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'Power Book III: Raising Kanan' Creator Breaks Down Shocking Season 3 Finale — and That Epic Surprise (Exclusive)
Showrunner Sascha Penn talks to PEOPLE about the season 3 finale of 'Power Book III: Raising Kanan,' which brought twists and turns, surprise deaths and ended with a bang no one saw coming.people.com
To me, from that ending and after reading this article, it seems like they totally didnt expect the audience to remember the Breeze angle and were like oh shyt lets fix it...
Were there a lot of changes you had to make to the script, or was it more thinking about that finale and how that was going to go down and what the right way was to have Unique back?
Frankly, the end of the season was completely reconstructed. Let me put it to you this way: it was not an insignificant amount of work. It was not and it required a complete re-imagining of the engine of — not just season 3, but also season 4. In some ways, the biggest impact has been on season 4.
What does season 4 Unique look like?
As you can imagine, the original version of season 4 did not have Unique in it, and now Unique is a huge presence in it. And also, without giving too much away, there's a portion of season 4 that actually explains how Unique survived and helps the audience to understand that journey as well. Because we felt strongly that we didn't just want this to be some sort of bulls--- Deus Ex Machina type thing where miraculously he survives and we never understand how it happened.
One of the things that is super important to us on this show is, frankly, how much we do respect this audience. I think that they know this show and this world, in some ways, better than any of us do.
Obviously, there's going to be a big fan reaction to this big reveal, but there was also a huge response to his death. There was a lot of outrage. Did you expect the level of response that that death got?
I'll be honest, I didn't. It's just amazing. It's such an amazing experience, to be honest. The other thing that's been really interesting is the initial reaction to Ronnie was so vicious. Now, it's a complete 180. Ronnie has become the fan favorite. I hope the audience, at some point, will learn to trust us. It may not work out the way they want it to all the time, but ultimately, we have their best interests at heart.
Frankly, the end of the season was completely reconstructed. Let me put it to you this way: it was not an insignificant amount of work. It was not and it required a complete re-imagining of the engine of — not just season 3, but also season 4. In some ways, the biggest impact has been on season 4.
What does season 4 Unique look like?
As you can imagine, the original version of season 4 did not have Unique in it, and now Unique is a huge presence in it. And also, without giving too much away, there's a portion of season 4 that actually explains how Unique survived and helps the audience to understand that journey as well. Because we felt strongly that we didn't just want this to be some sort of bulls--- Deus Ex Machina type thing where miraculously he survives and we never understand how it happened.
One of the things that is super important to us on this show is, frankly, how much we do respect this audience. I think that they know this show and this world, in some ways, better than any of us do.
Obviously, there's going to be a big fan reaction to this big reveal, but there was also a huge response to his death. There was a lot of outrage. Did you expect the level of response that that death got?
I'll be honest, I didn't. It's just amazing. It's such an amazing experience, to be honest. The other thing that's been really interesting is the initial reaction to Ronnie was so vicious. Now, it's a complete 180. Ronnie has become the fan favorite. I hope the audience, at some point, will learn to trust us. It may not work out the way they want it to all the time, but ultimately, we have their best interests at heart.
@ that ending
at the OG Power happening over the course of 6 months
