Empire – One Before Another

By: Kelly Kearney

Shyne On

On this week’s episode of “Empire,” the Lyons are on lockdown awaiting Shyne’s (Xzibit) clapback. As they’re driving around in armored cars and making plans to go to war, Shyne and his boys break in to Andre’s (Trai Byers) house looking for some payback after the oldest Lyon son roughed him up. As Shyne holds Andre at gun point in his living room, a half-dressed Nessa (Sierra Aylina McClain) comes running out from the bedroom begging him to leave her new boo alone. Andre doesn’t seem to be working with a full deck now that he’s seeing his wife’s ghost and sleeping with the sister of their enemy, but even more so now that Shyne’s threats don’t seem to faze him.

An Emergency Lyon meeting is called to figure out the right clapback for Shyne’s antics. They’ve been trying to play nice with him ever since Tariq (Morocco Omari) started sniffing around for evidence to lock Lucious (Terrence Howard) up and dealing with Shyne will be a delicate situation. Cookie (Taraji P. Henson) orders Hakeem (Bryshere Y. Gray) to continue laying down tracks with Shyne and Lucious wants a Taina (Serayah) single ready to drop ASAP. As for Jamal (Jussie Smollett), a harsh Lucious tells him he can do whatever it is he does now.

Jamal’s Back…Kind Of

With Jamal suffering from stage fright thanks to his gunshot induced PTSD, Empire needs content. He approaches his younger brother Hakeem to do a live stream concert together from Jamal’s living room. It’s a win, win. Empire extreme gets traffic and Jamal gets his music out to his fans before he becomes yesterday’s news. Hakeem agrees to go along with his brother’s idea to make their father happy and stop their family war but the war is just beginning. During their practice for the show, the two brothers have a disagreement about the direction of the song. Jamal wants to keep it light while Hakeem seems only interested in clapping-back to Gram (Romeo Miller) for showing him up. Speaking of Gram, as the two young Lyons figure out how they want their two styles to mash up, Gram walks in to stir up trouble with Hakeem. How did Gram get past all their new “Shine proof” security? Hakeem suspects Lucious is playing games and pulling his strings.

Over at the offices of Empire, Becky (Gabourey Sidibe) is getting mansplained by Xavier (Samuel Hunt) about Tiana’s new single. Cookie orders her to drop Tiana’s song “Spotlight,” but Becky knows that song will be a hit so she lies to Tiana and gives her the green light to record it in the studio. Becky is hoping that once Cookie hears it she will agree but Xavier is not so sure.

A Lyon Sit Down

Nessa is not happy that Andre beat up her brother Shyne, but the oldest Lyon son promises to have a gentlemanly sit down with him and come to an understanding. When has the Lyons ever calmly talked through their problems? Speaking of working through their problems, Jamal and Lucious have a talk about him going back to work. Lucious doesn’t understand what his son’s problem is. Jamal is 50% likely to turn into his father and Lucious tells him to get back on stage and stop acting so corny. Lucious certainly is not winning father of the year.

While her boys and her ex are dealing with the Shyne problem, Cookie is dealing with her own. She and Councilman soon to be mayor Angelo (Taye Diggs) are dating and you’d think that would help her out with her parole officer. Sadly, it seems it’s had the opposite effect. Cookie shows up to check in and her P.O. (Taron Patton) is not happy Cookie is late regardless of the fact it was because she was buying coffee for the entire office. Not only is she late, but she missed check ins previously and the P.O. is done cutting her slack. Later, Cookie confronts Angelo for keeping tabs on her through her P.O. now that he’s running for mayor. The two argue and eventually call it a night before they say anything that they will regret.

Bedtime Stories and Smiting Enemies

Lucious might be watching way too much Pulp Fiction because Hakeem finds him reading bedtime stories to Bella about smiting their enemies and striking them down with furious anger. He tells Hakeem that he needs to find his fire and take down Gram for embarrassing him. He’s a Lyon, but as many times as Hakeem has tried to act like one he seems to wind up being more like the Shepherd than the destroyer of lost souls. The one thing that he is great at is his clapback songs and Lucious convinces him that his daughter could never respect him unless he silences Gram.

During practice for the live stream performance, the brothers are still fighting about their sound and Hakeem has had enough. He tells his bother he’s not doing this under Jamal’s terms and conditions and that he only agreed to do this because Jamal needs it. It’s life or death for the middle Lyon son’s career.

The Sit Down

Shine agrees to the sit down at the Lyon mansion and thanks to Anika (Grace Gealey) the two come to an agreement. Lucious wants to keep Nessa on Empire’s roster, but she and Shyne are a package deal. Anika proposes to allow Shyne to continue to produce, but he wants the newly released from prison Freda Gatz (Bre-Z) too. Freda is a no-go since she knows Lucious killed her father, but Anika promises to be the Shyne and Lucious liaison and he seems to be ok with it. They agree to allow him his own imprint in Empire, but is this the right move for Lucious and his family’s safety?

As Lucious is cutting deals with his enemies, Cookie is cutting deals with her warring sons over their live stream performance. She shows up at Hakeem’s house and after she throws some shade about his home’s cleanliness she orders him to do the song with Jamal as he was told. She wants him to leave that clapback angle for another time. She then leaves him with a serious mom threat that if he is afraid of his father just try and disobey her, she will end him. She grabs Jamal and leaves as she hollers to her boy to clean up his nasty house because he’s gross.

The Live Stream Disaster

The stage is set but the traffic on Empire extreme isn’t flowing during Jamal’s set and Lucious blames it on his corny son. He sneaks over to Hakeem and lights his fire when he tells him that Andre is sleeping with the girl he has his eye on, Nessa. Of course, that does it and Hakeem grabs the mic and goes full on clapback, but he doesn’t stop at Gram. He takes down his father, Andre and his brother Jamal’s sexuality – all on the live show. The music stops and Jamal and Hakeem are screaming at each other and, of course, Lucious sees this as a ratings oppurtunity and orders the camera men to catch all the family drama.

The drama doesn’t stop there, when Cookie finds out Becky disobeyed her and Tiana finds out she was lied to. Cookie throws Becky off Tiana’s album. Xavier totally played her and she is very upset. Will this be the push she needs to leave Empire for another company?

After she dumps Becky off the album, Cookie gets a visit at Empire from her P.O. She is there to apologize thanks to Angelo who wanted to prove to Cookie that he wasn’t keeping tabs on her. Cookie is grateful for the apology and even more grateful her new guy isn’t as controlling ad her last one.

Tariq The Freak

The episode ends with Shyne and Tariq having a secret meeting about Lucious. Tariq admits that he was the one that put pressure on Cookie with her P.O. and he’s still coming up empty with evidence to convict his brother. Shyne points out Freda across the street and tells Tariq to consider Lucious’ time spent behind bars and how that correlates to Frank Gather’s death. He eludes to the fact Lucious was behind it and pushes the overzealous cop right into the path of the evidence he will need to grab that conviction. Will Lucious find out that Shyne and Tariq have been working together? Will the old saying, “Snitches get stitches,” seal Shyne’s fate with the Lyon family? Fine out next week on “Empire.”