Over-the-Top Empire
Last season, Empire featured a boatload of kinky sex, big parties, MURDER, jewelry, and a big arrest. How to top that? By throwing a Free Lucious Lyon concert and having a gorilla in a cage descend from the heavens.
Taraji P. Empire
But then the gorilla rips off its mask and it's COOKIE in the suit, which... I mean, she DOES love a fur? Real talk: It's a visual meant to evoke an old slur, which she uses to underscore a speech about racial politics and the justice system and how it's destroying black men ("When are they going to stop treating us like animals?"). Which would be a more powerful moment if Lucious weren't in jail on actual major charges for a murder that HE TOTALLY 100% DID. He's guilty as butter, y'all. So instead of giving Cookie power, it just makes her look deluded. The heavy dramatic music playing behind the mask reveal made me laugh out loud, though. She eventually gets the crowd chanting "Free Lucious," but oddly, for MOST of her monologue, all the cutaways involve maybe one person clapping and lots of quizzical and even annoyed expressions. It's bizarre. The shot choices don't sell that anyone has any reaction to Cookie other than deep confusion as to how she got into an airborne cage without anyone noticing, and when she was hanging out backstage just moments ago.
Crackpot Empire
It's also worth noting that this is a 2013 Gucci, which only makes sense because Cookie was in prison when it came out and OBVIOUSLY she was dog-earing every copy of Vogue for the day when she'd be a millionaire mogul staging a benefit concert to free a man the way the dress freed her cleav. We do get some helpful exposition that she and Hakeem (the youngest) and Andre (the oldest, who is bipolar) and Anika (Lucius's ex-fiance, aka Boo Boo Kitty) are working up a hostile takeover and they need Lucious to stay in prison long enough for it to work. It is here that I believe she refers to Lucious as a tampon, which really changes the tenor of Prince Charles' old sweet talk to Camilla.
Emu Empire
I really wish I had seen the moment when Lee Daniels looked Taraji in the eye and said, "Cage. Gorilla suit. Cookie emerging from it like an erotic emu bursting out of baked goods on a really weird episode of Ace of Cakes. YOU'RE GONNA LOVE IT."
Sideboob Empire
I am pretty sure someone wore this dress and I CANNOT place who it was, but let's just immerse ourselves in the epic amount of sideboob it has revealed.
ALT Empire
There is a cameo from Al Sharpton (Porsha helpfully says to him, "I LOVE YOU REVEREND AL SHARPTON," in case anyone doesn't know who he is) and then one from Andre Leon Talley, who side-eyes Cookie's Tom Ford because he doesn't understand that a jailbird might want to dress like an avian ice dancer.
Tampax Empire
Lucious wanders over to a random television to watch the concert, because I guess a men's prison doesn't really know what to do with a tampon and ergo he just wanders around freely enjoying technology. He looks like he just came in from barbecuing some meat in the yard to check on the score.
As If Empire
No prison flat screen is mounted behind a brushed-metal frame. Do prisons even have flat-screens or are they still using rear-projection tube TVs? Why is there a CONFERENCE ROOM in a prison, though? He's in jail on murder charges with a bunch of major criminals. They're not going over earnings reports that were bound at Kinko's by someone's intern.
Dead Man Empire
This dude is Cookie's cousin Jermel. Last season, she got a single rose on her welcome mat and thought it was a warning from Frank Gathers, the man she testified against for the FBI. So she had Jermel kill the henchman she thought did it, and it turned out the rose was actually from Lucious. The payoff comes here when Jermel ends up in prison with Lucious and warns him that Frank Gathers -- like Santa Claus, but in orange instead of red -- is coming to town.
Rockpire
Frank Gathers, the most terrifying criminal in all the land, is played by Chris Rock. Whom I think I could take in a fight. Also, we know his name is Frank Gathers because about 20 people call him Frank Gathers. He is the Joey Potter of Empire, in part because I suspect they share an ability to sing criminals to death.
Zzz Empire
And by the way, these two also exist. Last season she was putting on bibs to give him oral sex, and considering banging a really old dude -- at her husband's behest -- just to give Andre a leg up at work. Now she's just soothing his murder-related nightmares -- she killed his uncle while said uncle was throttling Andre -- and expositing for us that she's pregnant with a boy. Kaitlin Doubleday is not much used on this show and risks being boringly tangential unless they come up with something juicy.
