Empire – More Than Kin

By: Kelly Kearney

Last week, Anika (Grace Gealey) dropped the bomb that she’s carrying Hakeem’s baby. Not surprisingly, the new “baby daddy” isn’t taking the news very well. Hakeem’s (Bryshere Gray) hosting a live stream from the strip club while throwing money around and drowning his sorrows in champagne and women. With a baby on the way, his CEO position taken from him and his recent engagement to Laura (Jamila Velasquez) on the line, he’s decided to give up and watch the world burn in typical Lyon fashion.

Jamal, Cookie and Lucious (Terrence Howard) are going full court press on the American Sound Award voters and the shareholders for Empire. Lucious wants to nab the award for song of the year and win back his company. The Lyon family has called a truce and their half-heartedly supporting him for Empire’s sake. Jamal (Jussie Smollett) still wants to beat his father for the ASA, especially after Lucious tried sabotaging his chances, but he’s also smart enough to know Lucious is their only hope at keeping the family company. Jamal is torn by familial loyalty and the desire to show Lucious he’s a winner. Lucious just wants to win no matter who he steps on to do it. Cookie, who this season seems to be the referee in this family battle royal, wants what’s best for her family and their legacy. If burying the hatchet with Lucious helps secure the family’s hold on the company, then she’s all in. With the shareholders talking about bringing in an outsider to run Empire, the Lyon family has to show the public they’re together and stronger than ever. In what can only be described as a “Rocky vs Apollo Creed,” style press conference, Lucious and Jamal play nice for the press while covering up their sarcastic insults about each other’s musical prowess. The fight is set and the last man standing will walk away with the song of the year award as well as that sweet taste of victory.

With the Lyon family feud spilling out into the public eye, Cookie (Taraji P. Henson) decides to hold an event to show the shareholders exactly what they get with the Lyon family running Empire. She’s thinking a big event will sway the votes their way. She enlists Andre (Trai Byers) to convince his brothers to back this idea. Since Jamal and Hakeem have both accused her of having feelings for Lucious, this public family truce will be more convincing coming from him. Andre asks her if she has feelings for Lucious and Cookie blows him off; however, if her jealousy over reporter Harper Scott (Annie Ilonzeh) is anything to go by, it seems Cookie has fallen back into lust with the narcissistic pauper turned King of the Empire. Andre agrees to talk to his brothers, but he asks Cookie to link this family event with The National Alliance for Bi-polar Disorder and make him the spokesperson. Cookie seems slow to warm up to the idea of Andre going public with his illness, but she sees it as an opportunity to show the board the Lyon family sticks together and supports each other. They can use Lucious’ new video depicting his mother’s own battle with mental illness as a show of support for his son’s illness. Cookie is becoming the Queen of Spin. She can spin any drama into a win for Empire.

The Lyon family, now more than ever, has to keep the public drama to a minimum. Unfortunately, Hakeem is spiraling into hole he might not be able to crawl out from. After endlessly texting and calling, Laura finds Hakeem at the strip club with the live feed still going. She tells him that her Twitter is blowing up with trolls telling her about Hakeem’s behavior. He lets her in on the news – he got Anika pregnant before they got together. Laura slaps Hakeem and storms out. Things are not looking good for the young Lyon.

The following day, Andre fulfills his promise to Cookie and rallies his brothers behind the fundraising event. While Becky (Gabourey Sidibe) and Jamal go over the details for the fundraiser, Jamal runs into his ex-boyfriend Michael (Rafael De La Fuente) who’s working for the events catering company. The two haven’t spoken since their break up and decide to go to a local café to catch up. They reminisce about the first time Jamal sang in the gay friendly café and how far he’s come by being an out and proud ASA nominee. As they’re catching up, Jamal joins the band Fantastic Negrito for a jam session. The chemistry is still burning hot between Michael and Jamal but the relationship ended badly and Jamal’s life is filled with enough drama at the moment.

Just as the Lyon family event and fundraiser is about to kick off, Hakeem finds out Lucious threatened to kill Anika after their baby is born. Hakeem is ready to be a father and raise this baby with Anika and his fiancé Laura. He wants Lucious to steer clear of Anika, his baby and their lives or Lucious will never see the three of them again. Cookie says Anika can’t leave town with the baby, regardless of Lucious’ homicidal threats, because Hakeem is the father and he has rights to the baby. Hakeem is desperate for a normal family and this baby along with his engagement might be his only chance for that. He’ll leave his legacy behind to protect his child. This protective trait of Hakeem’s certainly isn’t something he inherited from his father.

