Booted Empire
We begin with Cookie, Hakeem, and Andre being kicked out of the building after their failed hostile takeover. All of a sudden, Cookie is wearing tastefully curated tweeds. I really wish I could read Andre's certificate that he's taking, so I'm going to just decide it says Club Booty Businessman of the Year.
Sunglasses Empire
Cookie then proceeds to start her own company with Andre and Hakeem, which mostly involves a lot of exposition -- including the fact that they can't decide what to name it and are considering "Pride of the Lyons," which is THE WORST name for a record label, even if it is punny. It also means that Cookie spends lot of time on the phone looking fabulous and in great sunglasses. I really wish they'd have a scene where it's revealed she uses Stitch Fix or something. (She can endorse them on TV: "Stitch. Fix. Stitchin'-ass fix.")
Fringe Empire
I would love to see their wardrobe racks. Hakeem's would be all tank tops, in a colorful row, and then Andre's is all button-down shirts, and then Cookie's is a festival of WHAT. That fringe jacket is so Designer Rodeo to me.
Boo Boo Kitty Empire
Hakeem invites Anika to be in the company, even though Cookie is OUT on her. He also wants to start a girl group with one white, one black, and one Latina singer, and call it Rainbow Sensation. "Dumbest name I ever heard. Did your daddy drop you on your head?" Cookie snarks. Anika thinks the idea, at least, is really good. "Yeah, and Anika knows marketing. She made a whole career selling her ass, " sneers Cookie. "As opposed to your stellar career in pharmeceuticals?" Anika attempts. Cookie shuts her down: "Let me tell you something, ho. If it weren't for women like me, bitches like you would spend a lifetime on your knees. Or underneath my 20 year old son." I hadn't somehow put it together that he's only that old, even though it adds up with her prison sentence and his age in the flashbacks. How old is Anika meant to be?!? I know she only Revenge Banged him, but come on, girlfriend.
This leads to the Sentence of the Year, from Hakeem: "Mom, it's none of your business who I get dirty with." Someone ought to crochet that onto a hanky.
Anyway, Anika storms off, because the show hasn't figured out how to use her yet anyway so she might as well just leave.
Man Boob Empire
Jamal does an incredibly boring interview that we stay with for WAY longer than is necessary -- like, it's so dull that it almost feels like they didn't script it and just let the actors improvise. There is a nod to Jamal's boyfriend, and how he cooked them all a nice meal at this small concert and chat inside Jamal's apartment. Otherwise, it's just elaborate and relatively personality-free exposition that gets us to...
Elevator Empire
... Cookie interrupting so she can beg Jamal to give Hakeem ownership of his album so that it doesn't collect dust at Empire. "You already won," she points out. Then, as the elevator doors start to close, she says, "Oh also we're starting our own rival company JUST FYI GOODBYE," and they thump shut. That Cookie knows how to make an exit.
Also, when you can't see the fringe, this jacket looks strangely even MORE tragic. But I do appreciate her giant accessories. Just not, maybe, the bangs.
Necklace Empire
See? She looks SO GOOD here that it makes the bangs sting even more.
Prison Empire
You'll be relieved to know that all Lucious's friends in prison are deeply, deeply musical, so they can keep up when he starts spontaneously rapping about snitches, they do not miss a step. Do you think he held auditions?
I also thought you'd enjoy that a) there is a chess board table at prison, and b) none of Lucious's cronies are using it because they'd rather read the news. It's also symbolic because there is a different chess game afoot...
Ludacris Empire
Which is that Officer Ludacris is jacking with Lucious's skeeze. Specifically, L's medicine has disappeared -- his performance is cut short by a coughing fit -- and it turns out Luda is in cahoots with District Attorney Roxanne Mammaries: He hints that Lucious's medicine will remain AWOL unless he cooperates with her investigation and plea deal, and demonstrates a complete disregard for a man's rhyming flow.
