Patina Miller says Raquel “Raq” Thomas connects with viewers in Power Book III: Raising Kanan because she is under pressure, trying to hold her family together and still thinking like an entrepreneur. In a recent interview, Miller argued that the character’s mix of motherhood, strategy and survival gives her a kind of honesty that keeps people watching.
That is why raising kanan keeps coming up in conversation now: Miller is making the case that the show’s central woman is not just powerful, but recognizable. Raq is a matriarch carrying the weight of legacy, survival and ambition, and Miller said audiences can see themselves or people they know in her, even when they may not live anything like her life.
Miller, who plays Raq in the Power universe series, said the character works because she is not polished into a simple TV type. She described Raq as a mom who wants to protect her son and her family, someone who is strategic and entrepreneurial, and someone who knows she is imperfect. That imperfection, Miller said, is part of what makes the role land. Raq is not built as a one-dimensional villain, and she is not a traditional antihero either. She is written as a woman negotiating the cost of control, and the show lets that contradiction stay visible.
The appeal, Miller said, reaches beyond the crime story. She said she knows what it feels like to be in a room with men and constantly have to explain herself, or to hear men act as if they know better. That dynamic, she said, is something women recognize immediately because a man would not be questioned that way. She also tied Raq’s pull to family life, saying family is messy in every community and that these archetypes feel real, raw and human. That is the friction at the center of the character: Raq can read as relatable, even tender in her loyalty, while still making morally complicated choices as a crime boss.
Miller said those contradictions are exactly why people of all backgrounds keep responding to the show. By grounding Raq in pressure, motherhood and survival, Raising Kanan gives its viewers a Black female crime boss who feels less like a symbol than a person. The larger question now is how long the show can keep that balance as Raq’s choices tighten the world around her.
