Spoiler alert: this recap is for viewers of Empire season two which airs on Fox in the US on Wednesday nights, and on E4 in the UK a week later on Tuesdays
‘What are y’all, a bunch of punk ass cowboys?’
Cookie is trying to get in touch with Hakeem, who is supposed to be at Lyon Dynasty headquarters for rehearsal. We learn that Hakeem and Mirage et Trois are the headline act for the Big Apple Jam when a video message of Hakeem, bound and duct-taped, is sent to Cookie with a ransom demand. (She initially dismisses it as a Lucious trick.) Meanwhile, Lucious and Jamal are working on a new song whose intro phrasing is a nod to David Bowie’s Space Oddity. Lucious is a much better pianist than rapper. Cookie interrupts Jamal and Lucious in the recording studio and shows them the video.
Hakeem is being held captive at some warehouse and more is revealed about this crew who snatched him only hours before. Hakeem slips off his hood as the three men change their shirts to burn them. Each of them have a tattoo of what looks like a ram’s skull on their backs. “What are y’all, a bunch of punk ass cowboys?” Hakeem tries to intimidate his captors and gets a butt of a gun in the eye for his troubles.
‘You a rookie to the block’
Lucious and Cookie rush to a shady part of the city with $40,000 cash to get their baby boy back. Lucious lectures Cookie how things have changed out here in these streets: “People don’t get bodied any more … they just run a simple hustle.” Cookie is confused and panicked, unclear as to why Hakeem would be a target. Lucious assures Cookie that this will not be a drawn-out ordeal, but because of her connections to Lucious, Empire and her children Hakeem and Jamal, she and her Lyon Dynasty enterprise are vulnerable to these attacks. “You a rookie to the block,” Lucious tells her, “but I promise you, I’ll get our boy back.” The kidnappers call to confirm that the Lyons are at the drop spot and Lucious demands that they show proof of life which moves Cookie beyond panic.
When they reach the drop spot, Lucious reminds Cookie to be cool for the transfer, but Cookie is Cookie, and luckily in this instance, that’s a great thing, because Hakeem is not in the van. Hakeem had already paid off the driver for $1,000, which economically makes no sense whatsoever – even if he was in line to get 5% of the $40,000 he’d have been $1,000 better off. Someone get that guy an abacus.
Hakeem doesn’t run home but to the loving arms of Boo Boo Kitty, who is every bit as undone as Hakeem, feeling like she has nowhere to turn, jobless and misunderstood by her parents. When he returns to Lucious’s home, he lashes out at his parents and blames them for his ordeal: “We in here pretending that we’re some white-picket-fence family.”
‘I’m gay and an artist. That don’t make me a gay artist’
Back at the studio, Jamal is frustrated that he hasn’t been able to book dates at the Staples Center, and complains that Empire markets him as a gay artist to Lucious. Lucious is all like “but you are a gay artist”. Jamal rightly and sharply corrects him, demanding that he has to right his ship and get out of the niche marketing hole to draw bigger venues. To do that, Jamal reaches out Jameson Henthrop (played by Hollywood veteran William Fitchner), who we meet as Jamal polishes a new track. When Jameson claps after Jamal finishes, Lucious flips out and we are introduced to past beef and old homophobia from Papa Lyon. But Jamal has matured quite a bit and isn’t easily swayed or intimidated by professional or personal beef between his father’s past business contacts and his current designs for superstardom. He checks them both and the men agree to set aside differences. This new cat, Jamal believes, will end the stigma that the Empire marketing team has created for him and take him to the next level. When Lucious and Jameson shake hands perhaps we might believe there is honor among devils and vampires.
But on the flipside, Andre’s holy mission is only just beginning at Empire. Now in his role as the head of Gutter Life Records, Andre is using his business savvy and his spirituality to find an artists to help use their charisma to boost record sales. And he’s found that in Becky’s new boo, J Poppa. In meeting with all the talent for the new label, Andre learns that J Poppa is a preacher’s grandkid and is autodidactic when it comes to spitting Bible verses as cleanly as he spits secular rap. This subversive proselytizing will complicate things for Lucious and Andre. J Poppa performs at Leviticus for a showcase and definitely drops a biblical verse among his many rhymes scandalizing Lucious and Becky.
‘With you there’s always strings’
Hakeem is struggling to bring himself center throughout most of this episode after his ordeal. In rehearsals with Mirage et Trois, he’s sloppy, unfocused, some of which seem like effects of a concussion from that earlier hit, but mostly its trauma. His brothers are worried about him. Hakeem is angry with his parents. They are both by degrees loving, smothering, controlling but the kidnapping is the first time Hakeem had to contend with being on his own in a world. He is a kid of privilege and his brothers know that.
After a flirty chat with Laz Delgado (played by Adam Rodriguez), who acts as her security adviser, Cookie arranges a meeting with the crew that snatched Hakeem, believing that if they get them on side they can prevent future assaults. They meet with the goon squad but Hakeem doesn’t come empty-handed, and pulls out a gun. Cookie talks him down, threatens to jump in front of the gun because she can’t bear the idea of losing her son to jail time. Cookie then threatens the goon squad at gunpoint, letting them know she can play hardball too.
Finally, the Big Apple Jam has arrived, and Hakeem is brooding outside when his father rolls up on him and offers him a beat as “an olive branch”. Hakeem isn’t here for it, he knows these tricks the devil plays on him: “With you there’s always strings. Or more like ropes that choke everyone around you.” Lucious follows him backstage and berates Hakeem as if that’s going to work, and the brothers Lyon rally and give their parents the boot. Hakeem is finally able to articulate all of his vulnerabilities honestly. His brothers hype and hold him up. When it’s finally his turn to drop his verse with Mirage et Trois he freezes when he sees Lucious lurking in the crowd, willing him to fail. But Laura (Jamila Velazquez), sings her verse, helps him focus and he kills it. Lucious leaves when Hakeem manages to pull it together.
Notes and Observations
- More Portia!
- All of our culture wars in this episode are thrown in sharp relief: homophobia, faith, sexuality and hip-hop. Empire’s characters are struggling to reach equilibrium between a specific set of conflicts native to black american communities. What’s refreshing in watching these issues unfold within the Lyon family story is that the teleplay doesn’t stop to explain the backstory to a non-black audience.
- Let us celebrate Becky and her new boo J Poppa and hope that Andre doesn’t find a way to undermine that relationship and her role as head of A&R.
- We gotta talk about Cookie’s choice in men.
- There were too many seconds spent for us to catch those Georgia O’Keefe-styled ram horn tattoos on the kidnappers’ backs for it to not be important.
- When Freda finds out that Lucious has her father killed, this burgeoning father/daughter relationship he’s cultivating will be devastating.
