Poor Yorick
Empire opens up with Jamal in the studio recording a new song as the Empire headquarters get raided by the FBI. A journalist from Rolling Stone joins Jamal in the studio to talk interview him for his new cover. The interview is cut short once someone informs Jamal about the raid.
Cookie and Hakeem are at Dynasty Office discussing ways to get his music back on the radio and being able to hopefully reinvent another girl group. Anika can’t seem to keep away from Cookie as she pops up in the Dynasty office and informs Cookie and Hakeem of the FBI raid at Empire. Little did Cookie know, the FBI would be raiding her office right then and there.
“This business is about becoming moguls. So let me be a mogul.”
Prosecutor Roxanne Ford is behind these searches. Her and fellow FBI agents show up to Lucious’s home as he greets her completely naked.
Lucious enters the Empire headquarters, against court ruling, and walks in on a board meeting about scaling back on promotion. He tells everyone that Empire will expand amid the FBI raid.
“Hip-hop wasn’t born on Wall Street, Ms. Whiteman. Where we come from, if the cops raid your house that makes you a G. If the feds raid your house it makes you an O.G. It gives you that street cred, that ghetto pass.”
Jamal and Hakeem team up for an off brand ‘California Love’ video look-alike. The family is deciding to act united to the Feds. Lucious thinks that the Feds have no evidence pointing him to the death of Bunky. The music video takes a turn for the worse as Hakeem and Jamal get into a physical altercation and Hakeem leaves the set and says he will never be apart of Empire again.
“Why ya’ll look shocked? This family ain’t never been a real family. I’m out of here and I ain’t never coming back.”
Cookie got arrested for an outstanding warrant. Cookie sits in the interrogation room with Roxanne, and finds out that her assistant used her name after receiving a ticket for jumping the MTA turnstile. Roxanne tells Cookie that if she doesn’t give her what she wants, she will come after her sons and leak Andre’s medical history to the public. As Cookie sits in the interrogation room, she thinks about the times she sat in her jail cell and wished she was dead. She calls Roxanne back to the room and let’s her know that she doesn’t know if Lucious killed Bunky, but she does know that the two were arguing over the Apex radio deal.
“Is somebody recording this? If I die in police custody, I did not commit suicide!”
After leaving the video set, Hakeem went to a jazz bar. As he was getting served alcohol I couldn’t help but think that he doesn’t even look 21 yet. A young singer takes the stage and quickly catches Hakeem’s attention with her look and her vocals.
Andre is still begging for his job back at Empire. He realizes that he can get his job back if he helps the case against his father go away. He devises a plan to dig up Vernon’s body. He and Rhonda head into the woods to dig up the body when they realize that they don’t remember where they buried it. A mysterious car pulls up and tells them to get up and put their hands up. To their surprise, it was Lucious and Thirsty. They placed a tracking device on Andre’s car and followed them out there. Thirsty has a corpse detection system and located Vernon’s body. As they place the body into the back of the trunk, Andre apologizes and tells his uncle he misses him. Lucious said a few words to Vernon before closing the trunk, but his weren’t so nice. Lucious offers Andre his job back at Empire.
“You will rot in hell, you snitch.”
Roxanne gets a surprise in her passenger seat the next morning as she leaves her house. It was the dead corpse of Vernon. With Vernon now surfacing, how will Roxanne’s case work against Lucious?
You can catch Empire every Wednesday at 9 pm est.