Courtney Kemp Didn't Want to Kill Jukebox or Lobos, And Pitched a Proctor Spin-Off

Power creator and executive producer Courtney A. Kemp was a recent guest on The Weekend Watch Instagram Live to promote her new Netflix show Nemesis.

During the nearly hour-long interview, Kemp was asked numerous questions about her upcoming project and the Power Universe that made her a household name.

She shared that she would like to turn Nemesis into a universe similar to what she had done with the Original Power and the spin-offs.

Kemp also went into a couple of characters from the Original Power Series that she wanted to kill off in the show. Still, because of those actors' and actresses' other contractual obligations with other projects, they had to be removed.

One of those actresses was Anika Noni Rose, who played Juke Box, and the other was actor Enrique Murciano, who played Felipe Lobos.

"The first death that I did not want to do was Jukebox. I did not want to kill Jukebox. I thought that Anika, who, by the way, just got nominated for a Drama Desk Award. Anika is one of the best actors I've ever worked with. I've worked with a lot of amazing actors; I'm so grateful to so many people who put their blood, sweat, and tears into the characters I've written over the years," said Kemp.

"But Anika as Jukebox? Come on, come on like Princess Tiana, she don't take no stuff. And I did not want to kill Lobos off either. I did not want that, really. What I didn't know was that both of those deaths were due to the other projects those actors were on, they could no longer shoot with us."

Per the Cheat Sheet, Rose's character was killed off the show in the scene where her cousin Kanan Stark, who betrayed her, shot her after trying to hurt Tariq St. Patrick (Michael Rainey Jr.) after kidnapping him — whom Stark tried to become close with to get revenge on his father James "Ghost" St. Patrick (Omari Hardwick) — following Kanan Stark serving a prison sentence.

Rose would later take the lead role in the 2017 BET drama The Quad, as Dr. Eva Fletcher, according to Bustle.com.

As for Enrique Murciano's character, Felipe Lobos was a Mexican drug dealer who was the focus of the FBI's investigations. Lobos was also the initial supplier for his New York organization, which was run by drug kingpins James "Ghost" St. Patrick and Tommy Egan (Joseph Sikora).

Lobos and St. Patrick had a complicated relationship because St. Patrick was looking for an exit, which would lead to Lobos wanting to replace and eliminate St. Patrick. He planned to replace him with Tommy Egan as his solo distributor.

Egan initially agreed to the task because Lobos was threatening his life, his girlfriend Holly Weaver (Lucy Walters), and their dog. He would later change his mind after his dog was killed, and he killed his pregnant girlfriend with his own hands after she revealed that she had hired the Jamaicans to get rid of Ghost after being notified that their lives were in danger.

However, after Egan killed Weaver, Ghost showed up after killing a group of Korean dealers who were trying to eliminate Egan after informing their chain of command that they were skimming product off the top. Ghost would later help Tommy Egan bury Weaver and later plotted to get rid of Lobos. They would later plot on breaking Lobos out of federal custody after it was arranged for him to be on the move. Ghost and Tommy would chase him through the woods outside of New York City, and instead of burying him in the grave they built for him, they shot him and let the vulture have at him.

As for the actor Enrique Murciano, after exiting Power in 2016, he was cast in Netflix's Bright as Poison in November of 2016, according to Deadline. In 2017, he was cast on NBC's The Blacklist, according to Deadline, as Julian Gale, an FBI investigator and former colleague of Ressler (Diego Klattenhoff).

Other honorable mentions in the conversation between Kemp and The Weekend Watch were Joseph Proctor (Jerry Ferrara) and Julio Romano (J.R. Ramirez).

One of the fans in the comment section referenced wanting Proctor to have a spin-off, to which Kemp responded:

"I pitched that to Starz, they didn't want to do it."

"I pitched a Better Call Saul with him. It would have been really fun."