Empire – Bloody Noses and Crack’d Crowns

By: Gladys Luna

After last week’s events where Lucious (Terrence Howard) almost beats Eddie (Forest Whitaker) in front of all the guests and press that attended to the 20/20 Empire party, the board members have decided to call for a meeting. It seems Eddie has finally accomplished one of his goals – to be reinstated at Empire, much to Cookie (Taraji P. Henson) and Lucious’ dismay.

After the meeting Cookie, Lucious, Andre (Trai Byers) and Thirsty (Andre Royo) gather together in order to come up with a possible solution to stop Eddie from selling Empire to Kelly Patel (Pej Vahdat), but the only idea Andre has is to find those board members that could be on their side and ask them for help. Obviously, Lucious is not willing to beg. Cookie suggests they should buy Empire privately from the shareholders and although the man doesn’t really agree at first, old memories of he and Cookie and how they built the company from the scratch start to take him over and make him reconsider his decision saying that he agrees with Cookie’s idea.

Hakeem (Bryshere Y. Gray) and Haven (Cassie Ventura) are sleeping on the guy’s couch in his apartment when his alarm goes off waking up the girl and realizing that it is Tiana’s (Serayah) song that she is hearing. Hakeem wakes up to a bunch of text messages from Blake (Chet Hanks) that he also deletes.

In the meantime, Jamal (Jussie Smollett), Tory (Rumer Willis) and the band are still creating more music. Even though there are some doubts about whether their identities should be revealed or not, they decide to put the music first before any of their interests.

Back at Empire we see Lucious, Cookie and Thirsty are on their way out to meet with a client when they run into Anika (Grace Byers) and Eddie. After a small confrontation, Eddie confesses that he has already gone to see the client that the Lyons’ were supposed to meet with and informs them that he is just not interested in joining them. Cookie, Lucious and Andre are making some calls in order to find support and buy Empire back. When it seems they have succeeded, Thirsty walks in the room saying that they will need so much more money if they really want to buy Empire back.

As they don’t know what Kelley’s top dollar is, Andre suggests that in order to find out he can make a fake alliance with Eddie and tell them everything from the inside. So, that’s how Andre ends up in front of Anika and Eddie trying to convince them to let him join their team. After a while, Eddie finally decides to let him in even, but Anika doesn’t seem to truly agree with his decision. They throw a press conference at Empire where Andre confirms that the best choice to make Empire grow is Eddie. Lucious and Cookie are watching them from the back and then they leave without any comment. Later that day Anika, Kelly and Eddie are discussing their success; Kelly suggests they go out and celebrate and everyone agrees. When they are on their way out, Andre comes back to get his jacket and take some photos of the information he needs and sends it to Lucious just as planned.

Once again, part of the Lyon family are gathered together as they have decided to make an XStream rent party where they invite the best artists as a way to help them reach their goal. As they are reviewing the list of the possible guests, Becky (Gabourey Sidibe) walks in and asks them to watch something. They see Blake on a TV show while he is arguing with his father and saying the truth behind the photo that got him fired from Empire. Lucious asks Hakeem to go find him and invite him to the party since he believes the video will go viral and they need to take advantage of that. Lucious pays a visit to Jamal and asks him to let him borrow his band for the party. Jamal is surprised to find out his father knows about his anonymous project. However, he refuses to help him that way and Lucious walks away angrily as he believes that Jamal is no longer on their side.

At the rent party Hakeem takes the stage along with Blake and together they start the party. Tiana arrives to the party and expresses her disappointment to Becky about said event. When Hakeem and Blake’s song ends, Hakeem dedicates his next song to someone special to him. Tiana believes he is talking about her, but then he calls Haven to the stage making Tiana get mad and leave the party in a haste. The duo starts to perform the song where Tiana once was part of it. The crowd goes wild as well as Empire viewer’s numbers.

Back at Empire, Eddie and Kelly are watching the party live. Andre has been called to meet them and they let him know that they’re aware of the man’s coming and going between them and his family. They know how much he cares for them, so they tricked him and gave him fake information hoping that he would tell the Lyons. Eddie lets Andre know that his parents just don’t appreciate his value, so they are offering him an opportunity to make a change. Kelly asks him to shut down the servers and if he does, he will be introduced as the new Chief Financial Officer at his company in Palo Alto. Andre seems to hesitate a little about the offer, but he agrees. Later, he shows up at the servers’ room and asks Lou (Nate Faust), the watch man, to take a break and he does as requested. Andre walks in and shuts everything down. Back at the party, Lucious and Cookie are having fun and happy that everything is working. Just then, the signal is frozen and they begin to panic. Andre walks in and lets them know about Eddie’s plan. He explains that he shut down the servers, but within fifteen minutes the signal will be restored except this time there will be no paywall! That means they could broadcast live to anywhere and to anyone. Cookie hits the stage and tells the attendees they have a surprise in store for them, so they better be ready to help them using their social media.

Jamal shows up at the party and sees how everything is going. Lucious makes eye contact with him and the guy silently nods at his father and then makes a call to his band and asks them to show up and perform with him as a favor to his family. Everyone agrees except for Tory who is mad at him for always risking his life in order to get some sympathy from his father. Cookie and Lucious take the stage again and they start to tell the audience about the big surprise they have for them. They also say that Eddie wants to take Empire away from them, but they won’t let him. Right in the middle of their speech the signal is reestablished and everyone from everywhere in the world are able to see the Lyon duo live. They call the band “Anonymous” on stage and one by one they are introduced by Jamal. The band members are Preacher (Kade Wise), Lonnie (Juno), Alex (Dustin Laurenzi) and Ron (Kurt Schweitz) who happily take the stage and perform among the cheers and claps of the audience. Tory finally decides to show up and join them.

Back at Empire, Eddie realizes that the signal has been restored and without paywall. Kelly asks him to fix it or their deal is done.

Anonymous’ presentation is done and everybody is happy to see that they have raised so much more than what they expected, so now they are ready to buy Empire back. Kelly tells Eddie that he has just been played and the man is reluctant to accept such thing. In that moment Eddie receives a text from Giselle (Nicole Ari Parker) saying that it is “done.” The man excuses himself and leaves the room.

At the Lyons’ house, Cookie and Lucious enter their bedroom looking kind of tipsy and happy about their achievement. The man gets a little sappy at his wife as he confesses that he would not have gone that far without her and he would happily trade the company just for never losing her again. Those words seem to reach to the woman’s heart who immediately throws him on the bed and for the first time since the whole drama they´ve been dealing with she makes love to him.

The next day, everything seems to be sunshine and rainbows for Cookie and Lucious who are enjoying of a delicious breakfast together. Little did they know said happiness will be soon threatened again when Juanita (Claudette Burchett) walks in announcing that Giselle and Eddie want to see them. As the other couple walk in, Lucious and Cookie start to brag and offend them until Eddie informs them that he knows Lucious was the one that got Shine (Xzibit) killed and to prove it he has the scarf he was wearing that night. Eddie says that if Lucious doesn’t withdraw his bid on Empire, he will take the garment to the police and he’ll end up in jail very soon.

The Lyons’ happiness was clouded very soon. This seems to be a never-ending game for them. Will Lucious surrender to Eddie’s request? Or, will he find another trick to pull on the man? Let’s see how this goes next Wednesday at 8/7 c on Fox. ¡Hasta la próxima!