Cookie decides to go talk to Anika about her skipping town with Hakeem’s baby, but when she gets to her house Anika is on a stretcher headed to an ambulance. Anika’s in distress and pain so Cookie insists on riding in the ambulance to make sure her grandchild is ok. Of course, while Lucious’ family is on the brink of another possible crisis, he’s busy romancing reporter Harper Scott. Lucious needs to control every aspect of his life, including what’s written about him and his family. There’s no better way to ensure good PR than to sleep with the entertainment journalist you hired to tell your rags to riches story. Lucious is all about his public persona. He thinks it’s the key to his power and his return to CEO. This article about the real Lucious Lyon will pave the way to winning that ASA and taking back his company. Just when things are getting hot, Lucious gets a text from Cookie. Cookie’s been throwing shade at Harper for weeks now because she’s jealous of their relationship. Harper throws some shade of her own about Cookie interrupting them and Lucious becomes irate. Nobody talks bad about Cookie (except him) and the people he tells to when he’s pissed at her! Lucious bounces and Harper is done being his personal PR machine/booty call.

While Anika is off to the hospital, Hakeem is getting dumped by his fiancé Laura. He’s sworn to be a good father and be there for Anika but he also wants Laura by his side. Laura never asked for this instant family so she hands Hakeem her engagement ring and says it’s over. Before he even gets a chance to think about his failed engagement, he’s off to the hospital to find out if his baby is alright.

Anika’s mother (Shanesia Davis) is at the hospital and in an awkward and chilly introduction, tells Cookie and Hakeem that Anika wants to see them. It seems that the baby and mother are fine, but she was just over stressed from Lucious’ threats. On cue, Lucious shows up to make sure his heir and grandchild is safe. He tells Hakeem he’s taking back his threats and he won’t hurt Anika because family is most important to Lucious and Anika is carrying his legacy. Hakeem reminds him it wasn’t so important when he threatened to kill him for taking Empire from Lucious. He says the feud is over because he’s proud of Hakeem for sticking by his baby and its mother and that’s proof Lucious raised him right. To know that, “Family comes before the kingdom.” It’s a bizarre father/son heart to heart where Lucious means well, but the sentiment gets lost amongst his ego and narcissism. He then tells a very happy Cookie that Harper is no longer doing his life’s story and he knew she was jealous of the reporter. She downplays her jealousy, but is obviously glad Harper is out of the picture. Cookie is not ready to jump back into a relationship with Lucious, but the two of them have a complicated past, family, a company and a lot of chemistry that can’t be ignored. There’s a lot of factors that keep pulling these two together. She offers to help Lucious while sticking it to Harper by scooping her out of Lucious’ story. She makes a deal to leak the story before Harper’s goes to press. Lucious has no use for Harper Scott anymore so he tells Cookie to go for it.

The next day at the fundraising event, Harper interrupts Lucious’ schmoozing of the shareholders for some of her own payback. She knows the quickest way to payback Lucious for leaking the story is to make a rift in this new found family unity. She goes right to Andre and hands him photos of a Philadelphia group home for the mentally ill and a woman named Leah Walker. He doesn’t understand and she tells him she believes that woman is his grandmother – the same woman whose suicide Lucious used to recreate himself with his new video for, “Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom.” Andre panics and leaves the fundraiser.

With Hakeem at the hospital watching over Anika and trying to work things out with Laura, Jamal and Andre were supposed to support Lucious at the fundraiser. Unfortunately for Lucious, for their own reasons they were a no show. Andre is off figuring out what this new information about his grandmother could mean and Jamal has had enough of Lucious belittling his achievements with shareholders and ASA voters. The strong united Lyon front seems to be crumbling and Harper Scott points that out in front of a crowd of supporters. Lucious has his man “Thirsty” (Andre Royo) escort Harper out of the event and Cookie saves the moment by announcing all three Lyon singers will perform together at the American Sound Awards. She needed something to sway the shareholders and voters so what better than a family sing a long? I mean this is the Lyon family, what could go wrong? The shareholders seem to love the idea and say this family sing along at the ASA is just what the company needs to excite Wall Street. I don’t know about you, but when I think Wall street, I do not think rap and R&B. None the less, the idea is a hit.

There was talk of an outsider getting the CEO spot, but the shareholders have decided to stick with their roots. Empire was created by Lucious and Cookie and that’s why the unanimous decision is to make them Co-CEO’s of Empire. Cookie and Lucious will run Empire like the King and Queen they were meant to be. Unfortunately, with their history, this partnership will be anything but amicable. LET THE BACKSTABBING AND SNITCHING BEGIN because if there’s one thing I know about Cookie and Lucious, sharing won’t be good enough and winning means everything.