Raquel Thomas is dead. In the series finale of Starz's Power Book III: Raising Kanan, the matriarch at the heart of the crime drama was murdered by Jukebox — a killing that closed out five seasons of the prequel series. The finale, episode 508, brought the story of Kanan Stark's origins to its conclusion. (Deadline, 7 August 2026)

Patina Miller played Raq across all five seasons. Her character was the mother of Kanan (Mekai Curtis) and sister of Lou (Malcolm Mays) and Marvin (London Brown). Hailey Kilgore played Jukebox, the character who ultimately killed Raq in the finale. (Deadline, 7 August 2026)

The path to Raq's death was a long one. At the end of Season 4, Kanan did not kill his mother, leaving the question open. When showrunner Sascha Penn was asked in 2025 to confirm whether Raq was truly dead and gone, his answer was blunt: "No one is safe." (Deadline, 12 June 2026; Deadline, 16 May 2025)

The final season premiered on 12 June 2026, streaming weekly on Starz. New episodes dropped at midnight on Fridays on the Starz app and aired on linear television at 8 p.m. ET. (USA Today, 23 July 2026)

In the finale, Raq met Kanan on a busy public street for a vulnerable conversation. She chose the location deliberately — she feared her son would otherwise kill her. The scene placed mother and son in the open, surrounded by witnesses, as Raq tried to reach the boy she raised. (Deadline, 7 August 2026)

Behind the scenes, that street scene carried a weight the script never intended. On the day Miller and Curtis shot the mother-son conversation, Miller had experienced a personal tragedy that, as Deadline reported, would have kept most people from working. She went to set anyway. (Deadline, 7 August 2026)

Miller, a native of South Carolina, told Deadline she trusted creator Sascha Penn's vision for Raq. She said she understood why the character had to die — that there are consequences to the world of crime Raq inhabited. Penn created and wrote the series, which ran from its first season through this final chapter on Starz. (Deadline, 7 August 2026)

For a cast and crew that lived with these characters across five seasons, the finale closes a chapter that began as a prequel to the original Power series. The show traced how Kanan Stark became the man viewers met years earlier — and how the family around him shaped, and was shaped by, that transformation.