‘Power Book III: Raising Kanan’: Patina Miller Says Raq Isn’t a ‘Ruthless Queenpin’
Power Book III: Raising Kanan Season 2 has shown that Raquel “Raq” Thomas (Patina Miller) is unstoppable. The ’90s set drama series centers on Kanan Stark (Mekai Curtis) in his teen years. His mother, Raq is also a central figure in his life.
Raq runs her drug business with her brothers, Marvin (London Brown) and Lou Lou (Malcolm Mays). However, Miller won’t label her character as a “ruthless” queenpin.
[Spoiler alert: This article contains spoilers from Power Book III: Raising Kanan episode 202.]
Kanan and Raq’s relationship is fractured in ‘Power Book III: Raising Kanan’
In the first season of Raising Kanan, as Raq was urging Kanan to apply to an elite high school and he was pushing back to become indoctrinated into the drug game, the pair were as thick as thieves. However, that bond that they share has eroded over time. As Kanan has delved more into his mother’s business, things have been revealed that he never expected.
Kanan was shocked that his mother ordered his friend D-Wiz’s murder. However, the real split between the pair came when she ordered him to shoot and kill Detective Howard (Omar Epps).
“[Kanan and Raq’s] relationship has been completely damaged from the actions that she took, so there are a lot of consequences to that,” Miller told PopSugar. “Raq is trying to find some sort of ground with Kanan because she knows that maybe she shouldn’t have done what she did, so she’s having to deal with that while also trying to deal with the threat of Howard not being dead and what that means for her and the safety of her business, herself, and her bond with her son.”
Things aren’t the way they used to be, but Raq has no intent on letting the distance between the duo grow. She will “fight to tooth and nail to make sure her son is aligned with her.” Miller said. “If she’s got to plot him with being a soldier in the business and do sort of all the things that she does, you’re going to watch her go through these different methods of getting her son back.”
Patina Miller says Raq isn’t a ‘ruthless queenpin’ on ‘Power Book III: Raising Kanan’
We’ve seen Raq do some chilling things. First she ordered Lou Lou to kill D-Wiz and then in a more recent episode, she killed Scrappy (Ade Chike Torbert) off of the word of a cop. Her ambitions are dangerous and she has no qualms about getting anyone who gets in her way. However, Miller refuses to label her character a “ruthless queenpin.” For the Broadway actor, there is so much more to Raq than that.
“I try to shy away from playing her as a ruthless queenpin,” the actor told Shondaland. “She is a businesswoman, a CEO. For a Black woman in the 1990s, which is the time the show is set in, she has made this world for herself. She has decided to do something for herself. She’s great with numbers. If she lived in a different time, she would probably be the CEO of a company. She is building her empire, unafraid of going out toe-to-toe to people. She is heard and loud.”
Raq could still be alive in the present day
Clearly, Raq is one of the smartest characters in the Power Universe. As a result, many fans believe she is still alive in the present. She was still be relatively young if so, in her late 50s or early 60s. In Power, when Kanan was released from prison after serving 15 years, he told Tommy (Joseph Sikora) that he was going to visit his mother. However, he did not say if he was visiting her grave or going to see her in person.
Miller has some thoughts about this.
“Her goal is to leave something, her legacy for her family, but more so if she gets knocked down, she’s gonna get back up,” the actor told Express U.K. “And you’re gonna see that grit, that determination, that passion, that, like, ferociousness. She’s a fighter, and she’s a survivor. It’s what she is, and she’s always done, and don’t ever count her out.”
