Star – All Falls Down

By: Gladys Luna

Simone (Brittany O’Grady), Alex (Ryan Destiny) and Star (Jude Demorest) are in the studio together deciding which song they will be playing at Orange Night while Miss Bruce (Miss Lawrence) gets all desperate on them trying to make them choose. She also gives Star a check for the earnings of her single and the girl gets immediately mad when she sees that Maurice (Lance Gross) has added himself as the producer of the song and taking half of her money. In the meantime, Maurice is gloating over the fact he got himself a new club and a new label in front of his friends. Suddenly, he spots a woman that as soon as she makes eye contact with him, approaches towards the producer. The two of them share a very awkward conversation until Noah (Luke James) arrives and introduces himself, learning that said woman is none other but Maurice´s ex-wife Megan (Lyndie Greenwood).

On the other side of town, Carlotta (Queen Latifah) is exhausting herself with work to keep her mind away from Jahil´s (Benjamin Bratt) death. Cotton (Amiyah Scott) knows that and tries hard to help her mother. She puts her to bed, but as soon as the woman closes her eyes all she can see is the man getting shot so she gets up and goes back to work.

Star shows up at Karma Club and immediately starts to yell at Maurice for playing her. The man doesn’t seem to regret a thing of what he did so the blonde takes a bottle of champagne and slams it against the other bottles standing on the table. Jackson (Matthew Noszka) appears, taking the woman away from there.

Alex is sleeping peacefully when Derek (Quincy Brown) arrives and starts to shower her face with kisses trying to wake her up. Right in the middle of their make out session, the girl receives a text from Olivia (Kayla Smith) asking her to bring her some coffee when she goes to see her. Derek doesn’t seem to be so delighted by the interruption and Alex tries to make it up to him. They start kissing again while Olivia watches them from her computer (remember the camera she hid in the picture frame she gave to Alex?) trying to emulate Alex´s every move.

Noah asks Maurice to put his collaboration with Karma Club on hold at least until he releases his new album, but the other man refuses. Noah is disappointed as he believes they are not respecting the promise they made to him of giving him creative freedom.

Mike Mike (Patrick Lamont Jr.) is quite entertained while punching Andy (Elijah Kelley) repeatedly until Cassie (Brandy Norwood) enters the room and asks him to leave her alone with him. Andy tries to convince her that he won´t say a thing about her, but of course the woman doesn’t believe him and blames him for being the reason why she has lost her sister.

Nina (Camila Banus) questions Mateo (William Levy) why they are spending so much money sponsoring Orange Night and the man explains that said event will be their introduction to Atlanta high society, which will be of great help for the company. Right at that moment Carlotta walks in asking them for a minute to talk and Mateo requests an explanation from her about how she ended up hitting someone at Karma Club, but the woman turns the conversation in her favor and instead she lets them know of an idea she has been cooking up in order to bring more money to the company. So, she suggests to start an event called “Rhythm & Bells,” which involves music and media festivals, concerts, exclusive parties, film screening and once again she manages to convince Mateo to support her.

Simone gets intercepted by Nina who asks her why she´s been avoiding her calls and the young girl tells her that as she saw that her and Mateo had made up after her confession of the man cheating on her. She thought that the woman had just accepted whatever he excused himself with, so she let it go. Nina confesses that they are in an open relationship but appreciates that she had stood up for her the way she did as no one had ever done something like that for her. She also lets Simone know that since she will be the star of their next film, she wants to be the one to introduce the company at the Orange Night event and gives her some pages with her speech on it. Simone does not believe she will be capable of doing that, but Nina tells her to be the same badass she was when she wanted to convince them that she could play the movie´s part and she will be ok.

Carlotta meets Ryan French (Terrence Jenkins) and tries to convince him to be the host of Rhythm & Bells, but the man is not really a fan of the Ferrera´s so as usual Carlotta plays her cards right and says that Alex Crane will be the one performing solo at the event per Mateo’s request. This makes the other man interested. Later that day, Carlotta gathers the team at her office and informs them about the new changes. Even though Alex doesn’t feel ready to perform a song about her incident, but she will give it a try. Star wants Carlotta to help her fix what Maurice did, but the woman tells her she is on her own this time.

Star walks outside the record house and meets with Noah and they talk briefly about what Maurice did to her as he was a witness of the girl´s behavior the other night at the club. Star lets him know that she will find Maurice’s weakness and hit right there when it hurts the most.

Maurice shows up at his ex-wife’s office and asks her for a chance to take her to dinner and make up for all the damage he caused, but the woman is not ready to do that yet. That night Carlotta spots a couple of guys trying to take Jahil´s RV from her backyard and walks out yelling at them but is stopped by Cotton who says that she was the one who asked them to take it. So, the woman gets really pissed off and asks them to leave it where it is if they don’t want to be ripped to pieces.

