(spoilers ahead)
Revenge, betrayals, racial tensions, past regrets and attempted murder hang like multiple swords of Damocles over the Lyons in their 2015 finale, during what should be a festive occasion, no less. The holiday season hasn’t hit the Empire universe yet, but ideally the nominations for the American Sound Awards, their equivalent of the Grammys, should suffice- on paper.
Jamal gets a healthy chunk of nominations, but Hakeem is frustrated to no end when he gets snubbed in the rap category by Freda Gatz. While Jamal and Skye Summers celebrate, Lucious reaches homophobia overload when he praises her for allegedly “fixing” his son through her charms. And during what’s a pretty good reprise performance of last’s racial harmony ballad “Powerful”, Charlamagne Tha God throws more logs on the fire when he accuses the biracial Summers of dishonesty regarding her racial identity and Jamal’s sexuality (or what he’s revealed to the public). With all of the plot twists introduced this episode, this doesn’t receive much more attention throughout the episode, so hopefully it’ll lead to something bigger after the winter break.
Call it karma or just a lack of foresight, but later during a meeting with Mimi Whiteman he vents his frustrations against Empire’s board members to her, mentioning his selling off assets without their permission. Whiteman listens with intent while fiddling with a suspicious looking pen…
Meanwhile, Cookie is eating a heaping of crow throughout this episode, remorseful after trusting Laz for so long and her myriad of headstrong decisions over the past few episodes. From a deal she made with Pepper last week, she and Hakeem decide to perform a concert for her old prison friends in what’s partially an attempt to make up for the loss of the Cookie’s Cookout Festival. Despite some initial anxiety, she manages to woman up and warmly greet her old friends, but she’s mainly there to see Jezzy (Da Brat), a cellmate whom she saw a good deal of talent in. Sadly, she’s not too pleased to see the flamboyant music mogul, feeling a sense of abandonment.
Later, Lucious is ready to indulge in one of his favorite pastimes- gloating- as he finally publically announces Empire’s acquisition of Swiftstream. However, when he invites Mimi to the stage, she reveals the identity of the spouse she was pleading with during “True Love Never”- a returning Camilla. And the “Dun dun duuuuuuun” moments just keep on coming, as later Mimi pushes for Lucious’s removal during a board meeting and uses the conversation they held that she recorded using a microphone hidden inside the pen. Infuriated, Lucious makes his rounds to bribe and swoon as many board members as possible to counter, including some possibly deciding votes among his bloodline.
After their successful performance at Cookie’s old prison, a panicking Andre meets with her and Hakeem, hoping to convince the two to vote to keep Lucious onboard. Cookie quickly agrees, possibly out of gratitude over his helping her eliminate the Bully Boys and also unwilling to see Empire fall out of the family’s hands. For her, Lucious is clearly the lesser of many evils, but Hakeem remains on the fence. And Camilla, in a good snakelike performance from Naomi Campbell, doesn’t help matters when she reveals to Hakeem later that her marriage to Whiteman is a sham and proposes they team back together again, citing limitless opportunities.
It would be easy to blame Camilla’s charms for Hak’s eventual decision, but though he’s many things, he’s certainly not stupid. Throughout the first season and this first half of the second, Lucious has quite deliberately tested each of his sons to compete for their loyalty and his affections, and though Andre eventually became a loyal Empire soldier, Jamal has had a complicated road- and Hakeem has definitely gotten the coldest shoulder from his father this season, even after the poor guy was kidnapped and beaten (and possibly worse, as some fan theories have proposed) no less.
So understandably, during the night of the big vote Hakeem proves to be the deciding factor, and with his anger at his father’s scummy treatment in the forefront of his mind he votes to have Lucious thrown out on his ass. Cookie directs her rage not at her son but Camilla, spitting in her face before comforting an enraged Lucious later that night and stopping him from blasting any more ceramic plates with his rifle.
Elsewhere, as Rhonda walks around her mansion in the middle of a nightly phone call, she’s suddenly shoved down the steps by an unknown assailant- though it’s easy to guess who it was, I think a certain “feline” might be the culprit. We’ll know for sure come March 2016!
Odds and Ends
– It turns out Jamal and Lucious are competing in an award category. When everyone gets the horrible news about what happened, I doubt that’s going to remain a major priority.
– Da Brat was pretty solid in the brief screentime she received. Hopefully she’ll provide a more satisfying arc for Cookie after the Laz debacle, which didn’t make her look too savvy in the long run.