Empire – Chimes at Midnight

By: Kelly Kearney

Cyber Attack Warfare

This week’s episode of “Empire” finds the Lyons embroiled in a company email hack that releases all their business and personal secrets to the public. While Cookie (Taraji P. Henson) and Jamal (Jussie Smollett) are busy making music, and flirting with their prospective boos, Lucious (Terrence Howard) gets a mysterious text that reads, “You got got.” Immediately, he goes into freak out mode when he realizes that his company’s emails have been compromised, Tiana’s (Serayah) music was stolen and now Empire Extreme Streaming service could be compromised to the tune of 50 million dollars!

While his father is dealing with the company’s cyber-attack, Hakeem (Bryshere Y. Gray) is stirring up trouble with Nessa (Sierra Aylina McClain) in the studio. The two are laying down tracks and Hakeem can’t take no for an answer. He wants Nessa, but more importantly he wants to stick it to his older brother Andre (Trai Byers). Hakeem never seemed interested in Nessa until he found out she hooked up with his brother. Now, it’s sibling warfare and Andre threatens Hakeem to “fall back boy.” Andre has bigger fish to fry than his jealous little brother.

Investigation Goes Nowhere

Andre, Lucious and Thirsty (Andre Royo) have a sit down with Vaughn (French Montana) over the email hack, but they get nowhere. Vaughn denies it and Lucious seems to believe him, but is still furious and grabs his IT guy Piz (Michael B. Woods) by the throat ordering him to “fix it or it’s your ass.” Thirsty starts making lists of all Lucious enemies, which is proving to be rather long. Whoever it is, this person might have access to the private accounts of millions of Extreme subscribers. This hack is huge and could be the end of Lucious’ Empire.

In a company meeting, the board votes to pay off the hackers, but Lucious doesn’t play that way. As always, he wants the blood of his enemies and the board just isn’t feeling those methods. They come around thanks to Andre who reminds them of all the emails covering up board members and their love of prostitutes as well as other various crimes. Obviously, that’s all it takes for the board to come around to Lucious’ side because they know their boss is not above blackmailing his own employees.

Gram’s smackdown

Thanks to the email and private conversation leaks, Gram (Romeo Miller) gets an inside look at his girl Tiana and decides to trash her on an online video. He tears her down from her skills in bed to her skills as an artist and she is devastated. Not only has her music been stolen, but now Gram’s publicly slut shaming her – it’s all too much for the singing diva.

While Becky (Gabourey Sidibe) does her best to console the songstress, Lucious and Cookie get the surprise of a lifetime. The emails and all their personal information has gone viral and the hacker embedded a nice little shock for Cookie and her new boo Angelo (Taye Diggs). With the entire Empire offices watching on the monitor a nude photo of Cookie that was sent to Angelo pops up on the screen. Everyone, from her ex to her children are shocked and mortified to the point Lucious picks up a chair and smashes the office monitors. This hack just got as personal as it can get.

Cookie immediately blames Lucious for the nude leak and assumes he did so to ruin her chances with Angelo. Lucious tells her he doesn’t care what she does with Ray J, but thinks she’s too old to be sending nudes to the future mayor. The two get interrupted by Anika (Grace Gealey) and Shyne (Xzibit) who swears he had nothing to do with hacking the company he desperately wanted a music deal with. Before Lucious gets a chance to determine if Shyne is full of it, he gets a text that reads, ‘Get ready, we have something you want.”

It’s coming from inside the house

With Tiana’s music hacked and the company in need of a quick fix, Xavier (Samuel Hunt) approaches Becky to help him with Tiana’s album. Becky agrees to help if he promises to give her credit with the boss. He agrees and Becky takes the lead with Tiana.

