49 Fun Facts About Power (TV Series)

Which nightclub do James 'Ghost' St. Patrick and Tommy Egan open in Power to launder the profits of their drug network?

Truth opens in the pilot as cover for Ghost and Tommy's drug money, and the season 1 finale ends with an assassin opening fire at a party inside it.

In Power's series finale, who is revealed to have fired the shot that killed Ghost at his nightclub?

His son Tariq is revealed as the shooter, and Tasha, exposed while trying to frame her lover for it, takes responsibility and goes to prison.

Which R&B star plays Monet Tejada, the queenpin whose family Tariq gets entangled with in Power Book II: Ghost?

Mary J. Blige's Monet is officially only second-in-command: the Tejada operation's leader is her husband Lorenzo, and she runs the family business in his absence.

Power aired on Starz in the US, but which streaming service carried it weekly in the UK and Ireland?

Netflix held the exclusive first-run rights in Britain and Ireland, adding each episode the day after it aired in America, and billed the Starz drama as one of its own Originals.

In Power Book IV: Force, Tommy Egan heads for California but stays in which city after finding his grandmother alive?

Chicago was meant to be a pit stop on the drive west, but Tommy learns his grandmother is alive and that he has an older half-brother, JP, and stays.

Which Power lead, Ghost himself, went unpicked in the NFL Draft and later earned Grammy nods for spoken-word poetry?

Omari Hardwick declared for the draft hoping to join the San Diego Chargers, went unselected, and later lived in his car in Los Angeles while paying for acting classes.

Which Wu-Tang Clan member plays Davis MacLean, the costly lawyer keeping Tasha and Tariq out of prison in Power Book II?

Method Man's MacLean will do anything to win, and he later takes on disgraced prosecutor Cooper Saxe, the man who spent years chasing Ghost, as a partner at his firm.

Which singer replaced Joe on a remixed Power theme for the season 6 premiere, until fan backlash restored the original?

Trey Songz's remix, which also featured A Boogie Wit da Hoodie, lasted two episodes before 50 Cent announced the original would play again from episode 603. Songz said the pile-on 'hurt my feelings'.

Which 50 Cent track, with R&B singer Joe on the hook, is the opening theme of Power?

Big Rich Town proved untouchable: when season 6 opened with a remixed version, viewers complained so loudly that the original was back by the third episode.

Which former 3LW singer, who played Lil' Kim in the biopic Notorious, stars as Ghost's wife Tasha St. Patrick in Power?

Naturi Naughton played Tasha in all six seasons, ending the original series under arrest for Ghost's murder, and carried the role into Book II.

Which relative of creator Courtney Kemp, the dedicatee of Power's pilot, was her model for James 'Ghost' St. Patrick?

Her father Herbert Kemp Jr., a sharecroppers' son who became an advertising executive, died in 2011; Kemp says she needed to write about him and gave Ghost his mental toughness and sharp dress sense.

Before pitching Power, creator Courtney Kemp made her name writing episodes of which CBS drama?

The Good Wife made Kemp an Emmy nominee, yet she walked away from network television to sell Power, the first series she ever pitched.

At which university does Tariq St. Patrick study in Power Book II: Ghost, rooming with a hedge-fund heir?

Stansfield is a fictional New York campus that keeps drawing in Tariq's old world: Councilman Rashad Tate, Ghost's former political rival, later joins its staff to teach ethics.

Before Power begins, Ghost sets up Kanan Stark for a ten-year prison term; what had Kanan been to him and Tommy?

Mentor to both in the drug trade, Kanan took the young Ghost and Tommy under his wing, and he leaves prison a decade later bent on revenge against his former pupil.

Which sister of prosecutor Angela Valdes is among the suspects seen at the club the night Ghost is shot in Power?

Paz blames Ghost for Angela's death and goes to his club that night, but she chooses to walk away, one of several suspects the final episodes clear before naming the shooter.

Power Book III: Raising Kanan goes back to 1991 in which Queens neighbourhood, the same one 50 Cent was raised in?

South Jamaica is where 50 Cent's mother, herself a drug dealer, raised him until her death when he was eight, and the prequel has a teenage Kanan drawn into his own mother's drug business there.

Which medical-drama veteran plays Detective Malcolm Howard, secretly Kanan's biological parent, in Raising Kanan?

Omar Epps, House's Dr. Foreman, plays a detective Raq kept in the dark about Kanan, and when Howard finally reveals it to the boy, Kanan refuses to believe him.

