At 17 years old, Kanan Stark has enough blood on his hands to send him away for good.
Across four seasons of Power Book III: Raising Kanan, viewers watched Raquel Thomas raise her son, Kanan Stark, by immersing him in her drug game. Kanan quickly shifted from a naive, book-smart kid to running his own criminal empire, leaving a trail of bodies.
Kanan didn’t start as a killer. He was raised to become the villain Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson played in Power. Through Raising Kanan, viewers see Kanan evolve from a young, eager recruit to running his own enterprise and learning harsh lessons along the way.
Ahead of the Season 5 premiere of Power Book III: Raising Kanan, Complex looks back at five of the most important moments in Kanan Stark’s life that turned him into the stone-faced killer he became.
I. Kanan’s Name Rings Out In The Hood
The Cause: Early into Raising Kanan, we see a pair of bullies, Tyus and Antoine, beating Kanan and stealing his money. When he told his mother, Raq, she didn’t coddle him or send him to his room with a bowl of ice cream. Raq put some batteries in a sock and told Kanan to handle his business, which he did, to a chorus of people shouting his name, a sound he wouldn’t normally experience, but one that he enjoyed hearing.
The Effect: The cheering from the crowd at his revenge became an early lesson in pain and gain.
II. Buck Twenty Dies Over A Corner
The Cause: With aspirations bigger than his education, Kanan decided to strike out early, attempting to strongarm a particular corner for their crew, which meant that Buck Twenty (who’s associated with the rival crew run by Unique, played by JoeyBada$$) met his tragic end in a hail of gunfire.
The Effect: It’s the first time viewers see Kanan (who was shooting right alongside D-Wiz) take a life, and his reaction—a stone-cold stare as Buck takes his last breath. What Kanan didn’t know was that in an attempt to broker peace, Raquel gave Unique’s crew that corner to avoid situations like Kanan showing up with blood on his chest.
Unfortunately for Raquel, it’s the moment she feared. Maybe not sending him away to a better school before he got enamored by the street life was the right decision, but at that moment, Raq soon realized that, for Kanan not to end up like Buck Twenty, she’d have to take him under her wing.
III. Kanan Shoots Detective Malcom Howard
The Cause: Being under Raq’s wing means handling dirty work, and when you are given an order, you follow it. In a plot to frame Unique for the murder of Detective Howard, Raq had Kanan don Unique’s jacket, meet Det. Howard, and kill him. Kanan’s work successfully led to Unique getting arrested for Howard’s shooting, although Howard survived—clearly, Kanan didn’t follow his mother’s instructions on where to shoot his target.
The Effect: This marked the end of a phase for Kanan. He wanted to get his hands dirty and be part of the family business. This is the kind of work—murder—that a true soldier for a family has to do. In the future, Kanan likely learned to scheme against anyone by going on these missions for Raq, a skill he often employed.
IV Kanan Murdered Ronnie Mathis
The Cause: Ronnie pushed Kanan to graduate from running a weed delivery service to pushing heroin. Ronnie planned to infiltrate, then take over, which included eliminating Raq. Being Raq’s son meant that, while Ronnie thought that he and Kanan were playing Raq, it was really Ronnie playing himself.
The Effect: Once Kanan learned Ronnie’s plan, Ronnie basically signed his death warrant. In this same scene, Kanan witnesses his mother ice his father, which would plant the seed for Kanan years later to kill his own son, Shawn, in Power. What’s the saying? “The apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree”? That’s Kanan, sitting directly under the tree of Raq.
V. Fade to Black
The Cause: It wouldn’t be Power-style family drama if there weren’t a question about whether Kanan killed his own mother, right? At the end of the Season 4 finale, Kanan confronts Raq, gun in hand, charging her with the murders of his homeboy Famous and his girlfriend, Krystal, among other acts throughout his life.
The Effect: It was the emotional climax the entire series had been building toward, encapsulating all the distrust, misinformation, pain, and heartache these two have gone through (and caused). While Kanan pointed his gun at his own mother, the screen cut to black, with only a gunshot to be heard before the credits rolled.
Is that cipher complete? It’s tough to say; tune into Power Book III: Raising Kanan on Starz to find out how (young) Kanan’s story ends.
