After a couple weeks of feeling both anger and heartbreak over the murder of angelic character Raina St. Patrick, Power fans were not only treated to seeing the slaying get avenged on Sunday during the season finale, but they also got an adrenaline rush in the closing moments of episode 10. Foreshadowing a gleefully ironic turn of events, Raina’s pop Ghost and her godfather Tommy reunited (albeit an uneasy one and out of necessity) with onetime friend and mentor-turned-bitter enemy Kanan as the three will go to war with Dre and his new powerful allies, the Jimenez drug cartel.

Ascending steadily in popularity throughout its almost half a decade run, Power has crossed over into a pop culture phenomenon and, with four impeccable seasons, it’s about that time to start comparing the drama to some of the GOATS like The Wire.

“It feels really great and at the same time, it feels really scary,” said Lela Loren, who stars as Angela Valdes, about the show becoming a phenomenon. “Because you know it’s gonna end and then what? It’s been a huge privilege and honor. For me personally, I’ve had a hard time letting that in. I try to ignore it. I know that may sound strange because that’s not why any of us started it. I always have that fear of if you let that in, then you’re going to stop doing the good work that got you there.”

Omari Hardwick, who plays Angela’s former star-crossed lover Ghost, says he doesn’t get caught up in the hype either.

“For me, similarly, I always keep it moving. I live by that slogan, ‘K.I.M.,’ keep it moving,” Hardwick surmised. “I do feel proud to be an emblematic face upon a character I don’t think necessarily has a color. The great talents of different actors could have played this character if it was painted as not an African-American character. So it feels pretty honorable that I was able to specifically this character looking the way I look. We’ve never necessarily seen a character look like this and be this complex and have an IQ off the charts and dress the way he dresses and be a father and all the elements and, at the same token, being a part of the culture. Michael Jordan is a part of the culture, hip-hop is a part of culture, Jean Michael Basquiat, Andy Warhol, were all a part of pop culture at that respect in time moving forward. So if we’re in that conversation as far as what we’ve done as a TV, gosh. Shout out to STARZ and everybody else for believing in us. Courtney [Kemp Agbo], Curtis for believing we can push the culture forward. That shit is crazy.”

For Hardwick and Loren’s characters, it was all fun and games until somebody got arrested. Ghost and Angela were immersed in torrid love affair for most of seasons 1, 2 and 3 until their ties to the underworld and law enforcement respectively caused them to split up. By the end of season three, it was Angela who put Ghost in handcuffs at his own club nonetheless and carted him off to the big house.

The majority of this past season four, the two were on opposing sides and, as they told us, kept their distance from one another is something that occurred on and off screen.

“Lela and I didn’t talk until towards the end of the season,” Hardwick described to us.

“You can’t be buddy-buddy then go do a scene where you have all this tension. You gotta let yourself build that,” Loren elaborated.

It hasn’t been all bad between Ghost and Angela this year. In episode nine, the two were at least cordial when they saw each other at a fundraiser and, let’s not forget, in an ironic twist, it was Angela’s testimony that helped free Ghost from prison. Obviously, fans of Power know that incarceration this season was just a fraction of Ghost’s conundrums. Upon his release, he had to rescue his kidnapped son, try to avoid a war with a drug cartel and, most shockingly, his daughter was killed. Undoubtedly, the character of Ghost and his St. Patrick family will never be the same. Hardwick says playing a character going through such immense tribulation and tragedy was pleasurable.

“I love it,” Hardwick offered. “I love it for story. It adds to the texture that’s quite bountiful. It adds to that texture. For me, I’m excited about the opportunity to be isolated, to stay in jail and help build this guy to where he needed to be. It was fun for me. Really fun.”

Power is all wrapped for 2017 and doesn’t return until next year.