rise of Kanan can be streamed in its entirety on the Starz app.

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Source: HIS Education