Tomeipire
Here we meet Mimi Whiteman, aka Marisa Tomei, who has been named with the subtlety of a mallet to the temple. Cookie greets her with a flirty comment about how "her drag" suggests that she's "dripping with money and [knows] how to spend it." Mimi, they hope, will bankroll their takeover of Empire, but Mimi would rather give Cookie a once-over. Mimi, see, is what the interwebs are calling a Predatory Lesbian, and Marisa Tomei's primary acting choice in playing her seems to be squinting and tilting her head. I hope she gives an interview later that says she hung out with lots of predatory lesbians to get into character.
Sexpire
Cookie tries to woo Mimi Whiteman by throwing an orgy at Hakeem's penthouse (we recognize it because we've seen Hakeem having sex with Naomi Campbell both in the giant bathtub AND on the pool table). Well, Empire IS a family company, as Cookie constantly reminds us, and It's the personal touches that really make that ring true. Please also note that a bunch of scantily clad ladies are making out all over his house, and Hakeem is just sitting back there texting. I assume he's checking whether Taylor Swift's #girlsquad is still planning to make popcorn and watch "13 Going On 30" later, because he too wants to be 30 and flirty and thriving.
Bootypire
Anika, naturally, wears a cardigan to this party and starts talking business to Mimi. But Mimi wants to dance. "Why don't you take that little sweater off so she can see your sexy body," Cookie says, pleasantly, but in the way you would speak to a maid whom you've just asked to clear the tea service. So Anika goes out there all timid in her knit sportswear and then busts out a bootyshake that actually registers on the Richter scale, while Marisa dances like she is Charo.
Squintpire
See? You know she's hungry for some lady sirloin because she's narrowing her eyes and smiling.
Magazine Empire
Naturally, Cookie is reading STYLISH magazine, and naturally, that magazine features a bland cover model in a strapless satin top that ties in the front. Cookie Lyon would light that on fire, throw it out the window, and then start her own.
Sidibe Empire
Jamal and Hakeem still don't get along, particularly, especially because Hakeem thinks Jamal is sidelining his album because he doesn't want Hakeem to steal Jamal's own thunder. Gabourey has no patience for their squabbling, but Jamal IS suddenly being very curt and douchey to everyone. Cookie will later accuse him of becoming like his father, and I have to say, between his cruel dismissiveness and self-absorption and greater interests in drooling over his current hot piece, it's kind of an apt statement.
Lucious also wants Jamal to dig into who Mimi Whiteman is -- he saw Cookie cuddling with her during the concert -- and that yields, "Who is that lesbian bitch?" Which should have been the episode title, if it wasn't.
Breton Empire
Hakeem is clearly a member of Fug Nation.
Cleavpire
This is the new federal prosecutor going after Lucious, and she tries to make a deal wherein he'll plead guilty and then help them arrest lots of other people. Who, presumably, will end up in jail with him, so this is a really terrible deal and it's no surprise that this doesn't exactly pull his string. And the fact that she swans in to offer it with her cleavage TUMBLING out of her suit jacket passes with nary a mention. Olivia Pope would throw so much shade on this woman that even the July sun couldn't find her.
Banter Empire
Lucious accuses her and her boob Alps of wanting to run for attorney general on the back of his conviction: "You think being a black bitch in cheap shoes who took down hip hop, that's your way to victory. Let me share something with you, Ms. Clarence Thomas. I don't care how many of us you lock behind bars. You ain't never gonna be nothing but a black bitch in cheap shoes to me." To which she replies, "A black bitch in cheap shoes that'll jam them right up your yellow ass." I am nervous they will end up having sex. I like people better when they are not having sex with characters played by Terrence Howard, whom I believe to be a total creep.
Also, as she's leaving, she makes a point of noting that her shoes are Tom Ford. This episode was brought to you by Tom Ford. Yes, Tom Ford: The Official Clothing Of People With Questionable Taste.
Prodigy Empire
Frank Gathers has a daughter, by the way, who is a rap prodigy. Put a pin in that, which is exactly what Lucious threatens to do if you get my drift, and yes, I do mean sexually, and YES, I WISH I HAD NOT HEARD IT.
Cookie Empire
This is EXACTLY what I would wear to storm into a board meeting and announce my hostile takeover of the company. She is wearing so much jewelry that Taraji genuinely makes noise when she walks. But I love it, in part because last season I felt like they sanitized her taste level too much and she became bland toward the end. Cookie should never be bland, and she was in prison for SO LONG and is so nutty that she should ALWAYS tend toward the tacky. It's just in her DNA.
