Power Book III: Raising Kanan Season 5 Episode 1 Gives Us Kanan Making His Worst Decision Yet

Critic’s Rating: 4.5 / 5.0

4.5

Of all the ways to start the final season of Raising Kanan.

It’s such an interesting thing to head into this final chapter of the Power spinoff since we already know how Kanan’s story ends.

But damn, the series just had to let us know that Kanan and Jukebox may make it out alive, but a lot of other people could be on borrowed time.

You can’t talk about Power Book III: Raising Kanan Season 5 Episode 1 without starting with one of the series’ biggest shocks.

Burke’s death was surprising, if only because of who pulled the trigger. And the same could be said for Howard’s death because of the circumstances.

Both officers were in over their heads, so their misdeeds and missteps catching up to them made their deaths feel more inevitable than outrageous.

But Lou-Lou’s death felt like the show was making a statement, and it sets the tone for this final season: basically, it gives us our final look into who Kanan is before he links up with Ghost and Tommy.

Was anyone truly surprised that Raq survived the end of Power Book III: Raising Kanan Season 4 Episode 10? I’ll admit I wasn’t because a fade to black almost always guarantees a switcheroo.

The surprise was in Kanan shooting Lou-Lou, and no, it wasn’t intentional, but Kanan should have never been over there in the first place with a gun aimed at his mama.

It’s hard to believe that there was a time when Kanan Stark was a likable character, and it lasted only so long.

One of the greatest things about this series has been its ability to tell a complete Kanan origin story without turning him into a caricature. Adult Kanan was awful in every sense of the word, with nary a redeeming quality.

The younger Kanan Stark had promise when we first met him. He was a determined kid who got swept up in the allure of the family business. Raq tried to stop him, but once he got a taste, it was all downhill, and Raq’s consistent lies only pushed him further and further down a path that could have been avoided.

It’s easy to blame all of Kanan’s problems on Raq, and it’s not wrong to point out how her decisions have both alienated her son and caused him a mountain of emotional trauma, but Kanan bears responsibility as well.

The whole reason he was at her house looking to hurt her was that he believed a lie, and in his constant reactionary state, he decided that violence was the answer. And now his uncle’s dead, and nothing will ever be the same.

I won’t lie and pretend Lou-Lou was my favorite character, because that was never true, but it’s telling that right after he reaches a place where he accepts himself and rejoins the family business, he’s brutally killed by his own nephew.

Lou-Lou’s journey was one of crippling guilt and resentment that led him to bury a lifetime of pain in the bottom of a bottle. By getting away from Raq and his role as a contract killer, he learned a lot about himself, while also recognizing that placing all the blame for who he became on his sister wasn’t going to change anything.

At the end of the day, he made choices and decisions about his life, and when he looked at himself in the mirror, it wasn’t Raq staring back at him.

His death is a pointed way for the show to tell us, for the millionth time, that actions have consequences, and this life will always be shrouded in death.

If there was something major to take away from Lou-Lou’s demise, it was Kanan’s lack of care and how easily Raq slipped her mask back on.

Love her or hate her, Raq shoulders A LOT.

She had to clean up her brother’s blood, all while keeping her son’s role in the murder secret, and she had to do all of that while lying to Marvin and trying to keep her business afloat.

Raq has to do so much compartmentalizing in any given day, and it’s been so fascinating to see how quickly she adapts to whatever chaos is thrown her way. But that’s been her life forever, right?

She had to step up for her brothers and for Kanan, and she’s consistently placed in positions where she’s underestimated, whether it’s men dismissing her because she’s a woman in a “man’s game” or people judging her because of her skin color.

She’s lived a life full of being in charge, and she’s truly never had a moment where someone else can take on any of that weight.

Look at the aftermath of Lou-Lou’s death and Marvin immediately going into revenge mode, which is on-brand for Marvin, but it doesn’t actually help anyone for him to go on a rampage looking for Unique.

Raq’s too emotionally compromised to really do much, and Marvin being preoccupied with blaming Unique and looking to kill him is a good thing for her. Unique’s a threat to everything she’s built, and his taking the rap for Lou-Lou’s death helps hide Kanan better.

But my goodness. Burying your brother, protecting your son, and trying to keep your business afloat, all while managing Marvin’s temper? Good luck to you, Raquel.

Speaking of Marvin, when did he slowly sneak up and become one of the most complex and fascinating characters in this universe?

