The ramp up towards the winter finale sees Empire’s writing team opt for an info dump episode to leave everyone thirsty during the hiatus. Lucious releases a rap by his surrogate daughter Freda, which causes Hakeem to issue a rap-battle challenge; Cookie’s posh sister visits; Jamal tries to land a big sponsorship deal; and Anika receives life-altering news.
‘You just Daddy’s little girl’
Lucious hosts a gaggle of bloggers with his adopted protege, Freda Gatz, who wants initiates a rap beef with Hakeem. She comes out the gate swinging, raining insults from his “softness” and (wait for it) calling him a “girl”. Gatz’s bars are equal parts clever and subversive, as she plays on Hakeem’s privilege (she “came straight from the gutter”) in order to draw him into a confrontation. Lucious’s intentions in engineering the beef is meant to lure Hakeem back to Empire, but he seemingly can’t admit that Cookie’s label – Lyon Dynasty – is a thriving venture that will rival his label.
The bait works, as Hakeem’s squad pings Hakeem a message to let him know that Gatz going in on him. He runs to his computer and sure enough, Freda’s clownin’ him: “I’m the son that your dad always wanted.” Hakeem slams the laptop and answers the challenge by video later shot by his homies who post it online.
‘Don’t touch my son’
Cookie and Laz discuss how the rap beef between Hakeem and Freda has gone viral, and Cookie worries how it will impact the Dynasty. When Hakeem visits his mother’s office, she pops off at him for being rash and Laz becomes Hakeem’s focus. “Is he a partner?” Hakeem asks, while making it known that he’s no fan of Laz, the concert promoter, and the two get into a scuffle that’s immediately broken up by Cookie. Which is to say, in the very succinct words of Ms Cookie Lyon, “Don’t touch my son. Don’t you ever touch my son.” If Laz ever believed that his sway over Cookie would ever sow division between her and Hakeem, he is disabused of such a silly notion.
On the other side of the city, we find Anika, the Boo Boo Kitty, shook, clenching a pregnancy test in one hand and a knife disguised as a box cutter in the other, overwhelmed by the reality that the worse thing in the modern world is to discover she is pregnant without options. Later Anika runs into Rhonda, who is very much pregnant, at a health spa. Rhonda comforts Anika with talk of a possible and receptive Lucious. It’s a little weird, but we’ll go with it.
‘This ain’t no Disney channel’
Hakeem may have gotten some of the best lines in this week’s episode between balancing all of his relationships: his mother, his girlfriend, his brothers, his ex-lover and his father.
Jamal is presented with an endorsement opportunity with Pepsi if he could present a new song, but it means working with both crazy makers that are his parents. Jamal and Cookie’s are caught working together as artist and producer when Hakeem catches them Skyping, and threatens to tell Lucious. But here it’s a chill play from Hakeem, who is becoming more believable each week in his leadership role at the Dynasty, managing his mother as much as he’s managing the business.
Jamal rents a studio and musicians to record the song that both parents produced and invites them to the studio in the hopes that he can get his parents to work together. But, as his mother reminds him, “This ain’t no Disney channel. We have no happy ending.” His parents, on the other hand, act as ratchet and unruly as they want to be and Jamal storms off.
But ’Keem comes through again, with the most sage advice ever for Jamal: “Don’t ask, just take … You gotta take parts from both of them and fuse them together for yourself.” After a live performance of the merged songs from both Cookie and Lucious, Jamal scores endorsement and for once, the Lyons got their Disney channel happy ending.
‘Here come the Lyon without all his pride’
“Here come the Lyon without all his pride,” Funkmaster Flex announces as Hakeem enters the public battle and stage to face off against his dad’s champion, Freda. Jamal’s advice to Hakeem regarding the battle rap face-off with Freda pays off. Hakeem plays to his strength. He’s no battle MC in that he can match barbs and wits with Gatz – what he is, however, is an energetic performer with some solid bars. And it works. Like Maximus he wins the crowd and ultimately the battle. Hakeem’s estrangement from his father widens when he takes the mic stand and smashes his last name emblazoned in neon lights and announces to the crowd that he no longer wishes to be called “Hakeem Lyon” – he is simply “Hakeem”.
The identity crisis continues for Lucious as we get more quick-cut flashes to what made him the invented identity of Lucious Lyon. We see young Lucious sleeping on the street at the base of a lion statue and dream his new self. These scenes from the corners of his mind are meant to alert us to what motivates Lucious, the street kid now mogul and his insatiable yet ruthless hunger for control and power. He is Jay Gatsby and King Lear at the same time. His name is everything and his progeny must conform to the values he holds dear. But each of his sons is his own person and smartly resists their father’s influence this season.
At the after-party, Cookie’s other and more “uppity” sister, Candace (Vivica A Fox), tries to clear security to tell Cookie that Carol has gone on a bender and abandoned her kids. As you do …
Reading list
- Gabourey Sidibe keeps it 100
Notes and observations
- Funkmaster Flex’s cameo was charming.
- Anika just went full single white female, Fatal Attraction on us disguising herself as an Uber driver.
- A second kidnapping subplot with Anika feels trashy and wasteful.
- Cookie and Lucious co-producing Jamal’s next album is going to be quite the messy show, but we’ve been working towards this moment.
- Cookie has more faith in her boys than Lucious, which is intriguing counterpoint to their constant conflict.
- What is the real game Mimi Whiteman is running? The streaming deal smells bad and Andre knows it. Is Lucious about to get hustled?