Takeover Empire
But this was amazing. So, we get this slow-motion hero shot of the four of them turning into the hallway to stroll toward the boardroom. And everyone is giving it their very best Armageddon...
Hoverboard Empire
... and then Hakeem turns out to be ON A HOVERBOARD. It's so good that I applauded. Also, he's texting again. I assume he's Instagramming a video of his feet on the board, with the hashtag #hostiletakeover #bitchonwheels #cantstopme #ouch #shitijustranintoaplant
Mimi Empire
But then, right after their smug speech to Jamal, a chair turns and the subtly named Mimi Whiteman stands up. Turns out Jamal found out EXACTLY who "this lesbian bitch" is, and made her a better offer. Here is my question: Empire has made a really big deal out of how this conference room is all glass walls. How come they didn't SEE HER WHEN THEY MARCHED OVER THERE.
Empire Empire
Cookie hisses at Anika, "I thought I told you to sleep with her." Anika: "I did." Cookie replies, "You can't even dyke right." Which is the kind of thing that is EXACTLY true to Cookie, given that she's a rough broad who spent 17 years in the slammer and never filed those edges. It's appropriate, and yet also uncomfortable to be asked to laugh at the word "dyke," even though the way Taraji delivers it is priceless. However, I will say that this show is adept at pushing the envelope of comedy and context -- the controversial language always, at least, feels wholly right for whatever character is uttering it -- in a way that Ryan Murphy's new show Scream Queens THINKS it's doing, but in fact, that show is just coarse and abrasive and awful and inorganic-feeling.
Skype Empire
Oh, and I should mention that somehow Lucious is SKYPING FROM PRISON WHERE HE HAS ROTTED FOR THREE MONTHS ON MURDER CHARGES. I don't think they let you book the conference room for two hours and hang out on Skype so that your son can turn on the TV when your ex-wife arrives. Seriously, that goddamn tampon is in the Super Plus of prisons.
"Game over, bitches," he says. "Bye bye!"
Parenting Empire
Cookie pleads for Jamal's understanding, saying she was NEVER going to dethrone HIM; just Lucious, because he's an insane bastard. Jamal sneers that at least when Lucious threw him in that trashcan (when he was a kid), he did it to Jamal's face. I don't buy that Jamal would ever be that offhand about the trashcan thing, given how often we saw that last season. Cookie insists that she sacrificed everything to build that company and blah blah blah we've heard it a hundred times. Jamal agrees with me, then adds, "Yeah, you sacrificed, but that doesn't give you the right to tear us down." Which is basically the exact same argument Kim Kardashian presented to Caitlyn Jenner on I Am Cait. Crossover!
Lamps Plus Empire
Let's take a Jamal break. He's wooing his old boyfriend, Michael, and there's an interesting juxtaposition of his having come out of the closet and his discomfort with flamboyantly homosexual men. I felt like his sexuality last season was not as big of a roadblock for him as it might realistically be -- meaning, he came out, and by and large the world didn't bat an eyelash -- so I hope addressing his issues with gay identity and what it means to be a homosexual man in the world and in hip-hop will get some nice brush strokes here.
But, as Jess tweeted last night, what's really noteworthy here is that his romantic candlelight dinner also includes forty thousand other bulbs beating down on them. The temperature under that ceiling fixture must be ten degrees hotter than anywhere else in the room. Who ADDS light when they're pitching woo? Next on Empire Behind the Candelabra: Can Jamal pay the massive electrical bills before someone cuts the power, leaving him with only 600 candles by which to see?
Hannibal Empire
Embarrassingly, I missed some nuance here in which it's implied that Frank Gathers also eats people. But when we got to this scene, where he has beaten the crap out of Jermel and is now tidily tucking into a snack, I thought, "That is so Hannibal Lecter." Jermel thinks Cookie has abandoned him, so he rats her out to Frank. And Frank does not believe him, but apparently, eating another man's liver gives him the power to inhabit Cookie's mind and steal her memories. So he flashes back to two of HER specific memories and then comes back into the room and says, with confusion, "That BITCH." HOWEVER: Cookie sold him out ON THE WITNESS STAND. How is it possible that didn't get back to him until right this second? I'm genuinely asking.
