Get ready to recover from a major show killing off a fan-favorite character in the first five minutes of its season premiere… You won’t be alone.
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Indeed, Season 4 of the Power prequel series Power Book III: Raising Kanan ended on a wild cliffhanger. The finale saw Kanan (Mekai Curtis) holding his mom, Raq (Patina Miller), at gunpoint and pulling the trigger just as the screen faded to black.
SPOILERS HEAD
While Raq survived the shooting, as confirmed by the series ahead of the Season 5 premiere, the same couldn’t be said for another of Kanan’s family members. In a classic case of Power misdirection, the premiere revealed it was Uncle Lou (Malcolm Mays) who didn’t make it.
Just as Raq seemed ready to accept her fate, Lou-Lou walked in, creating a commotion that caused a jumpy Kanan to accidentally fire his gun, killing his uncle in the process.
Show’s Creator Anticipates’ Big, Big Reaction’ From Fans
“I think people are going to have a big, big reaction,” the show’s creator, Sascha Penn, told PEOPLE. “It’s going to be tough.”
According to Penn, the decision to keep Raq alive wasn’t finalized until just before the production of the season 4 finale. “We went back and forth quite a bit,” Penn admitted. “I think ultimately, the feeling was for me, there was still more story to tell with Raq, and there was some unfinished business that I felt like I really wanted to [tie up].”
With Raq’s fate sealed, Penn said Uncle Lou “immediately” became the next logical choice for the chopping block. “Lou [is] the heart and conscience of the family, and so what I thought made a lot of sense is to remove that from the family … That’s why it sets off the season, because all of a sudden, once he’s gone, there’s no one to check everybody. And I think that creates a lot of conflict and drama and, frankly, tragedy.”
‘Raising Kanan’ Star Calls Character’s Death ‘Devastating’
Miller, 41, confessed she had no clue if her character would survive to see season 5, and she certainly didn’t expect Mays’s character to get the axe.
“It was devastating. It was so sad,” she told PEOPLE after seeing Lou’s end. “I got to talk to Malcolm after [the table read] … We were both on the phone just sad, and I was devastated. And he understood… we both understand that this is what we sign up for [on a Power show].”
Miller found filming Lou’s death, with Raq by his side, “uncomfortable.”
“Sitting in grief in that way is hard, you know?” she recalled. “And as actors, luckily, we were on a set that they give us the freedom, and the respect, to sort of find it. Everyone’s just so supportive and gives you the room to have the moments.”
“It was very hard, but the emotions were very real. Everything about it was just real. And the finality of like, oh my God, this is our last moment — that’s devastating as Patina,” she added of her final day of shooting with Mays. She added it was a “very hard, somber day on set.”
“He’s like my brother in real life, and so I mourned that in real time,” Miller revealed. “It was devastating.”
New episodes of Raising Kanan drop Fridays at midnight ET on Starz… in case you wanted to see just how devastating it really was.