The Lyons can handle just about anything. They can fight, scratch, claw with or against each other, lick their wounds, then do it all over again. They’ve even done so publicly, so long as they could control the situation. Now that security is gone. The Lyons have to figure out how to do a massive amount of damage control when Empire is hacked. The good news is that the amount of secrets in the Lyon family’s massive closet, plus their ability to lie to themselves, means that most of their personal secrets are safe. The same can’t be said for anything professional. If there was one way to start the entire Empire crumbling, this would be it.
An ordinary morning starts off disastrously because of the hack. It starts off strangely, with everyone’s phones blowing up with Tiana’s single. Then it’s a widespread hack of every single email in the Empire server. The top priority is to protect the Empire XStream subscriptions, because that would be $50 million down the drain. The list of suspects who would want to pull off a specific attack like this is small. The hack isn’t just bad for the Lyons, it’s bad for anyone associated with them. At the top of that list is their artists and co-workers. While the board initially wants to pay the ransom to squash things before they escalate, too many of them have skeletons about to come out of the closets. Tiana runs around crying her eyes out because Gram broke up with her in a very public way coinciding with the hack. Becky has to fix all of Tiana’s crises but the skinny little punk Xavier takes the credit. The only one to see Becky’s rage is Thirsty, and it inspires him to take her under his wing. If anyone can show Becky the art of vengeance, it would be Thirsty.
Then there are people who have nothing to do with the hack who stand to lose everything, namely Angelo. A naked picture of his girlfriend leaked to the public hardly helps his campaign. Angelo proves what a good man he is by standing by his woman, but Cookie can’t allow him to risk his career. These two bring out the most genuine feelings in one another. Even as Angelo’s heart is breaking he is struck by the idea a nosy reporter brings up. If women’s rights is an issue of Angelo’s campaign platform, why isn’t he standing up for Cookie’s right to privacy? Any other politician would not have been able to get away with taking his shirt off in front of reporters with such eloquence, but Angelo does. For that Cookie loves him, and that’s a thought that is downright frightening to her when she realizes it.
As if Jamal didn’t have enough to deal with trying to wean himself off his pain medication, the hack affects him very personally. Among the emails leaked were the many death threats Jamal never knew he received when he came out. He can’t even take solace in his music because the hackers wiped out all his tracks. Jamal can’t take the stress and fight his withdrawal symptoms at the same time. D Major and Philip have to save Jamal when he blacks out from the combination of pain medication and alcohol. Jamal is lucky he didn’t overdose.
Lucious may have to jump through many hoops to keep Shyne at bay, but it’s worth it. Making Anika Shyne’s Head of A&R keeps her busy and keeps Shyne happy. When Shyne is happy, he feels more inclined to service Lucious’s needs. Shyne is ready-made muscle, which he is only too happy to exercise on Empire’s hacker, Gram. Or is it?
Now Andre may have his issues, and he may have had a terrible few months, but he has no problem showing his little brother who’s boss. Let’s face it, Hakeem is all bluster. Everyone thinks Hakeem is the Lyon most like his father, but that’s Andre. Andre may not have been musically gifted as his brothers, but he’s spent his whole life learning at the hands of the master. Which is why Andre was able to get away with hiring a former rival to orchestrate the hack. The way Andre sees it, towing the line got him nowhere and nothing. If anything it cost him his wife and almost cost him his sanity. Hacking his own company got him the position of President of Empire XStream. Now he has the power, and the girl. He just better hope Tariq doesn’t get anywhere on that email Lucious sent around the time he ordered Frank Gathers’s death. Although being a chip off the old block, I imagine Andre would have a sinister contingency plan for that too.
Is Andre the one slated to become Lucious 2.0?
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