‘Power Book III: Raising Kanan’: Why Is Jukebox and Marvin’s Relationship so Broken?
Power Book III: Raising Kanan centers 15-year-old Kanan Stark (Mekai Curtis) as he begins his descent into the drug game following in his queenpin mother, Raquel “Raq” Thomas’ (Patina Miller) footsteps. Raq’s empire is a family business that she runs with her brothers, Marvin (London Brown) and Lou Lou (Malcolm Mays). The threesome also keeps Kanan and Marvin’s daughter Jukebox (Hailey Kilgrove) close.
It’s clear from the beginning that Jukebox wants to be a singer and that she’s hiding her sexuality from everyone except Kanan. However, there also seems to be a major rift between the teenager and her father. Why is Marvin and Jukebox’s relationship so fractured?
Who is Uncle Marvin in ‘Power Book III: Raising Kanan’?
As the eldest brother, it’s clear that Marvin somewhat resents following his baby sister’s orders in their business. However, his hot-headed attitude has previously landed him in prison and he certainly doesn’t have the critical thinking skills that Raq possesses.
Yet, despite everything, Marvin and Kanan share a strong connection. “My character basically introduces Kanan into this lifestyle that Power fans know him for,” Brown told journalist Landon Buford on Instagram. “And the fact that my sister is in charge because I was irresponsible with it when I was in the position. So, that creates a little beef between us and a bit of a power struggle. In the relationship with my daughter [Juke Box], we don’t see eye to eye just on the father-daughter type of thing. So, the only person that my character can use his authoritative energy on is young Kanan.”
Why is Marvin’s relationship with his daughter Jukebox so broken in ‘Power Book III: Raising Kanan’?
It’s easy to forget that Marvin and Jukebox are a father/daughter duo. We’ve seen Jukebox interact with Lou Lou and Raq and we’ve seen Kanan and Marvin interact, there is some major distance between Marvin and Jukebox. Though we are five episodes into the first season of Power Book III: Raising Kanan, the only interaction we’ve really seen between the duo is when Kanan walks in on Marvin looking through Jukebox’s things in her room.
We’re not certain if Marvin is aware of Jukebox’s sexuality and that has caused the fracture between them or something else is amiss. In a past episode amid a fight between Marvin and Lou Lou, it is revealed that Jukebox’s mother left the family to be a New York Knicks groupie and Marvin may resent his daughter as a result.
However, Brown says by the mid-season of Power Book III: Raising Kanan all will be revealed.
“There’s a major, major scene where Marvin and Jukebox finally have the talk about why there’s such a disconnect between the two,” Brown told Express. “And Marvin has to come to some reality with things as she confronts him, he confronts her, and we understand and say, ‘Oh, this is kind of what’s going on and why she’s like this.’”
London Brown and Hilary Kilgrove didn’t interact on the set of ‘Power Book III: Raising Kanan’
In order to create such a distant relationship on camera, Brown revealed that he and Kilgrove purposely kept their distance from one another on set. “I just didn’t allow myself to get really close to Hailey the actress,” Brown explained to Express. “I purposely just kind of kept distant so that I can really play the distance on-screen. We didn’t really have our first kind of scene together until months in after doing this project. And so we realized that we both were a little bit awkward about the scene because we’ve never been around each other.”
Brown also hinted that as the breakdown between Jukebox and Marvin comes to life, Power fans will better understand how she became the crooked and diabolical cop we met in Power (portrayed by Anika Noni Rose). “I think what people see in season one is going to really break down why Jukebox became the adult that she became because of all of this stuff that she’d been dealing with internally, with herself,” he said.