Over at Empire studios, Jamal has been struggling to stay clean especially after the company hack. He’s relying on his new friend Phillip (Juan Antonio) for support and Derrick a/k/a D-Major (Tobias Truvillion) seems jealous over the two spending time together. Derrick is still working with Jamal on his tracks, but clearly wants more than a business relationship. He breaks up Phillip and Jamal’s party and pulls the singer back into the studio to go over some of the songs Jamal’s been working on. As the music plays, the hacker strikes again by stealing the tracks right off the Empire computers! Now the hacker is working from inside the company system and there’s no stopping them from stealing every bit of the company. Jamal says maybe this hack is fate because he wasn’t feeling those tracks anyway. Jamal’s not thinking straight and his struggling addictions might be too much for him to handle.

The aftermath of the leaked nude puts Cookie in a bad place with Angelo’s campaign manager. He needs his client to head into the election scandal free and Cookie is nothing but scandalous. She tells Angelo his manager banned her from seeing him and Angelo isn’t having it. He cares for Cookie and stands beside her against the haters, but Cookie sees the bigger picture. She tells Angelo that him winning the mayor seat is the most important thing – it is bigger than they are. With teary eyes, Cookie breaks up with the soon to be mayor and he reluctantly accepts her decision.

A Key Fab Leads To The Culprit

Piz finds a key fab in the studio where Gram and Tiana recorded their song. When they question Tiana about whether Gram is smart enough to pull this hack off, Tiana lets them in on the fact he records all his own music, is extremely well read and not to mention he has a mean streak when it comes to Hakeem and Lucious. That’s enough evidence the Lyon squad (Lucious, Andre and Thirsty) to go pay Gram a not so friendly visit.

When the three confront Gram, he denies having anything to do with the hack, but his computer says otherwise. All the evidence is right there and he’s caught red handed. Shyne and his boys show up to handle Gram the way a Lyon handles their enemies, by cutting the truth out of him and leaving a pound of flesh for the boss as a souvenir. Just like that, Shyne becomes Lucious’ right hand man and the company enforcer.

Andre’s In The Driver Seat while Jamal crashes and Burns

Empire throws an employee party to quell the drama over the emails. The board announces that Andre did a great job saving Empire’s biggest asset and they appoint him President of Extreme. Becky isn’t so lucky. When Cookie announces Tiana’s music is back on track, she congratulates Xavier with the coveted AR position. Poor Becky got had by that weasel Xavier and got her job yanked right out from under her.

While the is safe from cyber-attacks, Jamal is anything but safe from his problems. He reaches out to both Derrick and Phillip to stop him from swallowing pain killers, but they’re too late. Derrick shows up to find a very excitable and loaded Jamal and they two have sex only for Derrick to wake up to an unconscious Jamal! Instead of calling an ambulance, he calls Phillip and the two drag Jamal’s body into the shower. He comes to and Phillip thinks it wasn’t an overdose as much as a blackout. Either way, Jamal’s addictions are getting the better of him and his warring family doesn’t exactly help.

Speaking of family, Tariq (Morocco Omari) is taking advantage of the email leaks and searching for any evidence to convict his brother. He uncovers a very mysterious email on the day Frank Gathers (Chris Rock) was murdered that contains a large amount of money exchanging hands between two unknown people’s initials. Is this the key he needs to send Lucious to jail?

The Shocking Truth

With the media hounding Angelo over Cookie’s nudes the congressman shows his loyalty to her and all women by stripping off his clothes on TV to show his solidarity with women’s privacy. He also admits that the media messed up his relationship with Cookie, not her leaked nude photos. Cookie watches the report with a smile knowing that Angelo is one of the good guys that she hopefully doesn’t let get away.

The episode ends on a shocking discovery when Andre takes Nessa to a desolate warehouse where he meets Vaughan. Andre paid Vaughan off to hack Empire’s emails so that he could be President. He created a void only he could fill! His father would be so proud if only it wasn’t his company Andre put at risk. He tells Nessa that he trusts her enough to share this secret and thinks his deceased wife Rhonda (Portia Doubleday) would approve of their relationship. Nessa is the embodiment of music and he’s the embodiment of business and together they will set out to create their own legacy.