Glitter Empire
Please also note that the man on the right is Max Beesley, aka the love interest in the hilariously stiff Mariah Carey vehicle Glitter. To my great disappointment, he neither goes by the name Glitter nor wears a traveling stripe it anyplace on his body.
empire-season-2-episode-2-recap-17
Hakeem asks Tiana to join Destiny's Grandchild and she says no. Which is probably the right decision -- who goes FROM a successful solo career INTO a girl group? -- but given that she is wearing BODY HOSE she therefore has no cred as a functional, mentally sound human being who should be allowed to make her own decisions. Seriously, that is some refried Hanes madness right there.
Newbie Empire
This girl, Valentina, also auditions for Fate's Offspring, and teaches us that yes, denim onesie leotards DO exist. Between her and Tiana, I have to ask: WHERE IS THE PLAGUE OF LOCUSTS.
Bubblebath Empire
Hakeem, naturally, ends up in his Bathtub of Banging with her. She doesn't have any interest in being in a girl group... unless it's at Empire, which is legendary. The whole thing is meant to make us think Hakeem will jump ship AGAIN and go back to his father's company, because Jamal has offered to take him in and give his album a big promotional push. Between that, and the push he is about to give Valentina here, we're meant to think he'll be swayed.
Bubbles Empire
Next, Andre Royo -- Bubbles from The Wire -- shows up as greasy but effective lawyer Thirsty Rawlings. Well, his name is Thurston, but he goes by Thirsty, and between that and Mimi Whiteman, it's nice to see that the show is still pulling character names from The Big Book of Enormously Subtle Choices.
He's GREAT in this, though, ostensibly visiting another inmate but actually eavesdropping on Lucious's conversation with Jamal until he insinuates his way in and makes his pitch to replace Lucious's attorney. He overheas Lucious telling Jamal that he's going to record an album in there, and demanding all kinds of recording equipment. Jamal writes it all down like this is totally normal and no big deal, and it'll be so easy to smuggle a sound board and a freaking LAPTOP into prison. Then Thirsty shimmies over. "University of Guam," he says when Jamal asks where he went. "It's not Harvard, but same curriculum, different campus." Jamal is skeptical but Thirsty knows all about Lucious's dealings with D.A. Mammaries and wins his trust.
Rhonda Empire
Rhonda gets one boring scene in which she begs Jamal to take back Andre, because she's pregnant. Rhonda has never really worked. She was sort of interesting at the beginning, when Andre was wavering on his meds and she was trying to whip-crack him, and help him plot his ascent, but now they've rubbed away her edges. Give them back to her, Empire. Ditto Anika. Just make everyone totally bananas.
Studio Empire
Thirsty has allies in prison, so he gets Lucious a dose of meds and then a guard smuggles him into a makeshift recording studio, and LO, all his pals are not only fluent in rhyming but know EXACTLY how to use all the latest technology (although in Glitter's case, that just involves wearing headphones and banging aimlessly on a keyboard and a giant pad). Lucious records "Snitch Bitch" in its entirety before Officer Ludacris comes in there and shuts it down. I would argue the record would have been BETTER if they got the police scuffle at the end of it. Luda tries to be threatening, and he's not as wussy as Chris Rock was last week, but it's kind of like upgrading from a wiener dog puppy to a mildly cranky terrier.
Crazy Eyes Empire
Luda throws Lucious into solitary, but not before Lucious gets in a nice, coherent threat to Luda's life, while blinking at him with orbs of doom that are positively googling with bloodlust. Luda is delighted that he can add new threats to Lucious's charges. "I'm not getting convinced," Lucious insists. "Because you and people like that bitch Ms. Ford, you make mistakes. I don't." Dear sir: You don't think offing your wife's cousin was as mistake? That's what landed you here in the first place, dumbass.
Sure enough, though, Thirsty's thugs beat the shit out of Luda and get back the laptop, and Thirsty pays them for it and then releases the single on the radio. Cookie is irritated by how good it is.
Andre Empire
Hakeem doesn't want to piggyback on Lucious's legend; he wants to create his own. So he's sticking with Cookie, but he stole his album and leaked it online, without really knowing or caring whether that's legal (it isn't). Andre has a hissyfit, then stomps out, stopping only long enough to deliver a monologue about how the scrappy startup thing just isn't him. He bleeds Empire. "Let me go," he pleads, and he is talking to Cookie, but he should be addressing his ill-fitting stretchy blazer.
