(SPOILERS for this week’s Power Book III: Raising Kanan will be found below.)
To be quite honest, things are not going according to plan in this season’s third episode of Power Book III: Raising Kanan. We began the season with the hope that Detective Howard had memory loss from the night Kanan shot him, but in episode two, we learn that he remembers things very clearly. Famous’ rap career is far from successful while Marvin is a football field or three away from being dad of the year. With everyone being a bit off their game, Raq’s frustration grows as she plans to expand the drug business into New Jersey.
In episode three of the second season of Power Book III: Raising Kanan the family ties are withering more than we’ve seen so far in the series. Kanan’s mistrust of Raq grows as she fails to inform him of Scrappy’s death, which has been framed as a suicide despite it being otherwise. Detective Howard informs Kanan that he is his father which only increases Kanan’s suspicions about Raq’s hidden agendas. Marvin is still at odds with Jukebox and Raq is growing more and more frustrated with Lou-Lou as he puts more and more time into his new record label. With all of that in mind, we can only wonder where things go from here.
Here are some of the biggest questions we had after the third episode of season two:
For Raq, The Sky Is The Limit. But Is It Really?
Raq took over the family business after Marvin, the previous leader, landed in jail. Raq successfully grew the business to a top level in Queens. Raq knocked off her enemies and competitors and established a monopoly in her territory. Raq is now expanding things to New Jersey due to her past success. There’s no denying everything that Raq has done, but with her eyes set on expansion and doing it big, attacks against her throne are going to come more often and at a bigger scale. She may be able to overcome many of them, but there will be a time when she doesn’t. We saw the latter with Unique, and it forced him to bow out peacefully. Raq thinks the sky is the limit, but we also know that every throne is for the taking. With her head above the clouds, she may miss what’s coming for her beneath them.
What Will Be The Best Thing That Marvin Gets Out Of Anger Management Class?
Marvin wanted no parts of his anger management class five minutes into the first session. Unfortunately for him, his full attention and participation in the class are required from him thanks to his strict instructor Renée. While he was resistant to participate in the last episode, Marvin gives in this week and joins in on the class discussion which leads to him learning about his openly aggressive approach to the world and how to correct it. Two key moments result from this class. First, Marvin and Renée seem to have a more-than-friendly moment at the end of class and we’ll have to wait until the next episodes to see what comes out of that. Second, Marvin uses the tips he learned in class to solve an issue without aggression, which makes him appreciative of the lesson and how it helped him save time and energy. It took a couple of weeks, but Marvin sees the beauty of the anger management class. We’ll just have to see which beauty he focuses on more.
Can Lou-Lou Find A Balance Or Will Have To Pick A Side?
To put it simply and point blankly, Raq hates Lou-Lou’s record label business. Not because she dislikes music or thinks it’s not profitable, but because it distracts from his time and work with the drug business. Lou-Lou isn’t as active as he used to be, and if there’s anyone who’s noticed it, it’s Raq. While she’s mostly able to work around his increased absence thanks to help from Marvin, her patience is growing thin with Lou-Lou. It gets worse when Unique robs Raq’s stash house and Lou-Lou is nowhere to be found despite her repeated attempts to get in contact with him. Raq confronts Lou-Lou at his studio about the situation, forcing him to switch focus and help Raq recover the money. It certainly won’t be the last time that Lou-Lou has to switch focus from his record label. This leaves him with a new task of finding a balance between his two lives or simply picking a side, and with Raq and Crown looking to push him back to the streets, the choice may not be his.
Would Raq Know When Her Time Is Up?
During the intense standoff between Unique and Raq, who was backed by Lou-Lou and Marvin, I wondered how things would go if Raq was on the other side. When Unique realized that all was lost for him, he made one last move that would earlier something priceless: freedom. The streets of Queens may not be his anymore, but at least he gets to live with the guarantee that his family can too. Raq made that promise to him in the final scenes of episode three. While Unique eventually surrendered his weapon, I can’t help but think that Raq would’ve gone down swinging or shooting if the roles are reversed. It goes back to the first question above, but Unique’s awareness to know when his time was up saved his life. If Raq ever encounters a situation like this where she’s on the short end of the stick, it will be interesting to see how it’ll ends.
When Does All Of This Protection Backfire?
Kanan is caught in the middle of two people trying their best to protect him from the world’s dangers. Raq does her best to protect him as her only son, and one of the ways she thinks she is protecting him is by keeping the fact that Detective Howard is his true father away from him. After begging Raq to tell Kanan the truth, Detective Howard decides to do it himself, and he does so in episode three. This is after Kanan attempts to kill him per Raq’s orders. He even goes on to promise that he won’t tell anyone that Kanan was the one who shot him. Kanan already doesn’t trust Howard, mostly due to the fact that he’s a cop, but his mistrust of Raq is growing too for multiple reasons. Both Raq and Howard are trying to protect Kanan, but with different goals in mind, it could all backfire. We’ll just have to wait for the next episodes to learn how it plays out.
New episodes of STARZ’s ‘Power Book III: Raising Kanan’ are available to watch on Sundays at 12:00am EST.