Which Tony winner for Pippin, Commander Paylor in the Hunger Games films, plays Kanan's mother Raq in Raising Kanan?

Patina Miller's Raq is one of the two major drug lords of Queens, running the business with her brothers Marvin and Lou-Lou and pulling her teenage son into it.

Which New York rapper, founder of the Pro Era collective, plays Raq's rival drug lord Unique in Raising Kanan?

Joey Bada$$'s Unique starts as Raq's rival and later becomes her love interest, and his stoic older brother Ronnie walks out of prison to complicate season 3.

Which former Kirby Buckets child actor plays teenage Kanan Stark in Raising Kanan and in the Ghost-and-Tommy prequel?

Mekai Curtis played Kirby's best friend Fish for 59 episodes and voiced Zack in Milo Murphy's Law before landing the lead, and he was the first Raising Kanan actor confirmed to reprise his role in the next prequel.

Which actor, who started at nine and appeared in Orange Is the New Black, grew up on screen as Tariq in Power?

Michael Rainey Jr. turned the role into a business: he and co-star Gianni Paolo launched Twenty Two Entertainment and its podcast The Crew Has It, funded by Kenan Thompson's Artists For Artists.

Which rapper, half of a famous duo with Davis MacLean's actor, played Davis's jailed brother Theo in Power Book II?

Redman made Blackout! and How High with the man who plays Davis, and his Theo is the reason the lawyer fights so hard: Davis is working to get his brother out of prison.

In Power Book II: Ghost, which college basketball star raised as Monet's nephew is really her hidden son with Mecca?

Zeke Cross grows up calling Monet his aunt, and the secret ends badly: her husband Lorenzo shoots him in the back, mistaking him for Mecca.

Which prep-school friend of Tariq, heir to a Wall Street hedge fund, becomes his business partner in Power Book II?

Brayden Weston was Tariq's roommate at Choate, where the pair first sold drugs together, and he later takes a job at his family's Wall Street fund, Weston Holdings.

Which actor, Bobby Brown in BET's The New Edition Story, plays Tariq's ruthless rival Cane Tejada in Power Book II?

Woody McClain's Cane is the eldest child of Monet and Lorenzo and Tariq's main rival, and he ends up as the lover of Effie, Tariq's own ex-girlfriend.

In Power Book II, Tasha realises Tommy Egan is back when she spots which signature vehicle outside Monet's bar?

A blue Mustang is Tommy's calling card, and within hours Tommy, bent on punishing Tasha for pinning Ghost's murder on him, tells Tariq they stopped being family the night Ghost died.

Which friend of Julio becomes Tommy Egan's right hand in Power Book IV: Force, then dies in the season 1 finale?

Liliana, an old employee of Tommy's, assumes he has come to kill her when they meet again; they fight, realise it was coincidence, and she works for him until her death in 'Family Business'.

Which Scottish actor, Chibs of Sons of Anarchy, plays Irish-mob-backed patriarch Walter Flynn in Power Book IV: Force?

Tommy Flanagan's facial scars are real, left by a knife attack outside a nightclub where he worked as a DJ, and he says they have helped him land tough-guy film roles.

Which actor plays Tommy Egan, Ghost's hot-headed best friend, in Power and later leads the spin-off Force?

Joseph Sikora's Tommy leaves New York behind once Ghost is dead, the move that takes him from Ghost's partner to the lead of his own series.

Which planned Power Book V, following Rashad Tate's political rise, was cancelled by Starz in August 2022?

Influence was first announced as Book IV, but Tommy's series Force overtook it and took the number, and Starz shelved the Tate spin-off before it was made.

Which Power prequel, ordered by Starz for 18 episodes in 2025, follows young Ghost and Tommy in late-1990s New York?

Origins is the second prequel after Raising Kanan and is run by that show's creator, whose teenage Kanan returns in it as a young adult.

What nickname does Power give the season 1 assassin who hits Ghost's couriers and mistakenly shoots Tommy's girlfriend?

Pink Sneakers was hired from prison by Kanan, who then convinced Ghost that a trusted friend had ordered the hits; Dre later mortally wounds her, and her dying words point Ghost back at Kanan.

Which friend and protégé does Ghost kill in Power season 1 after Kanan convinces him the man ordered the courier hits?

Rolla led the RSK crew and was innocent: Kanan had framed him, and it takes the real assassin's dying words in season 2 to turn Ghost's suspicion the right way.

