At the end of season 3 in Power Book III: Raising Kanan, Raq (Patina Miller) thought she was doing Kanan (MeKai Curtis) a favor when she killed Detective Howard (Omar Epps). With that action, she might have only made things worse between herself and her son.
In season 4 of Raising Kanan, Raq’s baby boy is his own man. He is running his own drug operation without much worries now that Ronnie (Grantham Coleman) is no longer around to terrorize him.
Kanan also has a very tense working relationship with his mother that can fall apart anytime. Still, she is supplying him with product to help his drug operation.
But there is still a lot of resentment between the two, which may never get hashed out.
Before the season 4 premiere, CASSIUSLife’s Bernard “Beanz” Smalls spoke with MeKai Curtis about Kanan’s faltering relationship with his mother.
Kanan 100% Resents Raq For Killing Detective Howard
While Kanan’s relationship with his mother is strained at the moment, he was slowly building one with his father, Detective Howard. That all came to a screeching halt after Raq gunned down her baby daddy because she felt he was getting too close to her operation, and wanted her to snitch on Marvin (London Brown) to keep the heat off all of them.
Raq’s decision only managed to widen the rift, and that was confirmed by Raising Kanan star MeKai Curtis that killing his father “100%” made things worse.
“I think in this world where Kanan is trying to establish himself as a person, I think that was an integral part to what he was figuring out in those seasons leading up to Howard’s death, ” Curtis tells CASSIUSLife. “Though it’s fraught between the two of them, you see them still trying to figure it out. And that’s something that I think Kanan revered and respected in this world where everybody’s not really keeping it super one hundred with him. Right? I think Howard offered him a space to work through those things while also trying to work and change with him. I think they were discovering things at the same time, and I think that’s why it hurts Kanan even more so in this moment it’s like, ‘I was figuring it out. I was working through it, I was doing the things. And who are you to make that decision for me?’”
“I think that’s a big thing for Kanan a lot of the times with his mother it’s like, ‘Mom, no, I am a grown man now. You don’t make these decisions for me anymore, as much as you want to. And even as much as you may want to when I’m trying to make decisions for you or help you in that same sort of way.’ I think that even adds a layer to his frustration with his mom, especially in that moment because that whole operation of getting rid of Ronnie was to protect his mom because Ronnie was coming for Raq at that point.”
He continues, “She was the next pawn to be knocked over. So that whole thing kind of blows up in Kanan’s face. It’s like, ‘Well, what did I do this for if you were just going to do this?’ So it’s interesting seeing him work through that sort of thing. But, yeah, it definitely threw a wrench in any sort of reconnection with him, that wasn’t already there. That definitely adds a layer.”
Sascha Penn Reveals It’s A Challenge To Keeping The Show Fresh
Running a hit show isn’t easy, and keeping viewers coming back each season isn’t as simple as it used to be, as today’s television watcher has the attention span of a gnat, because they can easily find something else to get hooked on, as there is just so much content to consume.
Raising Kanan showrunner Sascha Penn is well aware of that challenge and knows that what he is accomplishing by continually managing to outdo the last one is something special, and a challenge he is stepping up to the plate for and knocking out of the park.
Penn credits Raising Kanan’s success to its embarrassment of riches regarding the strong characters that viewers have become attached to.
“It’s a huge challenge because this show is its own show, but it exists within this larger universe. So the mandate is always keep it fresh, keep it surprising, and sort of keep it grounded,” says Penn.
“So that’s a real challenge, I’m not going to lie, because there’s Power with six seasons. This show has been four seasons. Then there’s Force, then there’s Ghost. So it’s like the challenge is always to try to find new, interesting, compelling ways to tell these stories where it doesn’t feel like we’re necessarily repeating ourselves. You know? And the best way to do that, quite frankly, is through the relationships, the characters.”
He continued, “And I feel like that’s where we discover the most interesting new stuff: the dynamics between the characters as opposed to this shootout or that kidnapping or whatever. Look, not that those are cliches necessarily, but you can sort of see that on any show. But what’s unique to Raising Kanan is Raq, Jukebox, Kanan, those relationships. These versions of Kanan and Jukebox. Marvin, Lou-Lou. So that’s really how we sort of meet the moment, I guess.”
You can watch the entire interview with Curtis and Penn above, and you can also head over to Starz to catch season 4 of Raising Kanan.