Though two characters were killed off of Power Book III: Raising Kanan in its season 3 finale, fans were happily surprised to see one character back on the Starz series after many thought he was dead.
The finale saw the Thomas clan kill both Howard (Omar Epps) and Ronnie (Grantham Coleman), but the reveal came at the end that Unique (Joey Bada$$) was in on all of this and also still alive.
The rapper said last month that he wouldn’t return to the series as his character Unique, so when he reappeared in the Feb. 8 finale, fans took to the internet to discuss their disbelief.
As HipHopDX reported, one fan spoiled it for everyone else, writing, “Lou tried to kill himself. Kanan kills Ronnie. Ra[q] kills Howard. Unique is still alive. Yeah, I spoiled it for you. So what. Raising Kanan is the best of all Power’s, including the original. I said it so you don’t have to.”
While it’s kind of rude to spoil the season finale, the fan’s excitement was felt throughout the fandom, with another fan writing, “Now That’s How Yo Do A Season Finale.” Another wrote in part, “…Yeah, Season 4 about to be something serious!”
Creator Sascha Penn told People about the surprising finale, saying, how the cast was “pretty stunned” to find out the character was still alive.
“We hit the ball pretty well, to be honest, so I think people were pretty shocked,” said Penn. “It was definitely a dramatic moment because he doesn’t have any dialogue, it’s just he shows up. So Joey just popped up on [the screen], because we do the table reads on Zoom. You always know when you hit it because the cast just starts applauding and shaking their heads, and we had a lot of that, which was super gratifying.”
Penn also said that Bada$$ revealed how he couldn’t leave the character behind just yet, leading to a conversation between them.
“Definitely as soon as he said he wanted to be back, I wanted him back. There’s no question. But I can’t lie, we had already written the scripts, so it was not an insignificant adjustment that needed to take place,” he said. “I had said to Joey early on when he said that he was done, ‘Look, I have to be honest, this type of role, this type of opportunity, 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 for an actor. I felt like, wow, to walk away from this is tough. And you know what, I wasn’t the only one who had that conversation with him. 50 [Cent] also spoke to him about it, and ultimately, Joey figured it out, and we were all able to accommodate it and I think, the show was far, far, far better for it.”
The series has already been renewed for season 4.
