It’s a numbers game everywhere you look in this week’s episode of Empire. Whether the numbers were related to time or to money, it seemed as if there was never enough, and there’s always a price to pay. Let’s catch up with the deals and the debts to come.
Money, fame, and fortune is all Hakeem is about, and once again, the price is more than he bargained for. Hakeem has a vision for his new music video, which includes being $1 million over budget. Yet somehow, Andre is the one being taken to task for not finding the money needed. After getting advice from Cookie to use Tiana to boost Hakeem’s record, Andre finds the right ammunition to use against his little brother: his girlfriend’s girlfriend. So apparently my theory last week about Tiana being very mature and businesslike when she walked in on Hakeem and Camilla was premature.
What is outrageous is Hakeem’s indignation at Tiana’s secret, given the hypocrisy of the situation. The day goes from bad to worse when, thanks to Andre trying to strip Jamal of his studio by “accidentally” sending thugs there, Jamal does indeed assume Hakeem is to blame. Here is where my stomach turns when Jamal sends his little brother a message with his fist. Now I’ll be the first to admit Hakeem deserves to get some sense knocked into him, but for Jamal to be the one to dole it out was painful to watch.
Cookie is doing some major multi-tasking in this episode that had my head spinning. It takes a special kind of woman to manage the ‘Takeem’ scandal, produce a song over the phone, testify in front of a grand jury over the death of a federal agent, and order a hit in a day. It’s no wonder that she forgot hers and Lucious’ wedding anniversary. Unfortunately, that small escaped detail is the one which sets Cookie on a dangerous path. Misunderstanding the rose left on her doorstep as a threat from her past, not a loving remembrance from Lucious, Cookie orders a hit on the No. 2 gangster under the man she testified against. If she wasn’t looking over her shoulder before, she certainly will have to be now.
Jamal clearly gets his multi-tasking skills from his mother, because with only a day of studio time in his budget, he doesn’t let thugs, or his mother’s absence, nor time, deter him. Jamal pretty much does the work of ten people putting together his new single, with Cookie chiming in over the phone, and by the end it is clear he has a hit.
And continuing on “The Many Ways Lucious Loves Cookie” saga, Lucious pulls some pretty unbelievable things when he’s supposed to be newly engaged to Anika (nice Anthony Hamilton cameo there!). We learn that Lucious has cheated on Anika multiple times, and he has now apparently convinced her father to sign a health waiver illegally so that Lucious’ IPO will go through. Now call me psychic, but I think we can all agree that Lucious probably never cheated on or disrespected Cookie that way during their marriage. A) Because he loved her too much, and B) because she probably would have beat him to kingdom come. Next week Anika may be confident over her new bling, but I have a feeling Lucious still has it bad for his “cookie monster.”
This week’s Cookie’s Quotables:
-“You take care of my baby boy. If not, I’m holding. The name’s Cookie, ask about me.”–to Tyree the studio producer at Jamal’s new studio space
-“Dead _____ walking, that’s me.”–Cookie realizing how bad her situation is
-“What you mean by ‘you people’? You black like me.”–to a Middle-Eastern cab driver who thinks Cookie is trouble
-“I gotta deal with feds, hit men, studio drama, and now Tiana.”–just Cookie multi-tasking
[Photo via FOX]
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