And indeed, poor Andre doesn't even take it off before going to see Lucious in prison to beg for a spot back at Empire. Trai Byers is actually REALLY good in both these scenes. You really feel for him as The Untalented One who feels like none of his contributions matter because they're all practical and not musical. And then he sums up his pain really very effectively: "For years you rejected Jamal because of who he is. Hakeem, he slept with your fiance. You want HIM back at Empire. Here I stand, contrite, remorseful, humble, and you look at me like I'm some kid of mutant. Why do you hate me?"
Destiny's Empire
FLASHBACK: Young Lucious is being cradled by his mother, Kelly Rowland, while she sings Itsy Bitsy Spider. But it becomes increasingly apparent that this isn't just a tender bonding moment, because as she looks up her eyes drift out of focus and the music swells into The Crescendo of Lucious Totally Knows Where Andre's Mental Illness Came From and It Hurts Him On The Inside.
"I don't hate you," he says to Andre, before leaving anyway and thus rejecting him. I assume this also means his next song will be about the Itsy Bitsy Spider. "Its. Bits. Itsy-ass bits. SPIDER!"
Plaid Empire
I also don't hate Cookie's plaid pantsuit. It's kind of amazing, actually. ALSO, again, a sensible tweed. Who exactly is her personal shopper?
Also, you need to know that while examining this basement space -- it's in that old recording studio from Season 1 where people were constantly getting shot -- the owner says the word "dynasty." She pauses, thinks for a second, and goes, "Dynasty. Huh. That's a dope name." YES, LEE DANIELS. IT IS. WHERE IS ALEXIS COLBY. {Other than in this GIF/Vine.)Don't you think she would make the MOST amazing investor here? She could make Mimi Whiteman evaporate with a snap of her fingers. I wonder what deeply non-obvious name they would give her. Probably, like, Lady Patricia Uppercrust-English.
Also, the technical new name is Lyon Dynasty, which... I really wish TV shows had clickable links in them. I would put a link to The Royal We under it (not that I am implying this had anything to do with us; this clearly is 100 percent driven by the character names and the fact that this show owes some DNA to nighttime soaps of yore). I admire my own restraint in not doing it just then.
Leather Shorts Empire
Hakeem and Jamal admit they miss working together, but Hakeem refuses to join Empire AND THEN stupidly admits to leaking his own record. Although, in fairness, perhaps Hakeem assumed that THE HEAD OF HIS OLD RECORD COMPANY would have been alerted to that the second it happened. What is Gabourey Sidibe DOING if not monitoring the Interwebs?
Jamal flips and threatens to sue the leather drawers off Hakeem, who would probably welcome that because aren't they making his bits sweaty? Hakeem doesn't care, and then brags up Lyon Dynasty. "That's corny," Jamal says. "YOU corny," Hakeem retorts, because the show ran over its Sharp Dialogue Budget in the first episode and so had to cobble this one together on a shoestring.
Heaving Bosom Empire
D.A. Melonious Chest is at a new bail hearing for Lucious, called by Thirsty, who is running late. She screams for a while about this until Thirsty arrives with late-breaking evidence that is going to swing this thing in Lucious's favor. She protests that he has to share it with her, also, and he grinningly hands one folder to her and another to the judge.
Ball Gag Empire
The Judge instantly grants bail once he sees these pictures of himself. My question is: What "evidence" was in the folder he gave to D.A. Chest? He obviously wouldn't have handed her anything that pointed to blackmail, so what does SHE think the judge is ruling on? Well, regardless, Lucious is OUT ON BAIL, so I guess his musical cronies in prison are left alone to contemplate the brief shining moment in which their lives had meaning and the fact that they had a LAPTOP in front of them and didn't use it to do anything other than make money for someone who is not them. REGRETS, Prison Posse. You'll have a few. Unless you get out, too. Call Thirsty Rawlings.