some caption text
The third book of the series Power created by Sacha Penn and premiered on Starz July 18 2021 . It's a coming of age story of Kanan Stark (Mekai Curtis)who is growing up with his Queenpin mother on the Southside of Queens Raquel Thomas (Patina Miller) and his Uncles Marvin Thomas(London Brown) & Lou Lou Thomas (Malcolm Mays) The family faces competition with a rival named Unique (Joey Bada$$) who controls a large portion of the Southside. A detective Malcolm Howard(Omar Epps) who is very familiar with Raquel and has a dark secret that can put Kanan and Raquel in jeopardy.
Tropes in Raising Kanan
- The '90s: Set in 1991 South Jamaica Queens. Season 1:91 Season 2: 91-92, Season 3: 1992. The fashion of the 90s is on full display with clothes, music, and hairstyles during that time.
- Big Bad: Unique in Season 1 who is a rival to Raq organization, Season 2 Sal Bosseli a New Jersey mob boss who wants to extort Raq drug business coming into Jersey. Season 3 Ronnie Mathis, Unique ruthless and stoic older brother who partners with Kanan to reclaim the streets.
- Big Brother Instinct: Marvin for Raq & Lou Lou. He kills Raq would be rapist on her orders after she knocked him out, saves Lou Lou from a burning house after Unique men tried to kill him, and shoot up Unique bulletproof BMW with him & his son in it for revenge.
- Big Eater: Marvin Thomas when on screen he usually eating snacks
- Broken Bird: Jukebox who is the cousin of Kanan who loses her girlfriend due to a bad batch of drugs that Kanan cooked up, abused by her father Marvin after discovering she was a lesbian, and her mother putting her through conversion therapy finding out her sexuality also.
- Coming of Age Story: For Kanan as he enters the drug game
- Dark Secret: Raquel was an informant for Detective Howard who ended up sleeping with her as a minor and got her pregnant and had a baby which was Kanan.
- Dirty Cop: Malcolm Howard for Raq. He tells her what information cops have on her and her family, tries to get his partner Burke suspended as she investigates his personal life to see the connection between him Raq & Kanan after being shot. She finds out the connection, but before she can reveal it to the captain, Howard shoots her in the head and stage it as a suicide.
- Evil vs. Evil: Raq vs Unique, Sal, Ronnie. All characters who are murderers and drug dealers.
- Everything's Sparkly with Jewelry: Unique who wears chains, rings, and has gold fronts. In Season 3 after being brutally beaten by Ronnie and dumped in a landfill, he steals all of his jewelry out of a in a case with a bags of money to pay for his supplier.
- Foregone Conclusion: Since it's a prequel to the original power, Kanan will teach Ghost & Tommy the drug game, groom Tariq to turn against Ghost, and will eventually be killed. Jukebox will become cold and ruthless dirty cop and murdered by Kanan years later.
- Go Seduce My Archnemesis: After saving her life from one of Sal Bosseli henchman in the season 2 finale, Unique stops by Raq house and they ended up having a sexual fling in season 3.
- Hero Antagonist: Shannon Burke who is Detective Howard partner, who wants to find out how & why Howard was shot in Season 2. She is killed by Howard in the third season episode 1 after discovering Kanan is the child of Raq & Howard and Howard dirty cop tactics to cover it up.
- Mama Bear: Raq for Kanan, she warns people not to have any dealings with him.
- Posthumous Narration: The adult Kanan voices the intro and outro of the episode and sometimes will introduce characters who are important in the story.
- Scary Black man: Ronnie Mathis, Unique older brother who was released from prison. Ruthless & stoic he comes back to see the drug business he left Unique is ruined through Raq, and wants revenge.
- Siblings in Crime: The Thomas Family Raq is the middle sister and head of the organization, Marvin is the oldest brother, and Lou Lou the youngest. All involved in the drug game and killers.
