We all know Power never dies, and with each passing season of the hit series Power Book II: Raising Kanan, we should be thanking our lucky stars that's the case.

Power Book III: Raising Kanan Season 2 was a hit from start to finish, furthering the legend of Kanan Stark and continuing to showcase an incredible cavalcade of characters to help tell this twisted tale of money, power, greed, and family.

Fresh off the jaw-dropping season finale, we talked with series creator and showrunner Sascha Penn about Kanan and Raq's fractured dynamic, Marvin's season two journey, and THAT ending of Power Book III: Raising Kanan Season 2 Episode 10.

I wanted to ask first about Kanan and Raq and the status of their relationship at the end of season two because it seems like they've reached this point where they're further apart than ever. So, is there a path forward for them, and what could that look like?

Yeah, I mean, it's a great question. I think that their relationship is more fractured than it's ever been at the end. And when she's sort of walking out of the house, and there she is, facing her son, standing next to the biggest lie she ever told, right? And then she's walking out also with her arch-enemy.

She's got a bullet in her shoulder. She's got Jukebox's mom dead behind her. I mean, it's like this whole house of cards she's created has basically come crashing down on her in that moment. And I think the question that you're posing is the question we all sort of have to address at some point in our lives.

Maybe not in the same order of magnitude as Raq, but it's like we all, at some point, have relationships that become damaged and fractured, and how do we repair those?

In the case of Raq, again, it's rather extreme, but we're telling the origin story of Kanan Stark. And obviously, to get Kanan from the guy you met in season one to the Kanan you knew in Power, that's a journey. And a lot of stuff has to happen because he's pretty cold-blooded in the original Power.

What we're seeing right now is the building blocks because we are the sum total of our experiences in our relationships. That's just who we are as human beings. And it's the same thing for Kanan, so that's kind of the journey he's on. And obviously, his relationship with his mother is fundamental to that.

So, I think what you're pointing out, which is this real sort of disconnect between them, is very much a part of who he is and who he becomes.

Kanan and Howard, when the season started, I was like, "Oh, I'm really going to see them start to figure out their relationship." But it was kind of a slow burn with them the whole season, which I thought, in the end, ended up being realistic.

Can you speak to that relationship and how it formulates over the season and where we might see that go as well?

Yeah, I mean, first off, great question, and I will tell you, I'm a stepparent, and I had never had kids. And so, to your point, it was important to me. No one just shows up and figures out how to be a parent day one, especially when you're Howard, who's a very specific kind of guy.

It was not one of those things where all of a sudden, he was going to be thrown a baseball with Kanan in the front yard. But I think what's interesting about Howard is that in season one with Kanan, it was like Kanan was a lifeline for him, literally. I need this kid to save my life.

In season two, all of a sudden, he's thinking more about himself as a human being in terms of legacy and what does my life amount to. And then all of a sudden, he realizes he has this kid, and he thinks to himself, "Oh, well, maybe this is my legacy. Maybe this is the thing I can do." But he doesn't know how to do it, right? He's confused.

And so, I think that's really part of, again, a big part of the story for Kanan is trying to reconcile this reality for himself, which is he thought of himself as the son of Raq and this sort of gangster legend Defcon. Now he has to reimagine himself and reconceive himself, and that's a really fucked up situation to be in for anybody.

And I don't know if you've ever known anyone who's found out late in life that a parent they thought was their parent wasn't their parent. But I do, and it's this very weird paradox where on the one hand, nothing about your life changes that much, but at the same time, everything about your life changes. And that's kind of where Kanan is.

Switching gears, I wanted to talk about Marvin because season one Marvin to season two Marvin, there's just so much growth there. Can you talk about that journey and how important it was to showcase that he was getting to a place where he recognized that he needed to grow as a person?

I think that's one of the most gratifying storylines of season two, to be honest. Because the way season one ended, Marvin had a lot of haters. People definitely felt like he ended in a pretty dark place. And so, the journey for him is this journey of redemption.

And look, we always try really hard on this show to make stuff feel pretty grounded as much as we can in the human experience. And I am no expert on the human experience, but what I can say is that if you put in the work, you can change, right?

If you commit yourself to that. If you're willing to do the heavy lifting, the hardest part of it is to really be honest with yourself. And I think Marvin does that. And by the way, he does it reluctantly at first. Remember, he doesn't even want to do it. He's just like, put me in this shit, and I'll whatever.

And then all of a sudden, it starts to click, he starts to see, and obviously, it pays off in a real way in the finale when he's shot. And there's this guy that a few months earlier, he probably would've knocked that dude on his ass, but he was nice to him, and the guy says, "Yo, I got you." And this is Demo, who's in the wheelchair.

So, I think people have really responded to Marvin over this season, and I kind of had an inkling that might happen, but I didn't realize how much it would happen. And again, I think that resonates for all of us because I think everybody's like, "Yeah, I want to do better. I want to be better."

And I think watching Marvin do that, and by the way, it's been brilliantly realized by London Brown. Without London, I don't think with a different actor, I don't know if we're able to do this because he's so incredibly gifted at what he does.

So, it's really, really nice to see how people have responded to Marvin because he's like the rest of us, man. He is trying to figure some shit out.

The ending with Unique coming back to save Raq, I did not see that coming at all. It really, really surprised me.

Glad to hear.

So, where's the thought process there? Once I saw it, I was like, okay, I can see where the build-up with them has been coming from the very beginning. But walk me through why that was important at that moment.

I think it was important for a couple of reasons, at least. One is, and you sort of touched on it, Raq and Unique have a kinship that they don't have with any other character because Unique sort of understands her in a way that no one else does. They're in the same business and function in the same capacity, or at least they did.

And so, again, there's an intimacy just in that alone like, "Oh, you get me, and I get you, right? You provide for all your people. I provide for all my people."  That's a real responsibility. That's a real burden.

They sort of understand each other in that way. I also think Raq doesn't have a lot of confidants on this show. For a while, it was Symphony. He wasn't in that life or of that life really, so he couldn't relate in quite the same way, which was part of what she liked about him.

So, I always felt like emotionally, they were always sort of driving towards each other, Raq and Unique. I always felt that way. And so, it seemed like the natural progression of their relationship.

And I always felt like with Unique, and a lot of this again, is it has to do with Joey's performance, even when she was doing all this shit to him, he had this grudging respect for her, where he was like that was pretty good. That was pretty good. The way you do that was pretty good. And she had the same thing for him.

And so, I don't know. To me, it made an incredible amount of sense that's the way it would happen. I think also, and obviously, the way it was shot, we wanted it to be a big reveal.

We wanted people to think exactly, to be surprised the way you were surprised because I think most people if I was guessing, most people thought it was Kanan who was the one who shot that guy. That's what I assume. I don't know. I mean, we left it open-ended. Some people may have thought it was Marvin and whatever.

But again, their relationship was driving towards that all along in my mind.

***This interview has been edited for length and clarity.***

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Whitney Evans is a senior staff writer for TV Fanatic. She is a lover of all things TV. Follow her on X.