Has Raquel Thomas overtaken Monet Tejada as the worst mother in the ‘Power’ Universe?
OPINION: Even in a fantasy universe of horrible parents, Raquel and Monet stand out as GOAT-level bad mothers.
Editor’s note: The following article is an op-ed, and the views expressed are the author’s own. Read more opinions on theGrio.
Like most of us who religiously watch the “Power” universe of television shows, I am stressed about whether Unique is dead. I mean, he sure looked dead rolling down that hill, and Ronnie definitely looked like he believed he made Unique dead while rolling Unique’s bludgeoned body down that hill. What a cliffhanger, right? But then the powers that be — pun intended — went and skipped a week and had many of us concerned that they got to five episodes and selfishly decided to make us wait until, like, March, to find out. As it turns out, they just skipped a week so we’ll all know more when the next episode drops. I am doing a relief-ful sigh.
Since we have a little time to ponder life and its many intricacies while waiting on some conclusive evidence about Unique, I thought it time to discuss another important matter that only exists within this realm: Raquel — Kanan’s mother — has really stepped up her bad mothering game and it begs the question: Is she a worse mother than Monet Tejada?
Hmmm. Relax, relax. I’m not suggesting that Monet isn’t a bad mother. Au contraire, I’m the fellow who wrote this (and for the sake of brevity, I will assume you’re familiar with the Tejadas from “Power Book II: Ghost”):
“So she brings her secret son to New York, ends up killing his boo and then ends up getting him killed. Sure, there’s some nuance here and ways we can just blame other people like Tariq, but the truth is Monet is the problem. Let’s dig deeper.
Monet and Lorenzo have three other kids. She finds out that Lorenzo accidentally killed Zeke and manipulates her son Dru’s boyfriend, Gordo, into killing Lorenzo. Lorenzo had Gordo’s father Frank killed because he was a snitch. Anyway, Monet gets Gordo to kill Lorenzo. So she has her OTHER children’s FATHER KILLED. By the way, the kids actually LOVED their father. Not only that, Dru finds out that Monet basically had Gordo kill his father and then Dru kills Gordo. MONET HAD DRU KILL THE MAN HE LOVES. If you’re keeping track, Monet has been responsible for the deaths of her son, her son’s girlfriend, her other son’s boyfriend, and her husband and has put the pieces all in play to make these things happen.”
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That’s Mount Rushmore-level sadism. Monet also does it all with the coldest, meanest glare ever. I almost wonder if Monet and Raquel aren’t somehow related. I’m also afraid that Ronnie might be related to Monet as well. Oh, what a tangled web we weave. Anywho, so we’ve established that Monet is trash … as a parent, anyway. It’s hard to tell what or who she loves.
Raquel, on the other hand, clearly loves her family, which is what makes this all complicated. So, in the first season of “Raising Kanan,” Raquel puts a gun in her son’s hand and has him try to kill Det. Howard, who as it turns out, IS KANAN’S FATHER. Raquel knows this, by the way. Kanan does not; he, and everybody else (at the time), thinks his father is a dead former street kingpin named Def Con. But Raq … she knows. And she SENDS A SON TO KILL HIS FATHER. As you can imagine, this doesn’t go over well with Kanan once he finds out the truth … nor with Det. Howard, who manages to get the whole thing covered up, but, of course, he must eventually kill his own partner for this. We addressed this in the season 3, episode 1 recap.
If you let Raquel tell it, she’s just doing what needs to be done for the sake of business, but it takes a certain level of cold-hearted malice to actually send a son to kill his father. Whew, chile. By season 3 (which is where we’re at now), Kanan does not mess with his mother. At all. Neither does Lou-Lou, but that’s another talk show. Raquel has made MANY selfish decisions involving people, business and lovers that butt heads with what she claims she’s doing to raise Kanan. Kanan, for his part, can see right through all of this mess and realizes that while his mother loves him, her selfishness, ego and self-righteousness mean she’ll make decisions for everybody else that negatively impact them.
Like this season, when in her attempts to force Kanan back into her life and into her house, SHE PUTS A GUN IN HIS SCHOOL BOOK BAG SO HE’LL GET ARRESTED AND BE FORCED TO COME BACK TO HER HOUSE. I know Raq is smart and always thinking steps ahead of the game, but the fact that she had to hope that Det. Howard would be able to pull some strings to ensure that Kanan didn’t go to jail is bananas to me. She literally set her SON up for a felony because she has no other idea on how to get him to come home. A place, mind you, he absolutely does not want to be.
I’m not getting super into details because if you watch the show you already understand how complicated this is. Raq doesn’t come across like Monet, who seems cold and detached. Raq cooks dinner sometimes and seems to have a heart, but her relentless, cutthroat nature means she’s willing to go to extremes to get her way and that obscures whatever love she has because she will put her son in harm’s way to get what she thinks everybody needs. Again, she marched her son into TWO felonies (murder and possession of a firearm). On purpose. To carry out her agenda.
I just don’t know if having your son kill his father can be topped. At least when Monet had her kids’ father killed, she set it up so somebody ELSE would do it. Same result, of course, but the level of evil is different. That has to put Raq in the running to be the worst, right?
Southside.
Panama Jackson is a columnist at theGrio. He writes very Black things, drinks very brown liquors, and is pretty fly for a light guy. His biggest accomplishment to date coincides with his Blackest accomplishment to date in that he received a phone call from Oprah Winfrey after she read one of his pieces (biggest), but he didn’t answer the phone because the caller ID said: “Unknown” (Blackest).
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