Empire – Hardiness is Mother

By: Gladys Luna

Cookie (Taraji P. Henson) is having breakfast with her family. Lucious (Terrence Howard), Hakeem (Bryshere Y. Gray) and Jamal (Jussie Smollett) have made sure that she has been following her diet in order to recover as soon as possible. Cookie realizes that Andre (Trai Byers) isn´t there and her husband explains that is because he asked him not to be. Cookie asks him to make an effort and give him another chance.

Meanwhile at Empire, Tiana (Serayah) has been intensely rehearsing but doesn’t seem to be happy at all with the results. Becky (Gabourey Sidibe) is there as well checking on every detail. At some point, Tiana stops the rehearsal and decides to fire the choreographer (Jamaica Craft) as she believes she isn’t doing her job right. Hakeem arrives with his team in order to use the space, but Becky asks them to leave as they are not done yet.

Porsha (Ta’Rhonda Jones) visits Cookie and tells her that since she got sick a girl named Chyna (Ptosha Storey) has been calling her nonstop. Cookie explains that they were together in prison and that she hasn’t called her since she got out. So, she asks Porsha to call her back and send a car for her.

Andre meets with Lucious at Empire and tells him that since everything that happened with Eddie (Forest Whitaker) he´s been doing some research and tells him about the plan that he believes Eddie has been pulling, but Lucious doesn’t entirely believe him so he asks him to prove it. Later that day, both Lucious and Andre are gathered together while searching for some evidence. After a while, they come up to the conclusion that maybe Celeste (Ryan Michelle Bathe) will have some answers for them.

Back at the Lyon’s mansion, Cookie has finally met with Chyna and as the talk moves along, Cookie starts to reminisce of her time inside prison. She remembers Poundcake (Da’Vine Joy Randolph) and how the woman betrayed her. Chyna informs Cookie that Poundcake is in hospice since she was diagnosed with cancer, something that makes Cookie evidently sad.

Becky and a group of Empire´s members are listening to one of Jamal´s new songs. He´s been trying to convince them that the fans will love his new creations, but Becky tells him that they have been doing some testing and apparently that song is far from what the fans want to hear from him. Everything that happened between him and the Dubois´ family has given him a bad reputation and he needs to fix it. The man leaves the room frustrated by the lack of support.

Hakeem asks Shine´s (Alvin ‘Xzibit’ Joiner) to help him focus on his music. So, the man suggests he do some mentorship to some peers but the guy refuses. Cookie and Chyna pay a visit to Poundcake. As they are on the waiting room, old memories of the woman assault Cookie and the time they shared in prison until she is allowed in the room to see her. Poundcake is surprised but happy to see her old friend in there. The two women talk about Cookie´s glamorous life and Poundcake tells her of how she imagines her little girl´s life could be and Cookie promises that she will find her kid and take her to see her mother so that girl will know that she never gave her up.

Later at her house, Cookie is making some calls in order to find out where the prison guard Burleson (James Colby) is as he is the one who took Poundcake’s baby away from her. In the meantime, Lucious and Andre are on their way to meet with Celeste when Lucious receives an update on his phone about Cookie´s vitals. He had given her a bracelet to monitor her blood pressure, so he has decided to call her to figure out what she is into. Cookie lies to him and attempts to remove her bracelet but Lucious asks her to keep it on.

At Empire, Blake (Chet Hanks) is one of the people that Shine suggested to Hakeem to mentor. Blake walks into the studio where the other guy is making some music. They share a talk and when Hakeem asks him to leave so he can go back to work, the guy starts to put some lyrics to the background music, followed by Hakeem. They both put quite a show and at the end, Hakeem agrees to work with him.

Tiana is looking over some clothing designs for her album when she is interrupted by Tory (Rumer Willis) who walks in and lets her know how disappointed she is of how she has changed. She wants to help Tiana to realize of what she´s doing, but the girl just insults her and asks her to leave the room. Tory goes into a studio and finds Jamal in there, looking disappointed and frustrated. The guy tells her about his situation and she decides to help him with it.

At the club, Lucious and Andre find Celeste and ask her about Eddie´s plans but she refuses to give any information. Later that day, Andre decides to be the one to step in this time, so he approaches Celeste and talks to her about what is truly happening with Eddie. Andre explains that everything her ex-husband promised her is not actually happening since the agreement with Empire is no longer on the run. The woman gets truly mad and tells them everything they need to know, even confessing that Eddie has no money left and neither does she because of him.

Porsha has taken Cookie to Burleson’s house. The Lyon matriarch decides to put her plan on the works and walks straight to it. A woman named Joyce (Mary Ernster) opens the door and after Burleson shows up. He immediately recognizes Cookie and asks her to go inside. Joyce seems to be unaware of her husband´s demeanors and when Burleson realizes that Cookie may spill some news he doesn’t like it, asking his wife to bring some snacks and she agrees. Meanwhile, Cookie makes Burleson tconfess what he did to Poundcake´s daughter and he tells her about the agency called Hope House where the baby may have been adopted. Just when Joyce is coming back from the kitchen, Cookie apologizes and leaves the house.

While outside Burleson’s house, Cookie calls Thirsty (Andre Royo) and asks him to find any information he can about a mixed-race baby that may have been adopted from the Hope House and give it to her. Porsha is desperate to leave as she believes Lucious will get mad at her for not taking good care of his wife, but Cookie asks her for a few more minutes so she steps out of the car and knocks at the house door again. Joyce opens it and finds her standing there again, but this time the woman looks a little unsettled as she seemed to have caught up that something was wrong between her husband and Cookie. When Joyce tells her that she will call Burleson, Cookie tells her that she is the one she needs to talk to and confesses that her husband was a rapist that used to beat them and tortured them all in prison. She also tells her that he raped a woman named Poundcake and they had a daughter that he sold it to some baby brokers. Joyce looks astonished at said revelation. Burleson shows up looking truly mad at what he just heard and Cookie suggests the other woman to walk out of there.

Lucious and Andre are still working on some papers. Suddenly, Lucious asks his son what happened to the boy that used to have his back. Andre gives him the date and time from when everything started to crumble between them. It was the time when he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Andre believes that from that moment all that Lucious could see was a damaged son and nothing else. But he assures him that he is damaged too as he is a sociopath with no remorse for everything he has done.

Back at Empire, Blake is recording some lyrics in front of Shine and Hakeem. When he is done, everyone leaves the studio and decides to go to a strip club as a way to celebrate. On their way out, Hakeem stops Blake and as a “prank” he asks him to stay and clean the place instead.

Hakeem and Shine are ready to leave the place when the young guy sees Tiana rehearsing hard. He decides to go and talk to her and as he is approaching her the girl falls and Hakeem helps her to get up. He tells her that he thinks she is not the same girl he used to know, making Tiana get mad at him again. She lets him know that she just wants to stay focused just as Eddie asked her to and that is how Hakeem finds out why she turned his proposal down. Still, they get into a short argument making him leave her on her own.

Jamal and Tory show up at a night club where Tory asks her friend, DJ Selection (T.J. Medel), to play a song for her. As soon as he does, the whole crowd starts to enjoy it making Jamal more satisfied than he expected.

Lucious returns home after an exhausting day. He sees Cookie at the dinner table working on some notes. When she asks him about his day and seems to be content with the short replied he gives her, he understands there is something wrong. Cookie tells him about her day, minus the part where she was looking for her friend’s missing baby. And how she doesn’t want to take her life for granted. He seems to understand completely and when he is about to leave, she takes him by the hand and they kiss.