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Michael Rainey Jr. is saying goodbye to Tariq St. Patrick — or, so he thinks.
The series finale of Power Book II: Ghost aired on Friday, Oct. 4 and Rainey Jr., 24, tells PEOPLE that “this is the end,” but is it really?
The episode ended with a full-circle moment — Tariq says he will be like a “ghost” as he takes the helm of New York City’s drug operation — and after the credits, a scene played of Tariq getting a mysterious phone call and promising help.
Even Rainey Jr. admits he’s not totally sure what the finale means for Tariq. “I was kind of confused when I read that. I was like, ‘Who the hell is this dude talking to? How do you got new people already?’ Bro, everybody is against you,” he says.
“I’m still like, ‘Who was he talking to?’ I don’t know,” he says.
As for whether it could be his dad’s former partner, Tommy Egan (Joseph Sikora), Rainey Jr. teases, “That could be a possibility. I mean, they’re family.”
Paul Schiraldi
Regardless, Rainey Jr. “would love to see Tariq back on the screen.”
“However that happens — whether it is a little baby picture in Origins — I’m happy to bring Tariq to the screen for the people. So however that may be [possible],” he says. “The [Power] universe, our universe never ends. We got Origins coming, we got… It never ends.”
Overall, Rainey Jr. says “everything in the episode kind of went the way I expected it and wanted it to,” and he admits that the full-circle moment when he referred to himself becoming a “ghost” was “super dope.”
“I feel like at the end of this season, he kind of showed why he was kind of worthy of the name Ghost, even though he slipped up episode nine. I’m never going to forget about that. Never going to forget about that. But he redeemed himself, so he might be worthy of the name Ghost.”
Paul Schiraldi/Starz
Speaking of episode nine, Rainey Jr. says “redeeming himself” after Tariq “fumbled drastically” was also really important to him.
“I was watching [episode 9] like, ‘Oh my God. No, no. Why you got to say all that? You got him right there. Do what you got to do,'” he says. Luckily, in the finale, Tariq “didn’t fold under pressure.”
The status of Tariq’s friendship with Brayden (Gianni Paolo) in the finale is another thing that Rainey Jr. isn’t totally satisfied by.
“They’ve been ride or die, up and down. It’s like, you would expect the season to end with them kind of on the up…but we don’t see any of that at the end of the season. It’s like, what happened between them? There’s so much more to uncover.”
It also brought back memories of the heartbreaking demise of Ghost and Tommy’s friendship.
“Watching their friendship kind of go down the drain was super tough to watch… I would just be watching it, but I’m like, ‘Dang, not Tommy and Ghost. Y’all supposed to be like this.’ So it kind of brings me back to that,” he says. “[It’s] not supposed to be like this.”
STARZ!
Despite spending more than a decade playing Tariq, even Rainey Jr. doesn’t know what to expect from him — and that remains true even after the show has concluded.
“He never knows what he wants to do. One day he wants to be out of the game, the next day he’s like, I got to be in the game… He’s indecisive. I think he just likes the thrill,” Rainey Jr. says, admitting Tariq is “never satisfied.”
“We’ll see what tricks he’s got up his sleeve.”
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The series finale of Power Book II: Ghost is now streaming on Starz.
