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Power Book III: Raising Kanan chronicles the teen years of Kanan Stark (Mekai Curtis). His mother, Raquel “Raq” Thomas (Patina Miller), is the center of his world. Raq runs a drug empire with her brothers Marvin (London Brown) and Lou Lou (Malcolm Mays). It had been a widely successful enterprise until Raq’s carelessness and ambition caused it all to fall.

In season 3, Raq will have to focus on two things to rebuild her empire.

Patina Miller as Raq Thomas in a blood red top sitting at the table in 'Power Book III: Raising Kanan'
Patina Miller as Raq Thomas in ‘Power Book III: Raising Kanan’ | Starz

Raq has reached a turning point in her life on ‘Power Book III: Raising Kanan’

At the end of the first season of Raising Kanan, Raq was riding high. She’s eliminated her direct competition, Unique (Joey Bada$$), by framing him for murder, and she moved her operation off the streets into the project high rises away from the prying eyes of the cops.

This gave her the ammunition to expand her business in season 2. However, her unbridled ambition cause her to make a ton of mistakes, including pushing into mob territory, killing her most loyal soldier, and further ostracizing Kanan and Lou.

At the end of season 2, she saw her family and her drug empire crumbling underneath her. Now, she will face a reckoning in season 3. “For her in season 3, it’s a real sort of reconciliation of all these things,” Raising Kanan creator and showrunner Sascha Penn told Variety. “To a certain extent, she was coming to terms with her own fallibility, and the mistakes she’s made and the choices she’s made — and really trying to figure out what that all means.”

Raq will have to rebuild her empire in season 3

Regarding rebuilding her organization, Penn says Raq will need to focus on two things that will be emotional and professional.

“There’s a real emotional journey that she has to go on, and something that we’re super conscious of is we want to make sure that as much of a boss as Raq is –– and everyone sort of prefers her that way — she also has humanity,” he explained to Variety. 

Without a connection and most of her crew down and out, Raq will either have to rebuild her business from the ground up or lean on her unlikely ally Unique, who seems to focus on things beyond crack cocaine.

However, a possible romance with Unique and the lies she’s told her son and brother will certainly make things more complicated.

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Raq and Kanan’s relationship will get more complicated in ‘Power Book III: Raising Kanan’ Season 3

While things with Lou Lou look beyond repair, if Raq is finally honest with Kanan about her past and his connection to Detective Howard (Omar Epps), she may save their relationship. However, there is still a lot that Kanan will have to work through, and it’s likely things will never be the same between them.

“I think Raq is Kanan’s bedrock — no pun intended,” Penn told Uproxx. “She is the sun around which he orbits, which is really problematic and complicated. I do think that she is everything to him in all the best and worst ways. Now, keep in mind, he does have this extended family, certainly Jukebox, and his uncles are critically important to him, as well as his newfound father. But I do think at the end of the day, it always comes back to Raq. That relationship will go a long way towards explaining how Kanan becomes the Kanan that you now are in Power.”

Raising Kanan Season 3 is currently filming, so we will see what happens next when new episodes drop in 2023.

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