There’s just something about the way he’s taken his lumps and actually tried to do better, in a way that many men in this universe do not, that makes him such a fascinating person.

Is he a good man? Are there any good men in Power?

That’s a very loaded question, and Marvin’s done some grotesque things that can never be forgotten, but he’s also tried to make amends, learn, and not repeat the same mistakes.

It’s this growth, however you want to quantify it, that makes me believe whatever is happening with Amber.

My guess? Garcia wants Jukebox to join his snitch ring so badly, and the only way I see that happening is if she tries to save Marvin when this Amber situation blows up. And once Jukebox goes rogue, all bets are truly off.

One of the more interesting scenes during this hour was the tense conversation between Kanan and Jukebox, because Jukebox still doesn’t seem like her adult self, the one who was just as terrifying and reprehensible as Kanan.

Adult Jukebox was soulless, but we’re still seeing someone who cares about her people, even if there are glimpses of who she’ll become.

On the other hand, Kanan is cold, calculating, and emotionless in a way that feels familiar to him. He shot his uncle dead, and never once did he ever even look that affected by it, even when sitting in a church and pretending that he cared.

Kanan’s at a bit of a crossroads, because he’s fully split from his family, even if they don’t all realize it yet, and this feels like his make-or-break moment. Snaps and Pop seem to think he could be the chosen one, and linking him up with Breeze is their way to get him even more firmly under their control.

I have to admit, I was expecting a bit more from Breeze’s introduction, but that could be because I’d built him up in my head over the ten-plus years we’d been hearing about him.

Ghost talked about Breeze like he was a drug god, and I never really had a face for Breeze or a cadence or anything like that, but I felt a little meh about his appearance here.

It’s clear he’s a smart guy, and maybe the fight scene was meant to show him as a ferocious man, but his conversations with Kanan and Unique didn’t convey that at all.

Both conversations almost gave the impression that Breeze was trying to placate them, and that’s just not the vibe I thought Breeze would give.

Though maybe that’s his tactic. Maybe he likes to enter business relationships by making people feel like they’re all on a sort of equal footing, at least until he decides otherwise.

It’s obviously very early, and we’ll likely see many different sides of the man, but I didn’t walk away from this hour thinking this man would be the all-seeing, all-knowing guy who would help make James St. Patrick the vaunted drug kingpin he would become.

I’m not seeing it, people!

I’m also not seeing a world in which Raq ever gives up on her son, no matter how many times she says it out loud.

Considering the premiere started with such a massive death, I loved that it ended with the emotional confrontation between Raq and Kanan, because that’s the emotional core of this series.

At the end of the day, no matter how mad she is, Raq loves her son, and that’s never going to change. Even with a gun pointed at her face, she didn’t beg for her life or try to fight back because that’s her blood. That’s her heart.

But at the same time, the day Raq fully recognizes that she has positioned herself as Kanan’s enemy will be a day of reckoning.

She can claim to be protecting him all she wants, but it doesn’t make it true.

More often than not, her need for control has pushed him further away, turning the very person she’s trying to save into someone who no longer trusts her.

As we continue to watch Kanan Stark become the monster he was always meant to be, we can look back at each moment when he stood across from his mother and see how it’s imprinted on him.

If the one person who’s meant to love and protect you continuously feeds you lies, forcing you into a constant loop of deception, it’s pretty easy to see why you’d become someone who views every relationship as a transaction and every act of love as a potential betrayal.

Everything Else You Need To Know

• Raq is lowkey so funny because why did she shoot that man in the middle of the street like that? I know why she did it, but it was still a little funny.

• Is it just me, or does it feel like Unique is on borrowed time for real this time? His sending Pernessa and his son away felt like a final goodbye.

• Stefano wants Russo extra dead, and I’m curious how he’ll use Raq to help with that, since I assume that’s where we are headed.

• Everyone showing up for Lou-Lou’s funeral was nice.

I love it when a new season of a Power spinoff begins because I get sucked back into the world, its dynamics, and the bloody violence.

Usually, as we head into a final season, we wonder who will die, but this time it’s less about that and more about seeing where all these relationships stand as Kanan prepares to move into his next chapter.

This was a solid starting point, and Power Book III: Raising Kanan remains the cream of the crop in the Power Universe!

Let me know what you thought about this one below so we can discuss!

You can watch Power Book III: Raising Kanan on the STARZ app on Fridays at midnight. On linear, it airs on STARZ at 8:00 pm ET/PT in the U.S. on Fridays.