‘Power Book III: Raising Kanan’ Creator Sascha Penn and Stars Patina Miller and Mekai Curtis on the Deadly Series Finale and ‘Power: Origins’

SPOILER ALERT: The following story contains plot details from the series finale of “Raising Kanan” now streaming on Starz.

The final curtain has closed on the hit 1990s-set crime series “Power Book III: Raising Kanan.” The show has been the origin story of Kanan Stark (Mekai Curtis), who, by embracing the very business his drug-queenpin mother, Raquel Thomas (an incomparable Patina Miller), desperately wanted to keep him away from, becomes the monster who rips his entire family apart. The fifth and final season has not only depicted a young man at odds with his mother, but also his willingness to decimate his own family.

Fans of “Power” — Courtney Kemp’s original series — have always known how Kanan’s story ends, but his background has been somewhat of a mystery until now. His story is one rife with terror, pain and a sweltering rage that has usurped everything around him.

In “Power,” adult Kanan (Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson) viciously murders his cousin Laverne “Jukebox” Thomas (Anika Noni Rose). Viewers could never reconcile this ending, considering how close the cousins appeared to be. However, series creator Sascha Penn has always promised “a full and complete answer to that question.”

“One of the things that’s so interesting about ‘Power’ is the notion of reliable narrators and people’s recollections and how they differ from the fact,” Penn tells Variety. “Something we played with quite a bit across the series is who told the truth. For Ghost [Omari Hardwick] in the original ‘Power,’ the story is always shifting with him in terms of who killed Breeze [Shameik Moore] and who was there, who wasn’t there, who knew?​”

In the final moments of the series finale, “Unconditional Love,” that nagging question has finally been answered. In retaliation for Kanan murdering her father Marvin (London Brown), Jukebox (Hailey Kilgrove) kills Raq, the woman who raised her. “Watch until the end of the credits,” Penn says.

​With this chapter of the “Power” Universe officially over,Variety chats with Penn, Miller and Curtis about the series finale, Raq’s shocking death and how the story will continue in Penn’s upcoming Starz series, “Power: Origins.”

Sascha Penn: I kind of did. I mean, I didn’t know exactly when all this stuff would happen. I always knew Raq would most likely die in the final episode. That I knew. But I will say this: I did go back and forth quite a bit about that over the years. I think people forget we are telling the origin story of perhaps the most diabolically evil character in the history of the “Power” Universe. So when people are up in arms about Kanan killing Uncle Marvin, I mean, I’m always sort of surprised because it’s like, did you see the character I saw on “Power”? Because that guy was a monster.

Penn: I thought for a little while she could get away like Unique [Joey Bada$$]. I thought that was a possibility. But I’m going to be honest with you, I don’t know that I felt like she deserved that ending, both in terms of the story that we set out to tell, but also in terms of the character. One of the most amazing things about this experience is entirely because of Patina Miller. People have really gravitated toward Raq in the same way they gravitated toward Tony Soprano. Both characters are monstrous in their own ways. 

Mekai Curtis: Absolutely. I think they both are, because one doesn’t necessarily happen without the other. Kanan’s becoming a man. I think everything that he’s run into, everything that he’s been exposed to, everything that he’s learned has led him to this moment. Again, we’re talking about the pursuit of power. We’re talking about the pursuit of being great in this world. And that’s simply what sacrificing Uncle Marv is about for Kanan in that moment. It’s nothing more, nothing less. Kanan, more so than ever, is about his business. He understands all of the seeds that he has sown.

Patina Miller: I think her having her little family, which she’s a matriarch of, really meant so much to her. So having the pieces start to fall around her is devastating. She’s been able to work and survive in this world because of the family unit she helped create and protect. To have her brothers, whom she desperately loved — and I know sometimes it might look like she didn’t, but everything she’s done shows that she loved her brothers — to have them gone, the only people she has are her niece and her son. Navigating that was exciting for me. There’s never really time or space for Raq to be vulnerable because of the world she’s in. Raq never gets the opportunity to sit with her feelings because it all comes at a cost. For the first time, you get to see her actually deal with herself, her humanity and the people around her.

Curtis: It’s Kanan doing what Kanan does. He’s applying what he’s learned from Raq early on: Get what you can from who you can, hold your information until you very much need it, and just let the cards play out. Kanan is a very observant person, and I know it becomes a topic of discussion for people, especially given how emotionally charged and almost impulsive Kanan seems a lot of the time. But he’s a bit more calculated in why he does those things. 

Miller: Oh, absolutely. I think she’s willing to do whatever, whenever, however. I think she’s so focused that she loses sight of what’s in front of her. In the beginning of this journey, it’s like, “Yeah, Raquel, there’s this woman. She’s in a man’s world, and she’s doing all this for legacy, legacy, legacy.” But then it starts to get a little iffy in the way she uses her power and manipulates the people she loves. She does lose sight of it, but I don’t think it’s because she wants to. I think she still thinks that she’s doing this for a purpose. She’s doing this because she has to. But Joaquin was 100% right about that for sure. 

Miller: I think it was a reaction. I think that one thing you can know about her is she’s good at keeping a secret. I think she would’ve protected that secret the entire time. But as the stakes grew even higher and she knew Kanan was in a dangerous space and had become an enemy, she needed her brother on her side. She’s always so good at having a card to play. She knows that she can’t do this really, truly without her brother. I don’t think she means to pull it out, but in that moment she saw an opening, and she took it. 

Miller: Raq has always been so good at keeping the traumas and all of the hurt at bay. It’s not because she doesn’t want to feel; she knows she doesn’t have the space to feel.  I think that it’s a hurtful thing for Marvin to say that because, for her and in my own opinion, it’s like, “I have shown you so many times that I love you. Yes, I’m hard on you, but I went to war twice for you.” There have been so many opportunities where you could have seen if she really hated her brothers. With Lou, she loved him. She really did love him. Obviously, she loves the game, and she loves that they’re in it with her, but she raised [Marvin’s] daughter for him. That’s the ultimate act of love for me. So I think she’s feeling the words, and I think she’s realizing that even though she does love them, they feel this way. And it’s a lot. She’s just trying to put the pieces together and coming to terms with that. It’s devastating. It’s heartbreaking for her in the end, and then to lose him. I think she knows her time is coming. I think she’s ready for it. I think she’s not going to back down from it, which makes it even more devastating.

Curtis: A little bit. But at the end of the day, this story is about a mother and son. By the time Juke and Marvin are telling him the things that they’re saying, he already knows it. It’s more of a catharsis for them because they’ve been holding on to it. They’ve been just cleaning up his mess this entire time. 

Penn: London is an unbelievable talent. I’ve been screaming this for as long as I’ve been doing this: all these actors deserve Emmy nominations. What people don’t really remember at this point is that in Episode 8 of Season 1, Marvin put his hands on his daughter because she’s a lesbian. London and I had many conversations about it, because he really felt like Marvin was irredeemable. He’s like, “Anyone who puts their hands on their daughter for that, how can anyone ever like him again?” And I said to him, “We can do it. I’m telling you we can do it, because here’s the thing about people in general: they have an incredible capacity for forgiveness.” I think that’s what’s happened with the audience: They forgave Marvin. He’s flawed, but he acknowledges his flaws, which, by the way, there aren’t many characters in this show that do that.