Which son of Kanan Stark, Ghost's driver in Power, is killed by Kanan himself after failing to shoot Ghost?

Shawn was also sleeping with Ghost's wife Tasha, and when he fails to carry out the hit and disowns Kanan to his face, Kanan kills him.

In Power season 3, Ghost's bodyguard Dean, played by Australian Callan Mulvey, turns out to be which Serbian kingpin?

Milan saves Ghost from the hit ordered by Tommy's girlfriend only to force both men to work for him, until they march him out of the club at gunpoint and kill him.

Which jailed mob capo, played by William Sadler, turns out to be the dad Tommy Egan was told had died in Power?

Tony Teresi reveals himself from prison, though Tommy's mother Kate had always claimed the man was dead, and later has a corrupt prosecutor killed inside at Tommy's request.

Which corrupt cop shoots Tariq's twin sister Raina in Power season 4 and then becomes Tariq's first kill?

Ray Ray was hunting Tariq as the witness to a home-invasion murder; Tommy, Ghost and Tasha arrive just as Tariq shoots him and help cover it up, and Tasha later claims the killing as her own.

Angela Valdes arrests Ghost at his club at the end of Power season 3 for murdering which FBI agent, her ex-boyfriend?

Greg Knox was really killed by his own task-force boss, and the fingerprints that damned Ghost came from a break-in at Greg's apartment hunting for a recording device; Angela's own testimony later freed him.

Which Lobos task-force boss in Power is secretly the cartel's mole and really killed the agent Ghost is charged with?

Mike Sandoval smuggled Lobos a phone in prison, planted evidence to frame Ghost, and once Angela exposed him as the agent's killer was arrested, then killed inside at Tommy's request.

Which Alias veteran plays Simon Stern, the mogul who seizes Ghost's club and later lends Tasha money, in Power?

Victor Garber, Jack Bristow on Alias and the shipbuilder in Titanic, returned as Stern in Book II; Stern's loan lets him force Ghost into a property deal that legally requires a Black partner.

Which Compton rapper asked to play Laces, a drug-addicted hustler who works with Kanan, in Power season 5?

Kendrick Lamar told his friend 50 Cent he wanted to appear, and when the showrunner asked what he had never done before, he chose an addict, so the writers created Laces for him.

Which Entourage alumnus, Turtle himself, played Joe Proctor, the defence lawyer for Ghost and Tommy, in Power?

Jerry Ferrara's Proctor first got Tommy freed in season 2 by exposing Angela's prosecutorial misconduct, using evidence Ghost had stolen from her apartment.

Which Fast & Furious star played John Mak, the prosecutor on the murdered FBI agent's case, in Power?

Sung Kang, Han in the Fast & Furious films, plays the prosecutor who builds the murder case against Ghost, only to see Angela testify for the defence and the charges dismissed.

Which Tony winner from the film Dreamgirls played Kanan's cousin Jukebox, a corrupt cop, in Power?

Anika Noni Rose, the voice of Disney's Tiana, plays a corrupt Washington DC officer who nurses Kanan back to health, only for him to kill her rather than go through with murdering Tariq.

Power's finale is titled 'Exactly How We Planned', which drops which single word from the title of the 2014 pilot?

Not Exactly How We Planned opened the series in June 2014, and its director, Anthony Hemingway, came back to direct the finale that answered its title, the show's 63rd episode.

Which Power season 6 episode, a Dr. Dre pun, marked 50 Cent's directing debut and restored the original theme song?

Forgot About Dre was 50 Cent's peace offering: after viewers rejected a remixed theme, he announced the original would return with the episode he had directed himself.

Which 50 Cent song featuring NLE Choppa and Rileyy Lanez serves as the opening theme of Power Book III: Raising Kanan?

Part of the Game comes from the franchise's original Kanan: 50 Cent played the character as an adult in Power, and in the prequel he is still heard, narrating the story of his younger self.

Which comedian played Croop, a hitman associated with Councilman Rashad Tate, in Power's final season?

Cedric the Entertainer played it straight as Croop, the hitman a drunken Rashad Tate hires to kill Ghost and then fails to call off; the character ends up shot dead by Tommy Egan.

Which Everybody Hates Chris alumna plays Lauren Baldwin, Tariq's classmate and girlfriend, in Power Book II?

Paige Hurd's Lauren is seemingly killed at the end of season 2 after Effie turns on her, then is revealed in season 3 to be alive and in hiding.