'Empire' Recap: Cookie's Sweet Revenge

Warning: This recap for the “A Rose by Any Other Name” episode of Empire contains spoilers.

The main thing the Universe loves to do is make us all look like damn fools whenever possible. Call it superstition, call it pseudo-science, but also call it TRUTH: Making a declaration of any kind is basically just begging the fates to make the opposite happen. Naomi Campbell and her wife Mimi Whiteman thought they could just take over Empire Entertainment but were proven wrong in a matter of days. Meanwhile, I personally declared myself kinda bored with this season of Empire and was proven wrong one week later! Because this week’s episode was very wonderful and a true return to form.

Yes, “A Rose By Any Other Name” felt very much like a Season 1 episode. It was effortlessly over-the-top and hilarious while burning through a surprising amount of story in just one hour. By the end it appeared that the Lyon family had wrested control of Empire back, PLUS both Mimi Whiteman and Naomi Campbell were possibly DEAD. That, plus a gay flashmob, a Hakeem-redesigned Empire logo, and any number of throw-away jokes made this episode one of the best in a long time. Let’s talk about it!

We began with a press conference, and like any good press conference, it involved a young rapper turned CEO dressed in a Cosby sweater and holding a gilded scepter. Hakeem had ARRIVED.

He barked out sound bites to all of the assembled bloggers and press (who were mostly hot ladies for some reason) and assured everyone that his family was still well in control of Empire Entertainment. Personally I liked that even though Hakeem was in charge, he still wasn’t totally in charge:

Yeah, Cookie was counting on him to not f–k this up. (I loved that he barely reacted when she slapped his head, and then immediately went back to eating his lollipop. Why bother fighting the true power?)

The best was when Hakeem performed for a bunch of people in the lobby and then unveiled the new Empire logo… featuring Hakeem’s face instead of Lucious’s! And then, in an extra hilarious bit, the actual logo of the show had changed! Ridiculous. But an UPGRADE.

Speaking of ridiculous, Lucious was getting ready to shoot his new music video and was trying on a bunch of bargain basement costumes while holding a fake axe. That’s right, the video was inspired by Richard II, the Shakespeare play. But I know what you’re thinking, wasn’t Empire originally inspired by King Lear? The answer is yes, but don’t worry about it. There’s plenty of room for fur coat-filled hip hop adaptations of ALL of Shakespeare’s plays. Just wait until Season 3 when a wizard (probably played by a celebrity) arrives and imprisons everyone on an island or whatever. Oh, and then Lucious did this:

Better axe somebody! (Sorry.)

Later Jamal and Becky went outside and a fan ran up and asked Jamal to autograph a pair of purple flip-flops, and I loved that Jamal immediately did so without asking questions. Were fans constantly asking him to sign weird stuff and he simply didn’t notice anymore? Well, in this case it was the opening salvo of a GAY FLASH MOB!

They chanted a song about Jamal being a flip-flopper about being an out gay artist or whatever, not even sure. But he took it hard anyway. His people were rejecting him! With multicolored flip-flops! There is truly nothing more upsetting than that.

Meanwhile Camilla was running the company with the sort of iron fleshy fist that you’d expect of someone who only wanted the job to spite someone. Her main thing was, she did NOT want Hakeem to be dating Laura still, even though Camilla herself was still married to Mimi Whiteman. But, you know, Mimi Whiteman was all set to die any day, so.

Andre was starting to lose his mind again. We’ve been through this before, but this time he was just simply paranoid and depressive over having lost an unborn child. So he had reasons! But I loved when Cookie tried to briefly comfort him and hugged him while rolling her eyes. The eye-roll hug is truly a lost art, but Cookie remains an expert at it.

Just gonna ask once, real quick: Can Porsha and Carol please have a spin-off? I’m guessing it could be a buddy cop show, but it doesn’t matter, I’ll leave that up to the creators. Just get me more of this Porsha and Carol goodness! (They were barely in this episode if we are being real.)

