FINALE: ‘Power Book III: Raising Kanan’ Season 1
Culture Editor Bianca Gregg continues her weekly recaps of all things the Power Universe. The newest book is a prequel that tells the story of one of the most notorious “Power” characters, Kanan.
Detective Howard is on the ground bleeding from the wounds he sustained from his son. Kanan is in a trance but snaps out of it when he hears someone saying “they’re shooting.” He dashes out of the park, falling and scrapping his hands. Kanan’s hands are bloody and he pauses to wipe them. He continues to a small body of water where he dumps the gun. Waiting in the shadows, trying to remain unseen, he is secretly spotted by the crackhead from a previous episode.
Scrap rides up and tells him to get in the car. As they ride off, police cars are flying up and down the streets of South Jamaica. An officer is down and we know how it goes when it’s one of their own.
The melee begins.
Word is spreading quickly about an officer being shot in the park. The crackhead that saw Kanan tells the police he saw a boy, was not sure about his height but he saw what he was wearing. He tells police it was a custom jacket with a word on the back but he was too high to remember exactly what it said.
Worrell goes to see Unique and gives him the news about the officer being shot. He also tells Unique that his name is floating around the incident. Unique becomes angry that anyone would even think he had something to do with a cop being shot. It finally clicks for Unique, he is being set up by Raq. He orders his crew to get off the streets and get home. He also takes his own advice.
Marvin, Scrap and Kanan meet in a parking lot where Kanan hands over Unique’s jacket. Marvin heads to the apartment complex where Unique lives. He dresses as a maintenance man checking for a gas leak and gains entry into the apartment. He plants Unique’s bloody jacket in the closet. As he slides out of the apartment, he is narrowly spotted by Unique as he is returning home with his girlfriend and child.
Raq leaves from the church once she is paged that the job is done. She meets Kanan and Scrap at Lou-Lou’s to get him cleaned up and change his clothes. Scrap and Kanan share a moment of respect for one another before Scrap leaves to go get his truck scrubbed. Raq cleans Kanan up and notices his hands are scrapped, he plays it off. Raq asks how many bullets did he give Howard and he says three but changes his final answer to two.
The hospital is being rushed by police officers as Detective Howard is wheeled in for medical assistance. Famous and Jess are in the lobby waiting to go see Lou-Lou and Famous realizes who the officer is. From his hospital room, Lou-Lou looks out of the window and sees the officers rushing in from outside. Famous tells Lou-Lou that Howard was shot. Lou-Lou begins to take the IVs out of his arms and says Raq is out of her damn mind. He needs to go see his sister.
Officer Burke rushes in and finds out she has a new boss. The new boss tells her about Howard having leukemia and also having a rare blood type. She insists on being able to get on the streets and find information on what happened. When Burke and Garcia head out for info, they spot Jukebox walking home. Burke runs up on Juke and asks her how she knew an officer would be in danger. Juke tells Burke she only told her what the streets were saying. Garcia searches Juke’s bookbag and pulls out the envelop Nicole gave her. When Garcis asks Burke if they should open it, Burke tells him no they got what they need.
Raq takes Kanan to hide out in the back of the corner store until Marvin picks him up. She asks Julianna if she knows what to say if the police come in and tells her not to give up the surveillance video unless they insist on it. Jukebox later comes to see Kanan at the store. She waits with him and talks to him about how he isn’t who he thinks he is. She calls him out on being shook and being a fuck up. She reminds him that he’s supposed to fuck up and no one get hurt but because of their lifestyle it often plays out bad for them. She tells Kanan he has no idea who he is.
Raq heads to the projects. She knows the police will be there soon continuing their search on who shot Detective Howard. She tells the guys to wait on the page from the bottom floor as the signal to start dumping. Lou-Lou arrives and confronts Raq on the decision to try and kill a cop. Raq admits that Kanan was the one who shot Howard and Lou-Lou is clearly angered by the news. He tells his sister that he wants out. He wanted out ever since he killed D-Whiz. Raq shuts it down and reminds Lou-Lou he is always in, ain;t no getting out. She reminds Lou-Lou that the studio is just as much hers as it is his considering the money was fronted from her business. Although she admits eventually she would like to go legit, it can not happen just yet.
Marvin tries to rush back to get Kanan but is caught in police checkpoint. The officer asks Marvin for his license and he asks Marvin where he is coming from. Once another officer runs his information, the cops approach his car and tell him to get out of the car. Marvin refuses and wants to know what is going on. The officers draw their guns and yell for him to get out of the car. When Marvin steps out the officers arrest him. There was a warrant issued for Marvin’s arrest. When Marvin gets to the precinct, he discovers the officers have an informant. Marvin sees Toni leaving one of the offices and now knows it was Toni.
Officer Burke and Garcia arrive at the corner store to question Julianna on what she saw. She tells them she saw a man with a jacket that had a name on it. Burke realizes it was Unique. They put an APB out on Unique and take the video surveillance.
When the police arrive to Raq’s apartment, she is cooking food and putting on a very innocent front for the cops. They do not toss her apartment and end up leaving. Raq gets a call from Julianna telling her Marvin has not shown up yet for Kanan. Raq calls in a favor to Symphony. He shows up at the store to get Kanan out of town. Kanan and Jukebox say their goodbyes to one another. As Kanan pulls off, he watches Jukebox from the rear view mirror. We later see Kanan is being taken to Maryland.
Unique discovers his bloody jacket in his closet. As he is holding it, realizing it was planted, the police officers ram his door and arrest him. Unique tries to tell them he did not shoot a cop.
Detective Howard wakes up at the hospital. Burke is close to him and immediately asks him who shot him. Detective Howard struggles to get the words out.
Raq stands out on the balcony overlooking the chaos in the city. She feels she has won, even at the expense of her family.
Takeaways:
When it all goes wrong, ain’t nobody checking for you but you. You’re on your own. See in this shit, the only thing that you can trust, is that you can’t trust. Not nobody, not ever… Not even your own mama. -Kanan
We are looking forward to Season two already!
