‘Power Book III: Raising Kanan’ Recap: Unique’s Quest For Revenge Begins, Raq Makes A Tough Decision

Power Book III: Raising Kanan is back, and season 4 picks up right where season 3’s explosive season finale left off. Unique (Joey Bada$$) is alive, surviving the brutal beatdown at the hands of his brother Ronnie (Grantham Coleman) and now he wants revenge.

Unique Is Is Bad Shape, Marvin Gets Another Opportunity To Impress Stefano

Season 4’s premiere starts with a flashback, taking us 3 months back. Unique is barely alive after the vicious beating he took from Ronnie and manages to muster up enough strength to make it to a payphone where he barely makes a call for help.

We catch up with Marvin (London Brown), who receives a page from someone telling them they must meet in person immediately. It turns out that the phone call was from Stefano (Tony Danza), who is enlisting Marvin’s help once again. This time, the mob boss needs Marvin’s help to spook a made man who also happens to be married to his daughter.

The mafia rules forbid Stefano from inflicting any harm on a made man, but Marvin can do the dirty work for Stefano. Marvin sees this as an opportunity to gain more respect from the mob boss and further his ambitions. Also, Stefano promises to keep Raq (Patina Miller) in the dark.

Marvin does handle the job, successfully beating some sense into Stefano’s son-in-law’s head and warning him not to cheat on his wife ever again, or suffer some real consequences.

Checking back in with Unique, his help arrives: a brother named Early (Chris Redd). Early is invested in keeping Unique alive so he can get paid.

Unique tells him he can’t take him to a hospital, so Early brings him to a vet to get looked at. The animal doctor doesn’t have good news for the hustler. The vet warns Early that if he doesn’t get Unique some real medical help, he could begin to suffer some severe anger issues and could become a different person than he was.

Again, the hospital is out of the question and Early brings Unique back to his place to let him rest. Unique talks to himself about loving Raq; speaking of Raq, she is dealing with her own issues.

Raq Is Pregnant

While Unique is trying to get back to normal, we see Raq puking her life away in the toilet, which means only one thing: she is pregnant, and the baby’s father is definitely Unique.

Raq confirms what we all knew by clenching her stomach after seeing the pregnancy test results and getting a second confirmation from the doctor, confirming to him that she wants an abortion.

The doctor asks if the child has a father, telling him that he is dead. A nurse strikes up a conversation with Raq because she is so calm during the whole procedure, and Raq reveals this was not her first abortion, and she had undergone an off the record procedure when she was very young.

Kanan Has To Do Some Digging Into His Family’s Past

Kanan’s (MeKai Curtis) drug-dealing ambitions are currently on the up and up, but he is still a high school student. Things couldn’t be any better on the business side, but some of his delivery boys are fed up with their pay and want more money.

While not promising to give them a pay raise, Kanan says he will look at the numbers and see what he can do, just dangling a carrot to keep his soldiers in line.

On the educational front, Kanan’s grades are slipping. He is told that if he doesn’t turn in a paper on his grandparents, he will fail, which is in direct violation of the terms he made with his social worker.

Kanan first approaches his father, Detective Howard (Omar Epps), who quickly shuts down the idea of Kanan speaking with his parents because it could expose their relationship, putting everyone’s lives in jeopardy.

Howard tells his son that he would love to build a relationship with him, but it would just make things worse if people found out that Defcon wasn’t his dad and that he was the son of a cop, so they have to keep things discrete.

While at home, Raq learns of the project Kanan is working on. She suggests she could give Kanan some information on her parents, but Kanan shuts her down because there is still tension between them.

Kanan eventually makes a trip to speak with Raq’s mother, and she has plenty to say about her late husband, revealing that his grandfather’s dad worked on the railroad while his mother washed clothes for white people.

In the process, Kanan also develops a deeper relationship with his grandmother, whom he finds sick during a visit to the hospital. Kanan’s grandmother has kidney cancer, and is dying. She tells her grandson not to tell anyone else about her condition.

Kanan also speaks with Marvin about his grandfather Elijah. Uncle Marvin slams his father for leaving their mother, forcing him to grow up fast and help take care of his siblings. He did have good memories about his father, particularly regarding his time as a prizefighter, and seeing him made Marvin feel like he could do anything.

Marvin reveals he loved his father more than anyone else, so he can’t bring himself to forgive him.

Uncle Lou-Lou had some positive things to say about grandpa Elijah, specifically his love for music. Lou also understands why his father did what he did because life is hard.

Military Life Isn’t For Jukebox

Jukebox (Hailey F. Kilgore) time in the military didn’t last long. While she excelled in basic training, even making her male counterparts look silly, the homophobia was enough for Jukebox to risk being thrown in a military prison for desertion, so she decides to return home.

She visits her old bandmate, turned friend, on her college campus, and finally, they hook up. But she tells Jukebox she is not looking for anything serious and just wants to remain friends because she is still trying to find herself as she embarks on her college journey.

When Jukebox arrives back in Queens, she is greeted happily by her father, who is surprised and very happy to see her. She also learns from her aunt about the abortion and the Unique was the father. Jukebox asks Raq if she loves Unique, and she tells her, “She could have loved him.”

Unique Has The Element of Surprise

Unique is still trying to figure out how to get his revenge, but he is still in and out of consciousness and lashing out at Early, who is driving him around Queens so that they can spy on his enemies.

Early convinces Unique that he should take advantage of the fact that people still think he is dead, that way he can see who was the one who wanted him dead. Early isn’t convinced Ronnie was big enough to call such shots and work alone.

He then reveals to Unique that Raq has taken over all of his old spots, leading Unique to believe that she conspired with his brother to take him out.

Later that night, Unique sees Ronnie leaving with Juliana. He then spots a drunk Lou outside of his bar after he just finished having a conversation with his ex, who is also Famous’s sister.

Unique is about to kill Lou, but he is led back into the bar by his boss because he clearly too drunk to be behind the wheel of a vehicle.

During his last stop, Unique spies Raq leaving the warehouse where Kanan gunned down Ronnie with a bunch of other people. The episode ends with Unique making his way inside, discovering his brother’s corpse and pointing a gun at it.

Unique is officially back.

Social media had plenty to say about the episode, you can see those reactions in the gallery below.