Present Empire
Cookie gets "some ugly flowers" delivered to her at work, and her sister tries frantically to warn her about them, but Cookie blows her off. So Carol drags her entire brood to Cookie's apartment to lie in wait while playing with Cookie's wigs (no really). When Cookie gets home, she finds a large present on the mat, and reams out her nieces and nephews for raiding her wig closet,which... why is Cookie not my best friend? She would let ME raid her wig closet. I just know it.
Carol tells her the "ugly ass flowers" -- which are roses, so I guess Carol is real hard to please -- are from Frank's men for real this time. Cookie nervously evicts the kids from the room and then tears into her gift box.
Head Empire
This show needs webisodes. Because there should be a five-minute short on the Internet all about how Frank handed the severed head to one of his dudes and was like, "Get this to the florist and have them wrap it up real nice," and the henchmen had to figure out how to smuggle a RIPE BLEEDING HEAD out of jail without anyone noticing. I mean, I guess you do it while Kotexius Maximus is having a Skype gloat in the boardroom.
Also, obviously we already know how it went. It's simple: One, cut a hole in the box. Two, put that head in the box. Three, watch her open the box.
GLORIOUSLY, the head sits there looking very stately and plastic on a table with a wig on it. Carol starts to go into hysterics, while Cookie's reaction is more like, "God dammit, I do not have TIME for decapitation right now. I AM BUSY."
Prop Empire
Gabourey, by the way, is ostensibly holding a cordless phone. But it is clearly the handset to a corded phone and someone just yanked the cord out of it. I don't see numbers on it anywhere -- we got a good look at it later but the screenshot didn't come out right. I guess all the props money went to the cage.
Lipstick Empire
That mouth is PERFECTION.
Cookie goes to visit El Tamponado, which she had resisted doing because he never went to visit her, so that she can warn him about Frank's violent overture. She rightly smacks down Lucious's sob story about how hard it is in the pokey. "Talk to me after five years. If there's any justice, we'll have that conversation," she says. He also asks her why she looks like Mr. T, which is true. Mr. T would pity the fool who dares to question the value of twenty pounds of jewelry. But you can't expect a tampon to understand accessories.
Dead Empire
Bye, Franklicia: When Lucious stands up for Cookie, Frank's response is to tell his henchmen to kill Lucious and "make it fast and make it quiet." But AHA, Lucious runs the WORLD, not just some paltry neighborhood drug gang, so he has bought off all the henchmen by supporting their families, and so HE says, "Kill [Frank]. And make it long, and make it loud." Oh, Frank. Don't you know you NEVER flush a tampon?
Then Lucious promises Frank he's going to sign his daughter and "slip her my bone." And again, that COMPLETELY SLEAZY line is actually very in character for Lucious, who is the show's antihero -- in that it's fun when he's scheming, but he's impossible to root for -- and therefore has a bit more license to be gross. But that line? IS REAL REAL GROSS. Uber-gross. It transcends gross. Obviously, it was intended just to traumatize Frank in the moment before his long and loud murder -- which does happen, and which Chris Rock voice-over-acts extremely awkwardly. So it's not like I think they meant Lucious was going to DO IT. But a) he IS the guy who impregnated his gay son's really young wife; b) the daughter character can't be more than 16; and c) the actor uttering that line has some legal issues with women at present, so... not a win. I'm okay with Empire coloring outside the lines sometimes, but that was beyond. TV Line had an interview with an EP who acted kind of chuffed that they'd snuck that one through. I would be more worried that it means you're disgusting.
Breton Empire II
Jamal tells Hakeem that his album is being tabled. Hakeem accuses his brother of feeling threatened by how good the album is. Jamal just snorts derisively and is like, "Yep, yeah, that's clearly the only reason," and Hakeem is all, "I deserve to be a KING," which is exactly what Kate Middleton says when she's wearing HER Breton-stripe tees and is having a fight with Charles in the dining room.
Slap Empire
Cookie rounds up the whole gang at Chez Lucious, which is now Chez Jamal, and tells them they need to stay there to be safe from Frank Gathers or whatever. Jamal doesn't care, and throws them all out on the street. Cookie responds by slapping him twice across the face, and he throws her out anyway. So Jamal's inner Lyon is roaring (and I'm sure I'm the 50th person on the Internet to write that), the Empire still belongs to Lucious, and Lucious just killed another person after threatening to have sex with his underage daughter. You guys, I don't think he IS a tampon. Because my tampons don't do me that way.