Patina Miller on Raquel’s Desperation in ‘Raising Kanan’ Season 4 (Exclusive)

In Season 4 of Power Book III: Raising Kanan, Raquel has one mission: to get her son Kanan back on her side. But after shooting and killing his father in front of him, it won’t be easy. As Kanan began to develop a relationship with his father Detective Malcolm Howard (Omar Epps), Raquel saw it as a threat.

Audiences will have to wait and see her rationalization for why she did it, and whether Kanan will accept her answer. But one thing that never changes is Raquel’s love for Kanan, no matter how twisted it seems at times. Patina Miller, who stars in the Power prequel that explores Kanan Stark’s rise in the drug game of Southside Jamaica Queens, New York in the 1990s, says Raquel’s love for Kanan is unconditional.

“I think that she never stops trying to love him. I think she never stops trying to connect with him I think what makes her a good mother is that she tells Kanan that she loves him all the time and that she keeps trying she you she loves him so much and she keeps trying. And that for me is the big thing, that she wants so desperately to be connected to him,” Miller reflects in a chat with PopCulture.com. “She desperately [wants] to be connected to him and that’s what makes it beautiful is that she’s always gonna fight. She’s gonna always fight to be in her son’s life, no matter how it looks like she’s just gonna do it. This season, if he needs to be your business partner to be in, that’s how it’s gonna happen, you know, so that’s what I love about it.”

As she struggles to get back in Kanan’s good graces, she’s dealing with another emotional loss: Uniqe (Joey Bada$$) is gone. And as complicated as things may have been, the two had a true connection. 

Last season left audiences with a cliffhanger as he survived a brutal beating at the hands of his own brother, Ronnie Mathis (Grantham Coleman), who was determined to get back on top of the game after a release from prison. Unique is back, but he’s not the same. And he’s back with a vengeance. But how does Raq respond to his absence and eventual return. 

“Well, I think Raquel has done a great thing [of being able to] suppress all of these things, right? Things that are meaningful things or things that are emotional things that cause her some sort of discomfort. She’s able to sort of put it away,” she explains. “And with the death of Unique, it was awful for her. I mean she truly did feel something for him, but unfortunately she doesn’t sit and think about that…The loss of Unique, that’s not the most important thing for her until things start happening and she is confronted with that. Because obviously he’s alive. We all know he’s alive and it’s how he chooses to enter her life again. [BUT] will he be the same?”

Season 4 of Power Book III: 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.