Major spoilers below for anyone who hasn't yet watched the Season 6 premiere for Starz's Power.
Of all the TV shows ending their runs in the next year or so, few will likely bow out with the same unapologetic bravado as Starz's signature hit drama Power, which kicked off its sixth and final season on Sunday night. Thankfully, in a sense, the episode quickly addressed one of the biggest questions fans had after the Season 5 finale: did Angela survive getting shot by Tommy?
That answer was a big ol' "Nope, not a chance." Not even a Ghost of a chance. For all that viewers may have hoped for the U.S. Attorney's survival, based on Lela Loren's appearance in promotional material for Season 6, the premiere's opening minutes quickly confirmed that Angela died from the gunshot wound after being taken to the hospital. It also refocused Ghost's crosshairs, with Tommy's face sitting dead-center.
Here, showrunner Courtney Kemp explains why Angela was destined to get killed off.
Angela had all the information, and whenever a character has all the information on our show, we usually kill them. [Laughs.] Greg was very close to having all the information. Holly had a lot of information. People tend to run into the wall when they know too much. In Angela’s case, she had gotten in over her head in a way where she was no longer law enforcement. She was actually kind of outside of law enforcement, and she was put in a position where she had to make a choice whether she was going to rat on Ghost and go into Witness Protection or try to help him. I felt like she had to buy her own death, and this is where she buys it. She goes the path of love, which is how Angela has screwed up everything since she met Ghost, so it made sense in that way.
When one is living a life that appears that complicated within Power, that life is rarely one meant to stand the test of time. Even though Angela wasn't actually the federal witness, meaning her murderer wouldn't automatically get the death penalty, suspicions still abound over who might have killed her and why, with Ghost getting some of those accusations thrown his way. Those accusers obviously weren't there to see him shed his grief-filled tear at the end of the episode as he was leaving Angela's apartment. He's mourning, people!
In any case, Ghost's claims of not knowing who killed Angela were met with universal disbelief, which shows good instincts on the cops' part. Ghost absolutely wants to destroy Tommy's existence for shooting Angela, regardless of his own role in inspiring Tommy's vengeful actions.
Considering fans have been living with worry over Angela's fate since last September, it might have felt like a big slap in the face for Power to lay her corpse out at the morgue so quickly into the new season. It turns out showrunner Courtney Kemp originally planned on revealing the death in the same episode where she was shot, but then realized that wouldn't fully give the character's and actress' exit the breathing time it needed. Here's what else Kemp told TVLine about it:
As for keeping [Angela] alive over the break, we hadn’t intended to do that. We shot a death in [the finale]. But then I realized that it was two separate events. Her getting shot was an event, and her dying was an event. And if you could separate them, then you could get more story out of it, but also you could honor Angela’s death in the right way with more time. Because it affects more than just Ghost. It affects everybody.
At this point, it's almost definitely going to affect Tommy the most, in that he's likely going to be joining Angela in the choir invisible before Season 6 wraps up. But not necessarily before audiences will see Lela Loren's character at least one more time before Power is gone for good.
As seen near the end of the Season 6 trailer below, Angela and Tommy are sharing a private moment that definitely didn't occur in the premiere episode. Unfortunately, Courtney Kemp wasn't opening up about whether that moment will be a flashback or a dream sequence of some kind. Guess we'll just have to wait and see.
Though Season 6 will close out the current timeline story for Ghost St. Patrick and others, this is not the end of Power in general, seeing as how Starz is ready to embrace 50 Cent's Power Cinematic Universe. For now, though, check out the first half of the final season when it airs on Starz every Sunday night at 8:00 p.m. ET.
