This week we meet the family Lyon reckoning with their past sins, and attempting to balance business as usual while being enticed by new temptations. Andre has returned “home” to the Lyon family unit, federal prosecutor Roxanne Ford is on a “leave of absence” and someone is after Hakeem. Pass the holy water.
‘It’s the moment of creation. It’s the big bang. You got to feel the whole universe’
Andre is welcomed back into the fold by his once estranged father (Lucious makes him president of the Death Row-like, Gutter Life Records, and by extension part of Empire). There’s a welcome back bacchanal, where Lucious delivers on his promise to produce Jamal’s new record. During a recording session, Lucious cuts him off to pass a note, which Jamal modestly resists. Ne-Yo is in the studio working with Jamal to create the album that he wants to be a statement, and one will define his career. So modest goals then.
The three discuss Ne-Yo joining Jamal on tour, when Jamal’s partner Michael pops in and tells Ne-Yo how much he loves his work. Jamal lets it slip that Michael is touring with him, but Lucious bristles at the idea and reminds Jamal of “first rule of the road” which is to “leave the girlfriend or boyfriend at home”. Jamal goes to Ne-Yo for a second opinion and they both agree that Lucious is the last person you’d want relationship advice from.
‘A mouth is a mouth’
Warhol 2.0 (the insufferable Rolling Stone photographer from last week) returns to continue his pursuit of Jamal. Jamal, Michael and Warhol 2.0 chill at the club while having a night punctuated by wild, intelligent conversation and a lot of booze. During the chat Warhol 2.0 offers his view of the world. To him, “Relationships are the death of creativity …” critiques marriage equality and shares his views on monogamy (he’s not a fan). Jamal pushes back and tells him he’s being a bit “heteronormative” and then he defines heteronormative for Michael – and the world.
Jamal likes Warhol 2.0 for pushing him intellectually with his art and crazy ideas. But he’s not impressed when Warhol 2.0 tries to push up on him and give him a blow job when they leave the club. Warhol 2.0 thinks it is all academic, “this is art too”, but Michael sees this dude on his knees in front of his boo. Jamal probably should have read that move coming.
‘Everybody we know ended up in a box we don’t even wanna claim’
Cookie and Lucious argue about what to do with Vernon’s ashes at the funeral home. Lucious, still bitter about Vernon’s betrayal, refuses to take the box of ashes and passes it to Cookie like a football. Cookie is still tight with Lucious, and suspects he had Tiana jumped from the day before in his attempts to stop Lyon Dynasty from flourishing. She checks to see if he in fact killed Vernon, and Lucious confirms that he did not. Cookie fears out loud for the safety of her sons, but mostly she’s fishing for answers about how best to protect her new enterprise as much and her boys. She doesn’t tell him about the mysterious YouTube video threat Lyon Dynasty received earlier tied to Tiana’s attack, a masked crew that wants to extort money from them. Lucious thumbs his nose at her fears, “You left my protection.”
‘This family is my business’
Long after, Andre has a heart to heart with his pastor and commits to having a baptism, he eventually finds his father about to confess more of his previous transgressions. Here, we get into the marrow of the running thread of this season, Andre and Lucious confronting the good and evil within as well as Lucious’s scorn for spirituality and discomfort with mental illness. Andre admonishes his father for dispatching Thirsty and his baby goons for attempting to steal Lyon Dynasty’s masters.
Lucious taunts him that running Gutter Life might be “too street” for Andre. Lucious wants obedience and loyalty more than Andre’s business acumen it would seem. Andre is intent on doing business in a more righteous manner. Andre invites his father to his baptism, and the devil mocks him: “You want me to watch him dunk you tap water to make all your sins go away.” Andre is steadfast in his belief and rebukes the devil, “You gave me life but god gives me hope.”
‘Mention the devil name and he’ll walk right in’
Like a good mom, Cookie shows up to church with a tape roller and grooms her eldest son Andre before the baptism service begins and also gives some advice about not confessing to everything he’s done (“Keep your mouth shut”). It contrasts quite nicely with an understated scene between Lucious and Freda Gats in the studio. The rapper phenom and child of his former nemesis, Frank Gathers, pushes him to admit a truth we all see as in his hard stares and harsh talk to each of his sons, “a lot of fathers don’t know how to show love”.
The Lyons are an exquisitely dysfunctional family while at church. Quietly arguing, teasing and confronting each other with their beef until Rhonda hushes them like a good old church lady. But it’s more than just another scene of pyrotechnics between the Lyon clan, it is a nod to the cultural significance of the black church, as well as the shifting sands between love and war, good and evil, dramas familiar to Empire’s large African American audience. The black family is tested by societal pressures or conflicts of their own making, yet it endures.
When the minister dunks Andre in “tap water” as Lucious mocked earlier, this moment is again a trigger to past trauma for young Lucious, erstwhile Dwight, and we see another flashback to a time when his mother half drowned him in a bathtub to punish him for bad behavior. She does this while singing Nat King Cole’s Mona Lisa. Lucious abruptly leaves the church confusing his family and hurting Andre. We’re frustrated that Lucious hasn’t told someone the whole story.
Later, with no warning, Hakeem goes for a jog and gets snatched. The culprits appear to be the same squad that threatened them on YouTube.
Notes and observations
- Did we miss Rhonda’s miscarriage?
- Let’s talk about the admirable and clever nod to Mozart’s Requiem part of the overall show’s score.
- Ne-Yo as the relationship yoda was kind of cute.
- There’s a lot of warmth and intimacy in the performances with scenes between Cookie and Andre, Andre with his brothers. Understated and compelling.
- National broadcast television JUST DROPPED AND EXPLAINED HETERONORMATIVE like it ain’t no thang! We do big things in 2015.
- The streets are coming for the Lyons but not in the way that they imagined. We’ll see how the abduction of Hakeem will test their family and their respective businesses.
- Portia’s gonna get her job back, hapless and sweet, Cookie knows she needs her.
