As Power Book IV: Force speeds toward its explosive conclusion, showrunner Gary Lennon is telling BOSSIP about the creative challenge he happily took on to close Tommy Egan’s Chicago chapter.
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“You know, as everyone knows, I love Tommy,” Lennon told BOSSIP. “Joseph [Sikora] and I in real life are very, very good friends. And so it was important for me to huddle with him and talk with him about how we saw this chapter coming to an end. He was very involved, story-wise. I wanted to honor the character of Tommy. I wanted to make sure that the character of Tommy grew in a different way. I wanted to give him new obstacles, I wanted to give him new rewards, I wanted to give him new relationships. And as you watch the season, you’ll see all of those things unfold and his response to what those things are.”
That emotional collaboration between Lennon and Sikora sets the tone for Force’s third and final season, which premiered Friday, November 7, on STARZ. As previously reported, the Power spinoff follows Tommy’s relentless pursuit to rule Chicago’s drug empire, testing his loyalty to his partner Diamond (Isaac Keys), straining his fractured relationship with Diamond’s brother Jenard (Kris D. Lofton), and forcing him to protect the few loved ones he has left.
“I think you’re right,” Lennon said when asked about Tommy continuing to be ruled by emotion in this third and final season. “I always say that Tommy is a fan favorite because people at home sitting on their couch are watching a dude that will go in and he does what we wish we had the courage to do in real life. So he’s like our avatar, right? It’s like, yeah, kick his a**, kill him; the stuff we can’t do because we’d go to jail. So he’s a fantasy of our minds.”
For Lennon, balancing that fantasy with a believable emotional core was crucial.
“This season we created obstacles for him that gave him an opportunity to actually do the right thing,” he explained. “You’ll see moments where he’s not only vicious and violent, but he outsmarts and outplays a couple of his opponents in ways we haven’t seen before.”
With Tommy at the center of the Power universe since the beginning, Lennon admits there was “a huge responsibility to land the plane” with integrity and intensity.
“I don’t take it lightly knowing that Tommy is, I would say, probably the number one fan favorite of the Power universe,” he said. “It’s a huge responsibility to deliver upon the promise that we made to the audience. We, the writers, the storytellers, wanted to deliver a story that was intoxicating, propulsive, violent, sexy, and funny. All the things that Tommy is. And I think we did that this season.”
Ultimately, Lennon believes the ending of Force is about cementing Tommy Egan’s place in television’s modern crime canon.
“We wanted to make sure that what we delivered was worthy of him,” Lennon told BOSSIP. “And I think the audience will feel that we did.”
