“Power” answered that long-running, pivotal question in the series finale of the six-season Starz drama: Tariq shot and killed his father, James “Ghost” St. Patrick (Omari Hardwick).
However, the finale of the series, which lays the groundwork for four planned “Power” spinoffs, really was more of a family affair. So it was a fitting end for the story of the elder St. Patrick, a nightclub entrepreneur and drug kingpin, and the family and colleagues who surround him.
In Sunday’s finale, Tariq (Michael Rainey Jr.) pulled the trigger – sending a bloodied Ghost hurtling backward in a now-familiar visual – but he barely beat his mother and Ghost’s ex, Tasha (Naturi Naughton), to it.
And Tommy (Joseph Sikora), who was like family to Ghost, witnessed the aftermath. He had a chance to shoot Tariq, but Ghost, in his dying breath, persuaded him to spare his son.
Tariq, Tasha and Tommy were part of the pool of suspects in Ghost’s killing, first revealed late last fall but played out from various perspectives over the final five episodes.
To avoid a leak of the assailant’s identity, “we shot a number of different endings,” creator Courtney Kemp says. “It’s actually a testament to the popularity of the show, and I can’t complain about that.”
Although the identity of Ghost’s shooter remained up in the air until the end, the kingpin’s fate was preordained, she says.
“With Ghost, it was always dead or in jail. That was always going to be how he ended, because we told that (story) from the beginning,” Kemp says. “From the beginning, (Ghost) was very sanguine about that. And then, toward the end of his life, he got arrogant enough to think that he could escape it. But that’s not how life works.”
Besides lifting the veil on the details of Ghost’s demise, the finale also featured the return of a familiar face, Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson as Kanan, the drug dealer and one-time Ghost mentor who was killed in Season 5. He returned as a vision to Tariq just before he shoots his father.
“We wanted to (convey) the idea of the ghosts: You will be visited by three ghosts, the ‘(Christmas) Carol’ of it, the ‘Richard III’ of it,” Kemp says.
Levar Kemp is the Editor-In-Chief of Snubb3d Magazine. He is a alum of Howard University in Washington D.C. Mr. Kemp is a producer, director and has a passion for the arts. His diverse background in the industry includes but not limited to: BET, VIACOM, VH1, and other well known publications.
