“Empire” has lost the ability to make anyone care about the war for the “throne.” If this show exists in a world where Hakeem Lyon can legitimately be the CEO of a company, are there any stakes at all?
At least there was music this week, right?
1. Lucious
Yeah. The patriarch of the Lyons may be on the outs with the rest of his family. He finally pushed Jamal so far with his homophobia that the middle son wrote a whole rap about what a fake his dad is. He looks ridiculous in the costume for his music video.
But Lucious gets first spot in the power rankings because this marks the second week in a row that he tried to bully someone into killing themselves—and this week it actually WORKED. RIP Camilla. No one will miss you.
2. Cookie
She didn’t really accomplish much this week other than looking fabulous and spouting off one-liners, but that’s basically what Cookie does best anyway. Greatest hits:
To Hakeem: “Boy, you better do what we discussed if you want to stay alive, let alone if you want to be the CEO.”
To Thirsty: “And you can go back to being useless. Wearing your granddaddy suits.”
To Jamal: “Your father is a tampon. You already knew that.”
To Hakeem again: “You made a sex tape, huh, Ray J?”
3. Hakeem
HE REDESIGNED THE LOGO. He took his face and put it over Lucious’s face on the logo of Empire. Hakeem is mentally incompetent and a total child, but that’s a power move if there ever was one.
4. Rhonda
Andre is such a mess that I’m not sure he’ll ever climb back into the top five of this show, but his wife is killing it with her total disdain of the ridiculousness that surrounds her. “What was your vision, babe?” she asks patronizingly when Andre starts talking about God. Later, when he tells her that Camilla named her clothing line Antony and Cleopatra after her and Hakeem, she laughs. “You’re kidding me.”
The woman is too good for this [bleep].
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5. Jamal
His Lucious diss track may have pulled him from the brink of pathetic, but we can’t ignore the fact that a group of men surrounded him on the street to sing “flip flop” at him. “That’s not even his song, stupid!” Becky shouts helpfully. That’s right—Jamal got mocked with a pun on his brother’s song. Not even his own work.
Also, what is up with this show totally ignoring the entire concept of bisexuality? It’s getting ridiculous and borderline offensive.
Honorable mentions
Sex tapes, Becky, arsenic, Andre, the return of Tiana, the Empire logo, South Philly, Jimmy Choos, fresh-out-of-rehab Carol.
‘Empire’
Season 2, Episode 12
2.5 out of 4 stars