Thursday, 1 October 2015

‘Empire’ Recap: Lucious Is Finally Released From Jail Thanks To His Shady Lawyer

Well, Lucious’ time in jail didn’t last
very long. After being behind bars for three
long months, the head of Empire is finally back
and ready to reclaim his kingdom!
Lucious ( Terrance Howard ) is a free man, all thanks to his
shady new lawyer Thirsty Rawlings ( Andre Royo). While
Lucious and Jamal ( Jussie Smollett ) celebrate his newly
found freedom, Cookie ( Tarji P. Henson) is busy starting
her own Dynasty.
While Lucious may have had a happy ending at the end of
the episode, he was actually having a rough time before his
release. While in jail, Lucious had been receiving medicine
to try and keep his ALS symptoms to a minimal.
Unfortunately that was taken away from him all because
the prosecution was trying to play dirty! Super shady,
right?
Ludacris ’ was a guest star on this episode and his
character, Officer McKnight, definitely has something
against Lucious. As the singer continues to suffer in jail,
his wifey is plotting revenge on his Empire.
Cookie Starts Her Own ‘Empire’
This is one Lyon that can’t be tamed! After being thrown
out of Empire by Jamal, Cookie decides to start her own
company with Hakeem and Andre. The three of them
conspire via phone calls and eventually meet up at the
ghetto studio where Jamal was seen recording “Dollar Bill”
in the first season. Andre was so unhappy about what he
was seeing, but he decided to continue with the plan.
While they’re all setting up, Hakeem decided to throw
around the idea of starting a girl group. He totally has his
own music to worry about, but the rapper thought it would
be a good thing to do for their un-named label. Cookie
agrees with the idea and allows Hakeem to go and find his
perfect group instead of getting him to record his last few
songs for his album.
Hakeem holds auditions and a familiar face shows up!
Valentina ( Becky G ) obviously nails her audition and
impresses Hakeem, but she’s totally blindsided by the fact
that it was a casting for a girl group. She claims the
Instagram posting — casting via Instagram? The struggle
is kinda real — didn’t mention anything about a girl group.
Unfortunately, the gal sitting beside Hakeem said there
definitely was and Valentina was not happy. In fact, she
bluntly told Hakeem, “With or without you, I shine.” Becky
was right, her character is certainly the mini version of
Cookie . Did I mention Hakeem wants to name his three-girl
girl group “Rainbow Sensation?” Because that also
happened.
Lucious Teams Up With A New Lawyer
Jamal visits Lucious in jail and asks his father to give
Hakeem his album back. After their business talk, Jamal
notices his father wasn’t feeling too well and a lawyer by
the name of Thirsty Rawlings overhears their conversation.
He immediately gives Jamal his card and offers up his
services to the singer. Obviously after much thought,
Lucious decides to take his chances and run with this new
guy.
When he teams up with Thirsty, Lucious then starts to
receive a little bit of special treatment. He was able to get
the meds he needed and on top of that, time to record a
new song while in jail! One of the prison guards who was
escorting Lucious to the private room revealed that Thirsty
has connections inside the jail and that’s why Lucious was
able to receive his medication along with many others.
The singer meets up with his crew from the courtyard and
starts recording a new song. Shortly after they finished,
Officer McKnight and other guards came in to detain the
inmates. That little stunt earned Lucious some time in the
“hole.” While Officer McKnight and Lucious are talking,
Lucious basically threatened the guard and he held true to
his word.
Everything went from zero to 100 real quick. Officer
McKnight was out and about when he was ambushed by two
guys who we can only assume were working for Thirsty.
They beat him up until the guard gave them what they
wanted, the computer that Lucious recorded his song on.
That item was given to Thirsty to do whatever he wanted
with it.
Andre Tries To Return To Empire
After talking to Lucious, Jamal decided to ask Hakeem to
return to Empire one last time before ultimately giving his
younger brother his unfinished album. Hakeem decided to
take things into his own hands and leak it all online. This
move causes Andre become upset and to leave the start-
up company.
He goes to visit Lucious in jail to ask for his forgiveness.
Andre apologizes for being a part of the hostile takeover
with Cookie, Hakeem, and Anika. Sadly, Lucious says to his
eldest son, “Pray for God to forgive you, because I don’t.”
Stone cold. Andre doesn’t give up and asks why his dad
hates him so much. This takes us to a flashback with Kelly
Rowland as Lucious’s mother. It’s a sweet and creepy
memory, but it definitely caused me to wonder if Lucious’
mom also suffered from bi-polar disorder and seeing
Andre deal with the same disorder hurts him.
Not too long after the album leak, Hakeem goes to see
Jamal to tell him the news along with the fact that he isn’t
returning to Empire. Jamal gets upset — over the leak of
the album and threatens to sue Hakeem. There’s a little
banter between the two, but then Hakeem drops the news
by revealing the name of their start-up company, “Lyon
Dynasty.” Jamal called it corny, but Hakeem dismissed him
by saying, “our little dynasty is going to crush your
Empire.”
Lucious Drops A New Song From Prison & Gets
Out Of Jail
“Damn, that’s hot,” Cookie said after hearing Lucious’ new
song on the radio. You know a song is hot when Cookie says
so! After all, she did help Lucious start his career. “There’s
not much he can do to us right now before he gets out of
jail.” Sadly that was a short-lived moment for Cookie
because in the next scene, we see Lucious being released
from jail.
Thirsty was able to gather some incriminating photos of the
judge presiding over Lucious’ case. This causes him to
release Lucious on a $1 million bail. We wonder how Cookie
will react to this news once she finds out Lucious is out! Not
to mention she’s barely done starting-up her dynasty. She
and Hakeem have a lot of sweeping to do!
HollywoodLifers , what did you think of this episode? The
music? Let us know if everything lived up to your
expectations in the comment section below!

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