If you’ve ever felt victimized by Starz’s Power, raise your hand. As a die-hard fan myself, at the end of season 4, it felt like Courtney Kemp, 41, reached into my chest, took my heart out and just threw it on the floor. Raina’s death was not only tragic, it was confusing, emotional, and unexpected to say the least. Most fans predicted that it would be Tariq (Michael Rainey Jr.) who would make yet another one of his countless bad decisions and end up on the receiving end of a bullet. But, no. It was Raina (Donshea Hopkins). And, just like that, we were left with the harshest cliffhanger Power has ever delivered.
While Raina’s death made sense, somewhat (I guess) — she threw herself in the line of fire; she was nosey with what was happening with Tariq; blah, blah, blah — why did she have to die? You’d think it would be a hard decision to make for Courtney Kemp, the show’s beyond brilliant creator. “No, it wasn’t,” Kemp told HollywoodLife.com EXCLUSIVELY when asked if it was a difficult decision to kill off Raina. “It was the right piece of storytelling.” But why? — “I say this all the time, I tell people, ‘I think you’re confusing how hard it is to watch, than how hard it would be to make the decision (to kill her off),” she explained, adding that the two “are not the same.”
Kemp (blew my mind when she) explained: “It was difficult for y’all to watch, because you didn’t know it was happening. But, if you think about it, Tariq had made so many bad decisions all the way along, someone was going to get killed because of his bad decisions. The fact that it wasn’t him is what makes our show better than other shows.”
We caught up Kemp at the premiere of Power‘s fifth season on June 29 at Radio City in New York City, where she said she’s “overwhelmed,” by the show, in a good way of course. “I’m really excited for people to see the show,” she said, adding, “It’s going to be really intense this season. You’re going to have some feelings for sure.”
Power returned to the small screen on Sunday, July 1, with a bombshell debut. There were twists and turns (obviously), but Kemp was right, we really are going to have feelings like never before this season.
Season 5 picks up with James “Ghost” St. Patrick (Omari Hardwick) in a dangerous alliance with his former drug partner and partner-in-crime, Tommy Egan (Joseph Sikora), as well as his enemy Kanan Stark (50 Cent). The three united after Raina’s death over the common goal to take down Dre (Rotimi), who now has power of his own. As Ghost mourns the death of his daughter, he throws himself into his work, while focused on finding her killer. However, the Feds are closing in on him and he’s more recognizable now more than ever. Ghost is at the point where he’s almost blind to his enemies since he’s so distracted by the loss of his daughter.
As for what we can expect this season? — HollywoodLife.com chatted with some of the cast and crew while at the premiere, who teased the “rollercoaster ride” we’ve just strapped ourselves into…
“It’s bad to the bone… This season in particular is going to be a ‘wow!’. We’re going to learn a lot more about complexity, characters will do unexpected things just when you thought you knew them.” — Executive Producer, Mark Canton
“I think you might get some more trolling of Angela in season 5, it’s safe to say that. Power is always a crazy rollercoaster, but this year, I feel like it really becomes an unsafe rollercoaster. But, you get the same levels — you’re going to laugh, yell at the TV, get angry, maybe tear up — all the emotions. We get the scripts and do big table reads, and at the end of the table reads, I literally have to leave the room and take some deep breaths. It really shakes you up. It really makes me nervous just reading this stuff, so it’s really easy to play Proctor.” — Jerry Ferrara (Proctor).