Without A Country
Cookie is determined to start her own record label. Carrying only cardboard boxes filled with their belongings, Cookie, Andre, and Hakeem leave Empire behind.
Jamal doesn’t really seemed concerned that his back-stabbing family is leaving Empire, seeing as though he still has an entire album Hakeem made under his belt.
“When we started Empire, we wasn’t no empire. We were making music in Carol’s living room until we graduated to a garage that was way grimier than this place.”
While Cookie tried to start fresh with fewer resources to rebuild her own Empire, Hakeem has other things in mind, making a girl group that he wants to call ‘Rainbow Sensation’. He holds auditions and in walks a feisty, confident girl named Valentina, who blows Hakeem away with her vocals and attitude, but is against the idea of a girl group.
With hopes of getting Hakeem’s album from Empire, Cookie storms in on Jamal in the middle of his interview. Jamal refuses and Cookie tells Jamal that no matter how hard he tries to act like Lucious, he will never be him. She also informs Jamal that they are starting their own label.
As we get back into the prison to see what Lucious has been up to, we meet a new correctional officer, played by rapper Ludacris, who seems to have it out for Lucious. He tells Lucious that the world would be a better place without him. While Lucious and some incarcerated friends snuck off to make a hot track together, the new officer breaks up their party and sends Lucious to solitary confinement.
It wouldn’t be Hakeem if he wasn’t seen making out with a chick he just met. We later see him in the hot tub with Valentina, the girl from the audition. Hakeem tried to change her mind about the joining his girl group.
While Cookie, Andre, and Hakeem are having a metric in their ‘studio’, in walks Anika AKA Boo Boo Kitty to offer some marketing advice to the new company. Cookie was NOT happy with her presence and quickly told her to leave.
“If it weren’t for women like me, b*tches like you would spend a lifetime on your knees.”
Hakeem decided to leak his album online. This is where we see Andre at his breaking point. He knows a lot of the legalities behind running a company and knows that Empire could sue them for what Hakeem did. He decides to leave the new company and meets with his father in jail to beg him for a second chance at Empire. Lucious, of course, declines and walks off.
“You believe in God … pray that he forgives you ’cause I don’t.”
Hakeem meets with Jamal and we start to see a lighter side of Jamal. He wants his brother back at empire so they can release his album and make music together like the old times. Except, Hakeem tells his brother that he leaked his album online and he won’t be returning to Empire. This is where we learn that their new label will be called ‘The Lyon Dynasty’.
During Lucious’ bail hearing, his crooked lawyer had some tricks up his sleeve to get him out of jail. After he paid guys to beat up the correctional officer, played by Luda, he was able to get some inappropriate pictures of the judge in some compromising positions. The judge had no choice but to let Lucious free.
With Lucious a free man again, it will be interesting to see how his label will be against Cookie’s label.
You can catch Empire every Wednesday at 9 p.m. on FOX.