Hakeem and Laura had the big wedding planned, and Lucious and Anika wound up tying the knot, but it was Boo Boo Kitty and Rhonda who really took the plunge. And as the pair took their battle over the edge, it wasnt just Andre who looked on in dismay and disbelief the audience did too. When the warring women fell off that balcony for Empires season-ending cliffhanger, they took the shows usually sure-footed storytelling instincts with it. Cutting to black before we could find out which character died was the culmination of a series of decisions that made the series final installment till next September entitled Past Is Prologue a reason to worry about the future.
The problem isnt just that the episode ended on as close to an literal cliffhanger as you can get without a actual cliff, though thats a big part of it. Plenty of venerable shows have shut down a season with a shocking demise or two; some, like Game of Thrones, have evenreversed course the following year. But leaving viewers in the dark by merely teasing a death without revealing the identity of the deceased is both a cheat and a cheap shot, as any Walking Dead fan can tell you. Its much more rewarding to let people grapple with the consequences of the loss of a character than to leave them wondering which character was lost in the first place.
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This goes double when Rhonda and Anika are the characters in question. Its not the fault of Kaitlin Doubleday and Grace Gealey, whove always made the most of these mostly peripheral roles. Theyre two of the most attractive people in a cast full of lookers, for one thing (hey, dont knock it whether male or female, hotness counts on a soap). More to the point, they invest their parts with the intelligence and tenacity these women would require to find their way into the Lyons den and stay there. But that doesnt make them central to the story, regardless of their place in the opening credits: Theyre not part of the explosive nuclear family of five who really drive the story. Capping off a season with their fates in the balance is like ending a year of Mad Men with a fistfight between Harry Crane and Ken Cosgrove. Theyre entertaining to watch, but theyre not where the action really is, even if their pregnancy-centered storyline hadnt been the seasons weakest link all along. A comparison to last years climactic close-up on a locked-up Lucious murmuring Game on, bitches is not flattering.
Nor does theirtte--tte and tumble hold up against last weeks twist ending, the shooting of Jamal by Freda Gatz as he dove to take a bullet intended for his dad. In retrospect its tough to understand why co-creator Lee Daniels and showrunner Ilene Chaiken, who co-wrote the finale, decided to end the season here instead of on that blood-soaked red carpet. Even if the singers status had been left up in the air, at least youd know exactly what happened and who it happened to, giving you plenty of daddy-issue drama to chew on over the long months before Season Three starts up. Moreover, Lucious and his musical progeny are far more important to the Empire than their in-laws; using their conflict to close out the year would just feel right in a way that the Anika/Rhonda duel doesnt.
In fact, a baffling amount of the preceding season, let alone the previous episode, was abandoned in favor of introducing brand-new characters and subplots. Jamals bullet wound? Healed off-screen in time for him to come home in a wheelchair after a title screen reading THREE WEEKS LATER. Leah Walkers chance to reveal her identity and her sons lies to the press and paparazzi assembled outside the hospital? Brushed aside with a passing comment about Thirsty Rawlings snatching her out of the spotlight before she should squeal. Anika getting picked up by the Feds to testify against the Lyon king? This one at least remains a factor in the form of a subpoena and a suicide attempt, but most of the tension is defused right away when she tells Lucious and Cookie all about it in her very first scene in the episode. Why bother setting all this up only to blow it off?
So instead of building on the groundwork the show laid all season, the finale started constructing whole new storylines out of thin air. Suddenly, Lucious is having flashbacks to his cop father getting murdered in front of him, and Leahs revealing that Tariq, the FBI agent pursuing him, is actually his half brother. Speaking of the Bureau, theyre not after the Lyons for any of the numerous crimes weve actually seen them commit, but for some dude the mogul killed back in the day on behalf of two other dudes weve neither seen nor heard of before. The killing also involves a dirtbag named Shyne, played by Xzibit, whos so important all of a sudden that hes the one who ruins Hakeem and Lauras wedding, not someone we actually give a shit about.
Sure, theres some fun stuff in here too, mostly thanks Taraji P. Hensons Cookie, the shows perpetual standout. She lightens the mood at her wounded sons welcome-home party when he declares himself retired from music until the familys vicious cycle stops (Jamal is grumpy because hes tired and hes never been shot before). And she delivers an iconic entrance when, decked out in the gaudiest print she can find, she struts into Shynes studio to the tune of Desiigners ubiquitous hitPanda. But its not enough. In ending the season by dropping Anika and Rhonda over that railing, Empire dropped a brick.
Previously: Shots Fired