Empire is all about family and the Lyons come together in times of crisis. Unfortunately in the wake of Hakeem’s kidnapping, Cookie and Lucious are not the ones who can help their son.
Cookie has no idea that her son is missing, but after six missed calls and a video message, she should have gotten the hint that something was very wrong. She thinks that Lucious is just messing with her, but Lucious finds nothing funny about seeing his son duct taped and imprisoned. Cookie and Lucious go to rescue their son, but Hakeem has already fled the drop off van and made his way to Anika of all people. It’s hard to understand why at first, until Hakeem makes his way home and tells his parents this never would have happened if he wasn’t the son of Lucious and Cookie Lyons.
Hakeem is not alright, and the effects of that show in his attitude and the sloppiness of his music. Cookie and Lucious just end of warring with each other over where Hakeem belongs. Laz goes out on a limb and suggests that Cookie hire the thugs who were hired to snatch Hakeem in the first place, because then she guarantees her family’s safety, even if it’s at a high price. Cookie reluctantly agrees to the meet, but makes the mistake of bringing Hakeem along and he ends up pulling a gun. Cookie saves him from making a mistake, then takes the gun into her own hands for the negotiation.
Lucious tries to pull Hakeem from the edge, instilling some actual wisdom on his son and giving him a track to work with, but Hakeem just turns his back. Luckily Jamal and Andre show up to kick their parents out long enough for Hakeem to be honest about his fears. Hakeem is ashamed that he didn’t fight back, but his brothers remind him that he did what he had to do to survive, just like they all survived the turmoil of being their parent’s children. This talk gets Hakeem to the stage, but he still freezes when he sees Lucious. God bless Laura, who sees Hakeem struggling and forces him to focus on her for a minute to collect himself so he can give a knockout performance. He’s finally starting to heal, which means he doesn’t need Anika as a lifeline. Just goes to show you how far this girl has fallen if she’s crawling to her ex-fiancee’s son’s door in the middle of the night. And while her son is recovering, Cookie has no idea that the man she is choosing to get into bed with, Laz, is apart of the same crew that kidnapped Hakeem. Cue the dramatic music.
Jamal is channeling all of his pain over Michael’s indiscretion into his music. Jamal is also frustrated about being labeled a gay artist and how that is affecting his career. So he puts in a call to a man named Jameson Henthrop to help him out. Turns out Lucious almost signed with Jameson, until he found out he was gay. Now Jameson works to help LGBT artists. Lucious still smells a vampire and he warns Jamal to keep his eyes open.
Now the president of Gutter Life Records, Andre wants to brand the artists based on their character as well as their talent. Considering the label is called Gutter Life, I don’t see that going well. Apparently Becky’s got it going on! With none other than J. Poppa, one of Gutter Life’s artists. Andre sees him as a salvation for the label since he takes his stage name from his preacher grandfather. Lucious is not at all pleased with Andre’s plan to incorporate some of that spirituality into the music. Lucious wants what Lucious wants, even if that means keeping Freda on the label after she attacks someone in the audience at a performance. Lucious doesn’t want to drop Freda because he sees himself in her. I suppose if he can’t be a father to his own kids?
Cookie’s Quotables:
- “I got Destiny’s problem child lookin’ for their lead man”-We’ll probably hear more of these references now that there’s a new trio in town.
- “You step on me, my artists, or my family again, you won’t even hear the knock at the door. Welcome to my streets.”-Clearly these guys don’t know not to mess with Cookie and a gun
- “Every note you hit, you hit it like your life depends on it, because it damn near does.”-Not sure if Cookie means that from a business perspective or literally.
[Photo credit: Chuck Hodes/FOX]
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