This week the the Lyons got back to the business of keeping it all in the family, which means plenty of infighting. Cookie’s hopes for a peaceful birthday are dashed when secrets about Lucious’s past are revealed, and it’s doubtful the family will be the same in the wake of this revelation.Just to be clear before we recap, seeing Hakeem’s face as the new Empire logo is really disconcerting. Something about seeing Lucious’s face back as the logo will turn the world right-side up again.
We open with Camilla’s funeral, and the only one marginally upset is Hakeem. There’s no time to grieve though with so much work to be done. Tiana is annoyed that ‘Mirage A Trois’ has been cutting into her set time. Hakeem mediates between Tiana and Laura, but Tiana knows she won’t get her way so long as Laura and Hakeem are together. Hakeem and Jamal also take a trip to the projects to find Frida in order to steal her away from Lucious. They don’t get her cooperation at first, but at least they get inspiration from the neighborhood talent. When Frida finds out that Lucious cut her verse out of his music video, she agrees to do a song with Jamal.
Cookie has her first birthday to spend with her family since she was released from prison. All she wants is a nice, quiet birthday dinner with no drama. Yeah, that wish never had a chance of coming true. The boys refuse to go the party because of their conflicts with Lucious.
Cookie and Lucious are putting together Lucious’s new music video. Since the idea is to have it be the story of Lucious’s past, he takes Cookie to the place where he decided he would change his name after sleeping on the floor underneath a lion statue. Other than that detail, Cookie has a difficult time getting enough information from Lucious about his mother and where he grew up. Without those crucial details, Cookie is working blind as to what should be put in the video. She and Lucious finally sit down and have a long conversation about his past. Lucious tells Cookie how his mother committed suicide in front of him, and how he was living on the streets after that, until he met a drug dealer named Frank Gathers. We know how the rest of that story goes. Except Cookie didn’t know that story included Lucious bringing the daughter of the man he had murdered into the company.
Cookie pushes Lucious to tell this whole story as honestly as possible. She even holds his hand through the scene they have to film involving a young Lucious being drowned in a bathtub. Jamal can tell that Cookie is falling for Lucious again. Everyone shows up to Cookie’s birthday party, where at first all goes well. Cookie decides to show the rough cut of Lucious’s music video, and things spiral out from there. After seeing everything Lucious went through, Andre realizes that his grandmother was bipolar just like him. Andre is furious with Lucious for keeping this from him, Lucious retaliates by saying he was embarrassed by his mother and now his son, and Rhonda has just had enough of the drama. Rhonda decides to stay with Anika for awhile, which we all know is the powder keg for Anika’s pregnancy to finally be revealed.
We knew the Lyon’s family drama was coming, but in the biggest OMG moment of the episode, Hakeem proposes to Laura. Again though, keep in mind that Hakeem has no idea Anika is pregnant with his child.
Cookie’s Quotables:
- “Porsha why in the hell would I need six dozen pennies?”-Porsha’s not that well-versed in flower arrangements
- “I didn’t know vampires had shadows”-Cookie reacting to the reporter who will be shadowing Lucious.
- “I see somebody had fun building a bear”-Who knew Cookie even knew what Build-a-Bear was after 17 years in prison?
Tune in next week to see if Hakeem gets the rug pulled out from under him.
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