Post Holiday Blues Streaming 25' - Power Book III: Raising Kanan - Season Four

Power Book III: Raising Kanan, is a Stan original, while airing in the USA on Starz.

Raising Kanan is a standalone prequel and second spin-off to Power. Whilst last year the series was renewed for a fifth season. Which has just been confirmed to be the final season.

For information of the fifth and final season (including casting) there is a full piece here. Be warned though, like below there are spoilers ahead and by clicking the link.

Set in the 1990s, Raising Kanan chronicles the early years of Kanan Stark, as he gets into the drug game as he helps his mom's growing drug business.

Over the last two seasons of “Raising Kanan,” Kanan Stark has slowly learned the truth about not only his mother, but also himself. 

It has been a tortuous journey for him and everyone around him. With each new revelation, Kanan has been forced to confront his family’s seemingly never-ending web of secrets and lies. 

He has spent much of this time in a state of denial, but now, Kanan’s blinders are finally off, and he doesn’t like what he sees. 

In season three, Kanan finds himself grappling with the very notions of right and wrong. Good and evil. Fidelity and disloyalty. And he’s not alone. Every member of the Thomas family must confront an existential crisis that challenges their very identity. 

Whether it’s Marvin, who’s still trying to redeem himself, or Raq, who’s finally coming clean, or Lou, who’s wrestling with his own evil, or Jukebox, who’s simply trying to break free from her family’s pathology, they are all attempting to redefine and reinvent themselves. 

They won’t all be able to complete this intensely personal quest, but for those who do, the destination may reveal the most terrifying secret of all. There is no right and wrong or good and evil. There are no absolutes. In the end, there’s just you.

With the Power Book III finale on Stan on Friday, Starz announced it is gearing up for its final chapter (season five), which may or may not mark the end of the Power franchise as we know it.

Elsewhere in the season 4 finale, we meet Shameik Moore (Wu-Tang: An American Saga) as the oft-mentioned, but never-before-seen Branford “Breeze” Frady. Whilst we got a new arrival, we also saw a few leave. With so many people were killed in the finale, it also left viewers with many questions about the future of many of the show’s biggest characters.

Across four seasons on the show, Patina Miller brought to life the tough-as-nails queenpin of the Southside, Raquel “Raq” Thomas, a role that originated in the first episode of Season 1. 

While the screen fades to black in the very last moments of the episode, Raq’s only son, Kanan (MeKai Curtis), killed her after becoming convinced she was behind the murders of people whom he treasures most, like his best friend and surrogate brother Famous (Antonio Ortiz) and his girlfriend Krystal (Aliyah Turner).

Throughout her life, Raq was a bad and bold businesswoman who took what she wanted and fought with anyone who doubted her or underestimated her. She was a leader in the heavily saturated, male-dominated world of drugs and crime. 

As much as she wanted to be a good provider, steering her son into a better future, she poisoned the well instead. Kanan is unpredictable and too easy to sway against Raq, whom he has already decided he hates, and in turn, is guilty of everything that goes wrong.

Raq accepts her fate like a G, maybe even welcomes it. The episode, Gimme the Weight, written by series creator Sascha Penn, gave her the saddest yet most perfect ending. Raq never shied away from her destiny. 

For any fellow Power Universe super fans, I’d like to think about Raq in the afterlife somewhere, kicking it with Power Book II: Ghost characters Monet Tejada (played by Mary J. Blige) and baddie Caroline Chikezie, who played Noma, to name a few. 

And for any of you keeping score, Stefano “Little Liguini” Marchetti (Tony Danza) and Early Tyler (Chris Redd) are also among the dead.

So how will the final season go down? Will it make it to our screens on Stan next year? For now we await the release of Power: Force's third and final season. Tommy's story is ending. Will the Power Universe as a whole be wrapping up? Or will it continue with the Power: Origins series? Only time will tell. However this has been one hell of a successful franchise.