All pictures courtesy of FOX
A week into its triumphant return, Empire (#Empire) continued its surge of ridiculously juicy TV by continuing to follow the script of 1980s show Dynasty. Minus Cecil Colby (for you kids out there, if you don’t know what I’m talkin’ ‘bout, look it up online and do your research), but with plenty of cojones behind her, Cookie yoked her oldest and youngest son into following her into creating their own record label to rival Lucious’ Empire. Starting with that bald-headed Betty from last season that we saw in the first or second episode, they begin stocking their client list with Empire castoffs or stolen talent. Brace yourselves people, because it’s about to get real dirty.
With Lucious still in jail and still
sick, he desperately needs his meds but the ADA—the lady lawyer
wearing wayyy too revealing outfits around and looking like New York
from Flavor of Love’s momma—is withholding such medication in
order to get a confession. Not only that, but she has one of her own
uniformed goons played by Ludacris threaten Lucious. My question at
that point was how many guest stars are they going to have on the
show that Lucious is clearly going to have to kill at some point.
Listen, I love all the guest stars but they can’t all be enemies,
can they? On top of that, how many musical artists are they going to
have on the show that don’t sing or rap while on the show (yes, I’m
counting Chris Rock. He could’ve hit us with a 2015 rendition of No
Sex in The Champagne Room and don’t act like you don’t remember
that). Now Luda’s playing a prison guard trying to punk Terrence
Howard? Dude, didn’t he already whip yo’ ass when you refused to
listen to his demo in Hustle and Flow? Come on now.
While the ADA lady is presumably
winning as Lucious gets weaker, outside Jamal is dealing with the
whole family trying desperately to game him. His father wants Hakeem
back on Empire and Hakeem wants to release his album. The youngest
one also wants to create a girl group of a Black girl, White girl and
Latina girl that he’ll call Rainbow Sensation, completely
neglecting Asians, Indians and Native Americans (he must be one of
those colorblind Negroes everyone’s always talking about, cause all
the colors ain’t in his rainbow). Naturally, he goes to Tiana to
see if she wants to lead this group after only finding Latina young
ladies that can sing. Side note: Did anyone else think she was
butt-naked from the waist down? Tiana had on not just a tight
nude-colored body suit, but the way they filmed it was risque. Maybe
it’s just my TV’s color but damn!
Tiana turns Hakeem down in more coded ways than one which ends him up in a Jacuzzi with one of the singers he found. Not the only dumb decision he’d make, he also decided to leak his Empire album online and risk a lawsuit from his brother and father, thereby refusing a return to the label. As Hakeem lays his claim to the new record label, Andre’s wife pleads with Jamal to try to get him re-hired at Empire, while Andre does the same to his father. A brief flashback with Kelly Rowland playing Lucious’ mother and staring off into the distance lets us know that Lucious has a thing about mental illness, preventing him from forgiving and accepting his eldest son.
Back to the prison, Lucious finds
himself not only struggling without his medication but yearning to
spit a verse or two and release a song while still locked up “a
Lucious Lyon joint from the joint.” To do that, he runs into a new
crooked lawyer supposedly better than his current one. Now, this
pastel purple brotha pops out of nowhere and not only gets him a
makeshift studio in a janitorial closet in prison, but manages to get
this single released to radio stations and get Lucious out on bail
after some explicit BDSM pictures of the judge surface as “evidence.”
Oh yeah, cheap shoes almost threw her wig across the room when she
learned he’d be getting out. The saddest part: Cookie and Hakeem
wanted their label up and running long before Lucious got out, but
won’t even have the floor in their new space properly swept before
the emperor returns. It’ll be hard for them to take down Empire,
but they believe they can, for the Lyon Dynasty has just been born.
#LyonDynasty
What do you think? Did you like Lucious’ song from prison? Did you even notice that was Petey Pablo? Do you even remember who Petey Pablo is? And how do you think Cookie and Hakeem’s new label will do against Empire? Will they both implode or will one defeat the other for the top? And who do you got: #LyonDynasty vs. #Empire? Let me know what you think in the comments below.
As
always, check out my books on Amazon (if you’re looking for
Halloween scares
check #AFuriousWind, #DARKER, #BrandNewHome or #ThePowerOfTen).
For those interested in something a little more dramatic, check
out #TheWriter.
The final episode of season one of The Writer is OUT NOW. Ahh! That’s
right, all 15 episodes are out now available exclusively on Amazon.
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Until next time, "it be a whole lotta 'B***s' jumpin' ship!”
P.S. Hustle and Flow reunion? Where’s
Paula Jai Parker, DJ Qualls and Elise Neal. We already know Anthony
Anderson has his competing show on ABC, so he probably won’t appear
in the studio anytime soon. Oh, I forgot this was supposed to be a
sign-off. My bad. It’ll be better next time.
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