Olivia and Alex are at the studio while Alex tries to record her song. Then, Derek walks in and is assaulted by a lot of pictures being taking of him and Alex by the other girl. He asks her to give them some time and the girl does by walking outside of the recording booth. She turns the microphone on to hear their conversation and listens to Derek when he asks Alex to be careful about the girl.

Noah meets with Megan and asks for her professional opinion on the contract he signed with her ex-husband and the woman agrees to help. Xander (Chad Michael Murray) pays a visit to Cassie and the woman asks him to let her pay him back the money she borrowed from him to start the club instead of helping him to “to clean” it and lets him know that she wants to do things differently. But he is taking none of it so he reminds her what truly is making her go mad and requesting him to leave her office.

Carlotta plays a song repeatedly and starts to sing passionately while looking also very tired. Afterwards, she is at the salon getting her hair done by Miss Bruce who asks her to take some time to rest and stop carrying around her pain and get some help instead.

Jackson is trying to help Star to get into Karma Club and break into Maurice’s office. He has a whole plan but, as always, the girl goes ahead playing a trick and gets them both inside the place. Once they are in Maurice’s office, Star finds a ring that Maurice has from when he won the Super Bowl and steals it. Derek goes back to the club where he saw the man that he believes that had assaulted his grandmother but can´t find him. He walks out of the place and two men from his gang try to fight him, but then the police show up making the other two guys run away and leaving Derek to deal with it on his own.

Due to the conversation that Cassie had with Xander, she knows well that if she kills Andy then she will just grant everyone the right to say that she will never change. So, she decides to spare Andy’s life. Nina meets Simone outside the venue where the event will be held and tells her that Mateo asked her to make some changes to her speech, but the girls is truly anxious and not dealing well with the news. Back inside the place, Ryan gives his opening speech and then starts to name those who died of gun violence as Carlotta recalls Jahil´s death. Afterwards, Alex takes the stage making Ryan very pleased with her performance until Olivia walks in and starts singing along with her before the incredulous looks of Ryan, Carlotta, Mateo and Alex herself. Before the performance is done, Ryan walks out of the place and Carlotta confesses Mateo that they didn’t plan any of that, so he asks her to go fix it.

Alex yells at Olivia for what she did during her performance and the girl starts to cry while apologizing earning Alex’s sympathy and ending up by forgiving her. Carlotta goes after Ryan and confesses what has been happening to her life recently and the reason why she wants to start the new project making Ryan understand and agreeing on joining the project on the one condition that he will only be working with her. Nina tries to help Simone when she confesses that she´s not good at talking in front of people, but the girl does not allow her to do it and asks her not to tell Mateo and keep her secret just as she kept hers.

Star and Jackson are discussing about how much money they can get for Maurice´s ring when the man walks in and asks her to give it back, threatening her with calling the police if she doesn’t. Jackson takes the ring from the girl and hands it to Maurice. Star gets mad at Jackson and asks him to step away from her. Andy can barely stand on his own feet while trying to walk away from where he was held captive when Mike Mike sees him and starts to follow him. Andy tries to run away and gets hit by a car, making the driver and the other guy escape. He manages to arrive to Carlotta´s house. The woman lets him in while screaming at Cotton to call 911, but it is too late and the guy dies in her arms. After the coroner has taken the guy’s body, Carlotta starts to blame herself for not being able to protect him and the girls try to calm her down, but she doesn’t believe any of it and decides to go back to work instead. The recent event snaps something in Star making go back to Jackson and apologize to him.

Xander visits Cassie and gives her an apology speech about his behavior towards her making the other woman fall back into his arms. Noah visits Maurice and asks him to make some adjustments to his contract, but the guy don’t agree to it. Noah calls for his lawyer, which happens to be Megan. Maurice gets very upset and skeptical about the pair. Noah knows that Maurice can´t deny anything to the woman and is using that in his favor.

Derek goes back to his house only to find Alex worried sick about him. He explains where he was and that he is done with looking for revenge. They start to make out while being filmed by Olivia’s camera. Carlotta locks herself at Jahil´s RV while listening to a song, drinking and crying out loud for him. Cotton goes to her room and tries to stop her from working late, but can´t find the woman there as she is now walking alone in the middle of the street while crying and carrying a bottle in her hands.

It´s been quiet a week for the girls. Let´s see where the road leads next Wednesday at 9pm ET/8pm CT on Fox. ¡Hasta la próxima!