Mekai Curtis and Sascha Penn on Raquel and Kanan’s Complicated Relationship in ‘Raising Kanan’ Season 4 (Exclusive)

Raising Kanan is back. The Power prequel explores Kanan Stark’s rise in the drug dealing world in Southside Jamaica Queens, New York under the helm of his mother in the early 1990s. Mekai Curtis stars as the title character. Sascha Penn is the creator and showrunner of Power Book III: Raising Kanan. Ahead of the Season 4 premiere, Penn and Curtis spoke with PopCulture.com about the roller coaster journey Kanan and his mother Raquel [Patina Miller] go through this season.

Season 3 left off with Raquel killing Kanan’s father, Detective Malcolm Howard (Omar Epps). Kanan was living with Howard at the time due to an evergrowing estrangement from Raquel, but the relationship between father and son wasn’t exactly all roses. It was in its infancy, with room to potentially grow into something deeper. Unfortunately, Raquel took that from Kanan and did so in front of him. 

In Season 4, viewers will see Raquel struggle to get back in Kanan’s good graces. When asked whether he believes Raquel is a good mother, Curtis says it’s not that simple.

“I would describe her as a mother, I would describe her as a parent, [and] as anybody trying their best to raise a child,” Curtis said firmly. “She’s able to justify some of her hurt and that’s a whole other sort of situation. Everybody has their own things that they need to work through that they’re kind of masking as something else in this world, or something else for somebody else in this character world that we built.”

As the creator and showrunner, Penn has a more definitive answer as he’s able to analyze it from an external perspective. Still, he says it’s a dynamic he’s happy for fans to continue to unpack.

“[Kanan’s story] becomes a real character study of him in season 4, and his relationship with his mother. Like the question you asked: Is she a good mother? I think that’s the question Kanan is asking, and I think he’s coming up with an answer, and I think the answer is no,” Penn said. “The question then becomes, When you have a bad parent, what do you do? What does that look like? And how do you manage that?…So much of your parent is internalized in terms of your own personality and again your sense of yourself in the world.”

Season 4 of Raising Kanan premieres March 7 on STARZ. New episodes were available to stream weekly on Fridays on the Starz app and other Starz platforms. Watch the full interview with Curtis and Penn where they discuss more of how Howard’s death impacts him and Raquel on our YouTube channel and above.