Empire Season 2 Finale Review: A Death, A Wedding, and the Mother of all Reveals

We’ve arrived at the craziest season finale in all May Sweeps, and considering the amount of twists within the amount of televisions shows wrapping up their seasons, that is saying something. Empire has continued to raise the bar on family backstabbing, reunions, and shocking reveals. The theme of this episode, ironically, was ending the cycle. Did the Lyon family actually succeed?

First things first. Jamal is fine. He is released from the hospital three weeks after his shooting. He’s going to be fine physically, but emotionally he’s exhausted. He refuses to sing again until the warring in his family has stopped. The family thinks Lucious isn’t doing anything to really help Jamal, but they’re wrong. Lucious goes to see Frida, lies through his teeth about what he did to her father, and asks for her help to reach Jamal. Whether or not Frida believes Lucious, she does care about Jamal. So Lucious does help. Frida’s song inspires Jamal to quickly put together a song for Hakeem’s wedding.

Cookie and Lucious have huge imminent problems outside of their family. In his early days as a drug dealer Lucious killed the competition for his friends Tommy and Rosie. Now the FBI are breathing down their necks searching for a witness who can corroborate this to put Lucious away. The one person who can do that is their old “friend” Shine. Shine has a high price tag for his silence. He demands to be invited to Hakeem’s wedding.

Since being approached by the FBI Anika’s anxiety has gone even higher. Instead of cooperating with them to put Lucious away, which she would have every right to do after everything Lucious has put her through, she runs to Lucious and Cookie to tell them everything. They agree that it’s best to put Anika under their protection until the dust settles. Rhonda can’t take staying quiet any longer when she sees her. She confronts Anika with actual physical force. (On a sidenote, even if Anika did push Rhonda down the stairs, there is no excuse for hitting a pregnant woman). Rhonda reveals that she thinks Anika pushed her down the stairs, but no one believes her.

Hakeem and Laura’s wedding should be the light in all of these dangerous shadows lurking about. The FBI finds a way to get into the wedding and serve Anika with an order to appear in court. Chaos ensues from that point forward. Does anyone else think that Laura was ever ready to marry into the Lyon family? This is a lesson ladies. When you marry a man you marry his family, there’s no getting around it. You either accept it or move on. Laura just can’t make the Lyon’s family drama her life.

This puts Lucious in a very desperate situation. He has no choice but to marry Anika in order to keep her from testifying against him. Cookie can stand alot, but she can’t support this.

From her first scene it’s been clear that Leah Walker is dangerous to her family. She wasn’t able to talk to the press to reveal her identity, but she’s still trying to find ways to reveal the truth about Lucious’s past. On the one hand, Lucious made his own bed with all of the lies he spun to his family. On the other, he has a point that it is his place to tell his sons the truth, not Leah’s. The truth comes out anyway that Lucious and Tariq are actually half-brothers. Show of hands, anybody see that one coming?

There’s one more twist at the end of the hour. This is definitely not the way Anika thought she would enter the Lyon family. She goes to the roof to get some air. What is it with this girl and rooftops? Rhonda comes out of the shadows to attack Anika once more, and actually forces a confession out of her. So Anika did push Rhonda. In the last minute, did Rhonda or Anika go over the edge? We’ll have to wait till next season to find out who met their end on the pavement.

What was your favorite moment of the Empire season finale?