All the great shows ask big questions. Mad Men made us think Can people really change? The Wire wondered Can the system be saved? And tonight, Empire asked IsAlicia Keys talented and gorgeous enough to convert a gay dude? According to Foxs smash-hit soap, the answer is yes! The series has already had a wild second season, but this weeks installment Sinned Against was the daffiest hour to dateand it was sealed with a kiss.
Its not that there was anything especially outrageous about Jamal Lyons episode-ending lip-lock with Skye Summer, the character played by real-life recording superstar Keys (who, virtually alone out of all of the music-industry guest stars to date, wasnt playing herself). The hour painstakingly detailed the heir to the Empires fanboy feelings for his collaborator, as well as her gratitude to him for pushing her outside her artistic comfort zone what his dad referred to as girl-power pop. The song that resulted was a barn-burner that could quite easily be mashed up with Adeles Hello. Their artistic chemistry was real, or at the very least a lot more convincing than Lucious Lyon and Freeda Gatzs was.
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But even so, the kiss was some crazy shit. Stunt casting? Check. Plot twist? Check. Sexuality questioning? Big check. Cliffhanger ending? Check, and roll credits. Its a moment designed to drop a million jaws and launch a million tweets the stuff Empire has been built from.
And Keys was far from the nights only crazy cameo. Rosie ODonnell guested as Pepper OLeary, one of Cookies jailhouse pals, now a chef of pastries (and other things) in Philadelphia who helps track down her wayward sister Carol. Folks, you havent lived until youve seen Taraji P. Henson and the woman who gave Tickle Me Elmo to the world talk about how theyre the baddest bitches on the block. ODonnells interplay with Vivica A. Foxs bougie-ass Candace, the Lyonness other sister, was pretty rich as well: She vomited on me! the rich suburbanite says of her cracked-out sibling. Yeah, I saw that, Pepper deadpans.
Elsewhere, series co-creator Lee Daniels appeared as himself, directing Jamals Pepsi commercial, which in real life is a Pepsi commerical for actor Jussie Smollett. Did you catch all that? Kudos to the show for taking product placement to Inception levels of complexity. For his part, Daniels hams it up like few behind-the-scenes talents have onscreen since the pun-laden intros to Alfred Hitchcock Presents back in the day. At any rate, his presence inspires Lucious to sell off huge chunks of his company to finance the merger with SwiftStream, so it does serve a narrative function as well as an advertising one.
At least one non-celebrity-guest moment stands out as well. For several episodes now, weve been wondering if Laz Delgado, the double-agent security consultant/gangster played by Adam Rodriguez, was stringing Cookie along or truly falling for her. This week, we got our answer: Hes on the up-and-up, willing to pull a gun on his co-conspirators rather than continue their plot to loot the Lyon fortune. But from the moment Lucious meets the guy, he smells a rat or a bull, the emblem of his gang. He outs Delgado as a traitor to Cookie and Hakeem in the episodes most satisfying scene, confirming the sons suspicions while breaking the mothers heart. The fate that awaits the guy is unclear, but the presence of Lyons goons indicates its probably unpleasant.
Unfortunately, so is the current trajectory of Anika, Lucious and Hakeems estranged ex. Her downward spiral into depression appears to have become full-blown psychosis, complete with incoherent notes scribbled on photos and newspaper clippings. (Note to Hollywood art directors: Please come up with a new way to decorate the rooms of stalkers and schizophrenics.) Watching her insist that the young Lyon loves her with no basis in fact whatsoever, or clumsily confront his current girlfriend at a party, the show feels soapy in a bad way. However gonzo its gotten in the past, it always seemed to have a grip on the characters, larger than life though some of them are. Their hopes, fears, mistakes, and successes all felt rooted and true to their personalities.
This, on the other hand, is like watching a daytime drama during sweeps month a radical left turn for no reason other than that the writers wanted something nuts to happen with the character. Unless they reveal a Charles Whitmanstyle brain tumor that triggered her transformation from fake-ass Lena Horne to Fatal Attraction, Empire may have thrown up its first bona fide brick.
Previously: Fortunate Son