Patina Miller and MeKai Curtis Talk Power Book III: Raising

It’s official. Power Book III: Raising Kanan Season 2 will be one for the books.

Coming off a stellar first effort, the continuation of Kanan’s origin story is poised to be even better than ever as we dive deeper into both Kanan and Raq’s journeys.

We were lucky enough to speak with Patina Miller and MeKai Curtis about season two, which will bring about a new side to their characters. Enjoy this one ahead of the premiere!

Patina, we see Raq at the end of season one, and she’s overlooking the city. She’s ready for the next thing. When season two starts, where are we going to see Raq at? What’s she been up to? What’s going on with her?

Patina: Well, you get to see everything she jeopardized to get to this place. You get to see her in this place. Finally, she is the head. She fought for that the entire first season to be the Queenpin that she now, at the opening of season two, is the Queenpin.

And you get to see her navigate having all of this power, and she’s in there, she’s comfortable. At this point, there are no enemies. And so now Kanan comes back into the fold, and then it’s all thrown off because he’s not the same kid that left.

He’s grown up, and he has a lot more trauma thanks to her and the things he did in the first season. And now she has to navigate that along with the family wanting to expand the business and the family being in such a fractured place where everybody’s off doing their own thing.

She’s trying to constantly get everybody in line while also putting out fires left and right to continue to grow the business.

And for you, MeKai, Kanan, he’s been away, and he’s had some time to reflect on things that happened, especially towards the end of season one. Can you tell us where his headspace is at when season two starts?

MeKai: Yeah, absolutely. Season two rolling around for Kanan. He’s had a little time to sit and really reflect on his actions the last few months, few episodes, more so than he’s had enough time to ever before. He’s been sent away for everything to really shut down, slow down, relax.

So he sat there and thought about all of these things he’s done. He’s thought about the reasons he wanted to do these things for his mother and his family. And those are still there that the core reason of wanting to be there to protect his mother and be there to protect his family is absolutely what it was.

He’s still gung ho in that. I think he’s now starting to realize that to do that, the weight to bear is a little more than he anticipated or that the weight is what the people around him were telling him, but he just wasn’t planning to listen. When we come back, he’s grappling with all of that.

And he’s just trying to figure out what to do with it all while also still having a bunch of questions about the whys of why he even felt to do this or why she even made him do this thing.

As he gets these answers, he has more questions which leads him to other places that give him more answers that have more questions and repercussions for his relationship with Raquel. So there’s this constant back and forth of rediscovery and discovery for Kanan in season two.

Sounds like he’s going to be doing a lot.

MeKai: Yeah, a lot this year.

And Patina, in the first season, there were a lot of complicated dynamics with your brothers. You touched on this in your answer before about everybody going in different directions. So, will we continue to see those complicated dynamics at play and how Raq deals with them?

Patina: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, Raq is navigating this newfound trust. Maybe not with Marvin, who’s kind of proven to be a little bit more ready to be her right-hand man. That’s kind of all he wanted, in the beginning, was to be seen as such, but he had his own issue.

And so now, because Lou-Lou is off doing his own thing, Marvin has taken on that responsibility as the closest to her. And she doesn’t quite know how she feels about that. Because she knows his history, and she knows that Marvin is just a little bit, can’t always count on him, but for now, she’s been able to count on him.

So, that’s like a new dynamic between them with Lou-Lou. She wants to hold out hope for her brother because she loves him. She really does love him a lot. I mean, he is like her son as well.

She raised him. He is just preoccupied at the wrong time, and she sort of gives him this sort of line about staying in it. You can’t get out. And he’s still doing his thing, and she’s letting it ride. But we start to see how that starts to get in the way of the business because Lou-Lou’s not as focused.

As the stakes get higher for the Thomas family and their business, Raq needs them all in line, and they’re not a unit yet. And when they’re good, when the Thomas’s are great, they are great. But when they aren’t, it’s very, very hard to accomplish a lot of things.

And then Kanan. He’s back, and he is asking too many questions, and we have to watch Raq navigate those questions and how she finesses each answer while also knowing that the secret is still out there and what it will mean for her if it is revealed.

Yeah, so there’s going to be a lot going on there, too.

You touched on this in your answer, too, MeKai, but after the events of season one and everything that happened, as he’s entering into season two, how does Kanan feel about his mother right now?

MeKai: I think Kanan still loves his mother regardless of what happens, especially at the beginning of the season. Kanan is still under the impression; that I just had to shoot a cop. He doesn’t know that this is his father or anything.

So, his questions stem really from that, and the questions then turn into, well, why was he such a bad person? And what do you mean? What was he trying to do that was going to stop us, and why did I have to go do this? So, that’s where his discovery of that sort of thing comes in a little more. Yeah. Just trying to figure it all out as it comes to him.

As Raq said, or as Patina said, asking too many questions, but justifiably.

He’s had all this time to sit with these thoughts, and he turns to the person he has no problem, or he had no problem with asking these questions before, and as he gets more answers from her, he again realizes this is his mother, and the track record thus far is yes, she might tell me the truth, but is it the full truth?

So that’s kind of the space he’s in asking these questions, and because they know each other so through and through, he’s definitely able to pick out what might be true and what might not be.

Okay. Okay. I like it.

Patina, the first season was wonderful, and it really connected with viewers from the original Power and new viewers who may haven’t seen some of the other Power shows. How pleased have you been with the response to this show and Raq in particular?

Patina: Oh my God. The reception of the show has just been incredible. I think it took the Power fans to see what it was about first and what kind of story we were telling.

Cause it’s just, it’s the same, but it’s just a little bit different, and it’s a prequel, and there are so many new characters, and Kanan’s not necessarily a badass already, and he’s making mistakes. And so they’re trying to figure out who these people are.

But I think towards the end of the season, they saw that Raquel is not one to be played with and that she is an incredible character, and this incredible, fierce, ferocious woman. And I think a lot of the reception to the character has been overwhelmingly amazing.

MeKai: Crazy.

Patina: And on one side of it’s like a demon. On the other side, I love her. I love that girl. So, it’s kind of empowered women.

I get a lot of women who love this character. And I would say the biggest, the proudest thing is just, it was October and seeing so many women dressing up as Raq and to know that Raq made them feel strong and empowered and in themselves, that for me was like, oh yeah, we did something with this character.

And for her, I think she’s universal.

I think there are so many women who navigate this kind of thing. Maybe not in the crime world, but navigate these relationships all the time. And there is that woman out there that’s navigating a relationship with her son where her son wants to do things that may not line up with the idea she had for them.

But there are these different struggles, and women see themselves or feel like they know this woman in all of her many, many, many layers. I think it’s a testament to Sascha Penn, Courtney Kemp, and our writers for creating a three-dimensional character.

Power Book III: Raising Kanan airs Sundays at 9/8c on Starz.

***This interview has been edited for length and clarity.***

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Whitney Evans is a staff writer for TV Fanatic. Follow her on Twitter.

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