One way Camilla had chosen to mismanage Empire was in slashing the budgets for everything, including Lucious’s music video, and also preventing many of its artists from going on tour. So Cookie had to convince Camilla to allow Mirage a Trois to tour with Tiana as a sort of package deal. The only reason this was notable was that Hakeem was VERY upset at the idea of Mirage a Trois going on tour. Musicians TOURING? It made no sense! Laura was still living in that tiny apartment in the sticks even though she was signed to a major label. Let her tour, Hakeem. Musicians touring is kind of a thing.

And yes, in case you were wondering, Tiana was still alive! I’d assumed that she was missing presumed dead, but no, she was fine. Welcome back, Tiana!

Then Jamal invited everybody to Club Leviticus so that he could perform his hot new jam, a song that literally just names names and reveals his family’s personal matters. From Cookie’s jail time to the fact that Lucious Lyon had a secret original name, Jamal’s song was going to go over VERY well with all the bloggers who record every performance on their iPads. Those bloggers were going to have a field day! (Bloggers love field days.)

This was just a weird throw-away part where Rhonda was hiring male models for a shoot and wanted to be sure they could lift a female model, so they did this. But it was such a delightful moment and I want to stare at this .gif for a while (very lonely 👋).

Rhonda was not having a great time lately. Not only was she hobbling around the office with a cane, but her husband had demanded they go to marriage counseling. Except it wasn’t a real marriage counselor, it was Andre’s busybody pastor! And the pastor was badgering Rhonda so much about being a non-believer and whatnot. To make matters worse, Andre’s mental problems were flaring up and he’d begun to believe she was cheating on him when she wasn’t. It was all just very annoying. Let Rhonda LIIIIIVE!

At this point Hakeem decided once and for all that he needed to oust Camilla, so his new plan involved doing sex to her. Unfortunately this meant he said the line “You’ll always be my mama” and millions of Americans had to vom. Nothing ruins a pleasant evening like a mass vom, but it happened and that’s a fact.

It turned out he was trying to make a sex tape! Hakeem did sex to Camilla on camera and then sent the footage to Mimi Whiteman who, despite being a major schemer dying of cancer, was not thrilled to find out that her beloved Camilla had been cheating on her. And guess what? It worked! The next day Mimi Whiteman was selling all her shares of Empire!

This was good news for the Lyons, but in attempting to buy back the shares Andre had to break into the trust he’d set up for his unborn child, which made him sad, and suddenly he was hitting himself in the face and freaking out. Grief, you know? Also mental probs. He was probably going to have to adjust his meds, or perhaps pray to a different god, I don’t know which.

Luckily Andre felt better after Jamal and Hakeem whisked him away into a nearby recording studio and performed a song they’d written just for him. It was about how life is painful and it was a sexy, sultry slow jam meant to make him feel better about losing his unborn child. Powerful stuff, basically.

Because Marisa Tomei was not in this episode at all, her character had to be murdered via a body double! Yep, Camilla had drugged and murdered her in a bathtub before she could fully divest her ownership of Empire. But what Camilla failed to consider was that Lucious would come busting in with a camera phone blazing! (Also a gun.)

He held her at gunpoint and forced her to take the rest of the pills that she’d given Mimi. And after Lucious shamed her for a few minutes about being no good, low-down dirty trash, Camilla finally relented.

She gulped down the full bottle of pills! Lucious walked out before anything could happen, so I’m not 100% sure that Camilla was killed off. But still, she definitely seemed like she was defeated finally.

“A Rose By Any Other Name” truly felt like a return to form for the show that had once intoxicated us with lurid plot twists and throw-away weirdness. Killing off Mimi Whiteman in such an inglorious way was truly remarkable, but everything else up to that point was similarly absurd and amazing. Yeah, I really enjoyed this episode. If Empire can keep up this tone and pace for the rest of the season it’ll feel almost redemptive! Just please don’t prove me wrong about this, Universe.

What did YOU think of “A Rose By Any Other Name”?

Empire airs Wednesdays at 9 p.m. on Fox.