Skip to content
Author
PUBLISHED: | UPDATED:

‘Empire’ shows no sign of slowing down in the Season 2 premiere.

‘Empire’
8 p.m., Wednesday, FOX
3 out of 4 stars

The final image of “Empire’s” record-breaking smash of a first season was Lucious Lyon (Terrence Howard) behind bars. He had been arrested from backstage of his very own tribute concert for the murder of his friend Bunkie (Antoine McKay).

Fast-forward three months, and the series’ sophomore season opens on yet another concert for the Empire titan. #FreeLucious is plastered across T-shirts and posters. Artists are performing songs about police brutality, and Cookie Lyon (Taraji P. Henson) descends from above, wearing a gorilla suit in a cage. This is a concert for Lucious, but it’s about mass incarceration of black people and the institution of racism across this country.

Whoa, “Empire.” You have our attention.

It says something about the power of this show that it can spend its opening 15 minutes focused on a topic that news programs of the same network can’t seem to address. Al Sharpton, Don Lemon and Andre Leon Talley all stop by for cameos, and while this is a testament to the burning hot popularity of the show, it’s also a method to underscore the importance of this message in the black community.

For a moment, this is a realer “Empire.” The people in the concert’s crowd aren’t dripping with bling—they’re regular people, looking angry and scared and in pain. Sure, Cookie is still strutting around in peacock feathers, but this isn’t the uber-glamorous scene we’re used to.

The kicker is, of course, that Lucious is actually guilty of murder. “We out there fronting. You know and I do, he killed Bunkie,” Hakeem (Bryshere Y. Gray) complains. “You got us doing a Free Lucious concert, when we should be performing for the brothers and sisters who are innocent.”

As usual, the show is just for show. Cookie has invited a billionaire potential investor, Mimi Whiteman (a little on the nose there, Lee Daniels), played by Marisa Tomei. Mimi is aggressive both in her sexuality and in business. Cookie, Hakeem, Andre (Trai Byers) and Anika (Grace Gealey) need her money to complete their hostile takeover of the company and don’t hesitate to pull out all the stops to win her over. It starts with a concert and a girl-on-girl party and ends with Anika twerking in her church lady dress at Mimi’s request and eventually sleeping with her.

Too bad Lucious is one step ahead of them. When the four slo-mo runway walk (Hakeem is on a hoverboard skateboard, because of course he is) through the company to burst into a board meeting and take control, Mimi is already waiting for them at the head of the time. “It’s just business,” Jamal (Jussie Smollett) says. “Right, Mimi?” And she swivels around in the chair to reveal herself like a Bond villain. Lucious cut her a better deal, and he FaceTimes in from prison to say “Game over, bitches” and laugh like a maniac. “Empire” is back!

On the inside, Lucious is clearly in the most unrealistic fictional prison in history. He watches his own benefit concert on a flat-screen TV mounted to the prison wall, he has meetings with whoever he wants and men serving life sentences walk around without any restrictions at all. Frank Gathers (Chris Rock) shows up in the same prison after Cookie ratted on him to the feds last season and leans on Cookie’s cousin until he admits she snitched. Oops. He sends Cookie the head of her cousin–the cousin he was in jail with. Even if a prison was super cool about letting inmates FaceTime, I’d really like to know what kind of machinations were involved in beheading an inmate and then shipping said head to someone in a nicely gift-wrapped box.

Of course, nothing brings the Lyon family together like a good death threat. Cookie summons on her children to Lucious’ house to keep them safe and goes to visit her ex-husband in prison. They banter about loving and hating each other before she tells him Frank is messing with them, and he instantly transforms into papa bear/gangster Lucious. If you thought his beef with Frank (are we really supposed to be scared of Chris Rock?) was going to last all season or for at least a few episodes, think again. That’s not how “Empire” works. Lucious has him killed by all his prison buddies on the spot and walks away smiling.

The threat is over, so everyone goes back to being enemies and Jamal kicks everyone out of Lucious’ house for betraying him. Cookie pleads with him before slapping him twice across the face. “You done now, lady?” he asks coldly. It’s a devastating moment—Jamal and Cookie’s relationship has always been the heart of the show. Strong performances from both Smollett and Henson really sold the loss of that bond in this scene.

“Empire’s” problem has always been its tendency to chew through a couple seasons’ worth of plotlines in just a few episodes, and Jamal is the biggest victim of that. No one cares if the prison is set up like a resort or if business matters turn into a soap opera—that’s why they tune into the show. But when characters are given such ridiculous plot lines that they’re completely unrecognizable from who they once were, that’s when we have a big problem.

“Empire” is walking a fine line with Jamal’s development. Last season, he was all over the board, but it seems like the writers are really committing to the idea that he’s turning into Lucious—going corporate, being a jerk, controlling his relationships, struggling to create new music (that new song, woof). It may poison him as a character, but it could strengthen the show, so long as they commit to the development instead of blowing it all up next week.

Lauren Chval is a RedEye special contributor.