Empire’s mid-season premiere aired last night and as usual, a lot was going on. Many fans are starting to feel like the show lost the spark that initially pulled them in. Let’s get into a quick recap of everything that went down.
When the show last left off, we saw Hakeem and his lesbian girlfriend Camilla take over the Empire from Lucious and saw Rhonda get pushed down the stairs by a villain in all black…who we all assumed was Anika.
Who Pushed Rhonda?
This season kicks off with Rhonda still on the floor, bleeding, and asking God to save her baby. The person who pushed her down the stairs still isn’t revealed, but I assume that person was none other than Anika. She wants the baby she and Hakeem are having to be the next Lyon heir and she wants to get back into the Lyon circle. Rhonda was able to throw her phone and break the glass on her front door to sound the security system.
Cookie to the Rescue
Cookie is back with her broom and she tried to knock some sense into Hakeem after he helped to vote Luscious out of Empire. This new Hakeem is so different from the Hakeem that wanted nothing more than his family to be together. He was the favored son of the Lyons and has now turned on everyone. She is able to get Jamal’s album released under the Lyon Dynasty label after some reasoning with Hakeem. He also places Cookie as the Head of A&R. Hakeem’s nicer side started to show and you can tell he still wants to work alongside his family, just when it has nothing to do with Lucious.
Hakeem and His Women Problems
Hakeem is starting to feel the pressure of being the king. He’s been drinking heavily and verbally aggressive towards his girl group. He calls his virgin girlfriend, and lead singer Laura a “b*tch”, but they later make up and tell each other they love each other while they make love. It will be interesting to see how Camilla and Anika play into his new fresh relationship with Laura. He promises Laura that they’ll be together but something tells me that won’t be the case once Anika tells the family that he is he father of her child.
There Is No God
Rhonda ultimately loses the child after her fall and Andre loses it. He was already on edge earlier in the season, so this scenario didn’t help at all. Rhonda loses all faith in God once she loses her baby, that she asked God to save. This could be a peek of what’s to come of the relationship between Rhonda and Andre because we all know how big he is on his faith.
Jamal’s Sexuality
Jamal struggles with his sexuality in this episode. We saw him kiss Skye, played by Alicia Keys, last season. If Jamal no longer wants to represent his gay agenda, that could change his fan base and record/album sales.
Son vs Father
Luscious is really struggling with losing his company, which is surprising considering how badly he treated everyone. He gives Hakeem the opportunity to kill him, handing him a gun and telling him to shoot. Hakeem, of course, doesn’t follow through with Luscious’ plan and drops the gun and walks off. Did anyone else notice Luscious invited Hakeem to the same spot where he killed Bunkie? It goes to show that even after losing his company, Luscious still hasn’t changed his manipulative ways.
All in all, I thought the mid-season premiere was a little chaotic. There are so many things that happen in one episode, that fans can barely keep up with what’s going on. The sneak peek of the rest of the episodes for the remainder of the season seem to be promising. I hope the show can get back to its season 1 roots and gain back the spark that pulled us fans in. As always, you can catch Empire every Wednesday at 9 p.m. on FOX.
