Power Book III: Raising Kanan Season 4 Is Coming — and the Past Is Catching Up with Kanan (Exclusive)

The ‘Power’ prequel series returns this winter, and PEOPLE can exclusively premiere the first teaser for season 4

Months after leaving fans shocked with a stunning cliffhanger, Power Book III: Raising Kanan is finally making its return.

PEOPLE can exclusively confirm that season 4 of the Power prequel series will premiere this winter, and in the first teaser for the new season, the past is coming back to haunt Kanan and his family.
“Before you can figure out where you’re going, you’ve gotta look back at where you’ve been,” 50 Cent says in a voiceover as the teaser begins with Kanan (MeKai Curtis) holding up a gun to someone while Raq (Patina Miller) is engaged in some secret agreement with the police.

Marvin (London Thomas) and Lou-Lou (Malcolm Mays) are shown too, with the latter standing side-by-side with Raq in one shot, before the character fans will be most eager to see graces the screen: Unique (Joey Bada$$). Raq’s former love interest, who made a miraculous return from the dead at the end of season 3, appears briefly with a hood over his head before the screen flashes to a man wearing a bandana over his face as he lights a fire to a restaurant.

“There’s things that happen that seem like they didn’t mean nothing at the time,” 50 Cent’s voiceover continues, and Unique is seen again, guns blazing, before Kanan beats up a janitor.

One of the teaser’s final scenes shows Marvin handing his daughter Jukebox (Hailey Kilgore) a gun, which she then raises at someone. The teaser concludes with a solo shot of Kanan, as 50 Cent says, “And then, you realize they mean everything.”

Following the dramatic conclusion to season 3 in February, Raising Kanan’s creator Sascha Penn told PEOPLE he felt that fans have really “embraced” the show, which tells the origin story of 50 Cent’s Power character, and teased that season 4 will be the show’s “best” yet.

Penn described season 3 as “a bridge in a way between Kanan as a kid, Kanan as a young adult, where he’s finally said, you know, enough is enough. I’m going to be my own man.”

The season 3 finale — which not only saw Unique miraculously come back to life but also featured two shocking deaths — was “yet another building block” in Kanan’s story, Penn said.

Kanan killed Unique’s brother, Ronnie (Grantham Coleman), while Raq killed Kanan’s father, Howard (Omar Epps), and the shockwaves of that will be something that plays out in season 4.

“I think the important piece of Howard’s death, on some level, is once again, how it impacts the relationship between Raq and Kanan.”

Penn also weighed in on how Unique’s resurrection — which remained unknown by the rest of the world — would play out. “The biggest impact has been on season 4,” he said, as Raq’s former enemy-turned-lover has a “huge presence” in the upcoming episodes.

“There’s a portion of season 4 that actually explains how Unique survived and helps the audience to understand that journey as well. Because we felt strongly that we didn’t just want this to be some sort of bulls— Deus Ex Machina type thing where miraculously he survives and we never understand how it happened.”

As for how the actor himself was feeling about returning, Bada$$ told PEOPLE following the season 3 finale that he has a “newfound confidence” after seeing fans’ disappointment at his initial death.

“I feel like it made everybody kind of just feel the impact of this character. Because they say that people don’t appreciate you until you’re gone — and now that I didn’t feel like people appreciated Unique – but seeing the idea of him being gone and seeing how many people responded to that was definitely an eye opener.”

The rapper also teased an “incredible” season 4, as he said, “The Unique that everybody knows is dead.”

“It’s going to be an interesting spin on who this character [is, because Unique] has been, historically, somebody who’s more calculated and smooth with his delivery and kind of conscious and things like that. But I think this Unique is different,” he said. “This is Unique like you’ve never seen him before.”