'Empire' Recap: Cookie's Monster-In-Law
Warning: This recap for “The Lyon Who Cried Wolf” episode of Empire contains spoilers.
Sometimes you just have to take the good with the bad. Like, I would consider it nothing less than a dream come true to be awakened in the middle of the night and presented with a table full of cakes. But the catch would be, of course, that they were baked by a crazy woman with a large knife who is currently yammering about how I am made of evil and should probably die. That is what I would consider a drawback to an otherwise great situation. Yes, I would absolutely still eat those cakes, but I would feel VERY stressed about it. Clouds may have their silver linings, but even golden moments cast a shadow. Eating cake at knife point would be an example of the latter.
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“The Lyon Who Cried Wolf” was a late-season episode of Empire, and therefore it seemed to be building to something. Maybe? But if we’re being honest, almost none of this episode mattered until that truly insane final scene. Do we honestly care which song the Lyons will or won’t perform at the ASA awards? No we do not. Do we honestly care what will happen when Rhonda finds out who pushed her down the stairs? Not really. But suddenly I care VERY much about the frail old woman waving a knife in Lucious’s face with her bony crone hand. Elderly Kelly Rowland might be a sad old woman with mental problems, but give me more of her! If she isn’t somehow the next CEO of Empire Entertainment I will be extremely disappointed. So good.
Let’s talk about this episode!
We began in a lavish rest home somewhere in Pennsylvania where a couple of bipolar cuties were playing a white hot game of Bingo.
Andre had decided to follow up on that one journalist’s tip and look into whether this really was his grandmother, Elderly Kelly Rowland, or not. If he’d had any doubts, she quickly erased them when she went straight-up LUCIOUS LYON on a losing Bingo card.
At this point her medicated haze wore off and Elderly Kelly Rowland recognized Andre as kin. Let the bonding begin!
Meanwhile Becky was really enjoying Hakeem and Jamal’s new duet.
Like, REALLY enjoying it.
The biggest plotline of this episode was that the family was preparing to perform at the ASAs (some kind of brokedown Grammy situation), but they needed to first (a) agree to perform together, and (b) get the approval for this change of plans from the ASA representative. Cookie was up for the challenge, and to prove she meant business she wore a truly upsetting snakeskin-and-fringe jacket/dress. No part of her outfit made sense, but that was probably the point. All the better to hypnotize ASA representatives.
Oh, big congrats to Porsha, who is now the personal assistant to a CEO! True, she didn’t really do anything in particular to deserve this promotion, but she DID have a swanky new haircut, and also Porsha is the best in general. Way to go, P!
So the ASA representative who had arrived to assess whether the Lyons could perform as a family was a handsome smoldering man who was secretly gay for Jamal. I loved when they angrily got in each other’s faces about business and then started making out right there in the recording booth! All the best arguments end with a surprise business kiss. Then they did sex to each other while Jamal and Tiana duetted in the next booth over. Just another typical workday at Empire.
That night the Lyons got together to work out what song they’d be doing for the ASAs, and the bickering began almost immediately. At one point Cookie shouted at everyone and called them all a “rack of b*tches,” which was probably not as delicious as it sounded, but then again I haven’t been to Outback Steakhouse in a while.
But the drama was interrupted by some FRESH drama! Andre had brought Elderly Kelly Rowland to Club Leviticus for a meet and greet!
Lucious rejected her almost immediately (while the rest of the family hung back looking shocked that she was even alive). He didn’t specify why, but it was clear Lucious was NOT interested in hanging around with his mother again. That’s how much he did not care for Elderly Kelly Rowland.
Only two episodes after professing his love for Laura and asking her to marry him, Hakeem was suddenly slightly shady toward her. The main thing was he chose Tiana to duet with him instead of Laura, and also it was pretty clear that Tiana still had a thing for Hakeem (and he seemed to dig her back). Anyway, Laura stormed into his penthouse dressed in her best Cookie drag and yelled at him about it and then he kissed her and it was fine. FOR NOW.
I just really loved this lady. She was a proper maid in a maid costume yet Lucious was forcing her to be his mother’s caretaker all of the sudden. See, even though Lucious commanded that Elderly Kelly Rowland go back to the old folks home, Andre refused to let that happen and she insisted on staying with Lucious instead. So next thing we knew, Elderly Kelly Rowland was eating soup and sweeping the crumbs under the placemat like a crazy person, and this maid in particular did not look thrilled at having to babysit her. Which, honestly? Fair.
No sane person should ever get in a moving car with Thirsty, and the reporter lady from last week learned this the hard way. That’s what you get for tipping guys off about the existence of their grandmothers! She was dragged into the shadows and never heard from again. R.I.P. her blog.
Probably the most frustrating thing about this mother plotline was that Lucious refused to explain to anybody why he was hating on his mother so much. Like, we knew that she suffered from bipolar disorder, but why was he treating her like trash now? Yes, she had tried to drown him and then held an unloaded gun to her head, but she had actual psychological illness. And he certainly didn’t have a very good reason for keeping her existence a secret all these years. Cookie didn’t understand how he’d just casually lie about her death, and even resort to purchasing a fake tombstone just to keep the illusion going. What a weirdo! But basically he just didn’t trust her mental health. That seemed to be the extent of it.
Oh hey, buried the lede: Vivica A. Fox was back! Now, it’s hard not to be bummed by how utterly Empire has wasted Vivica A. Fox’s talents. I think we all expected amazing things from her when she was first introduced as Cookie’s sister. But man, what a boring and underwritten role this has been! In this case she showed up mostly just to shame Carol about having to look after Carol’s kids while Carol attempted to get her life back in order. Cool?
At one point Carol let slip that she’d once helped Lucious kill a bunch of people, and an “old friend” overheard this before approaching her and offering to buy her a drink. Yes he was hunky and flirtatious and Carol was stoked to toast a cranberry juice with him, but the problem was that he was secretly an FBI agent and was probably going to try and use her to get to Lucious. Aw, poor Carol. Forever unlucky in love and life and often wigs.
At one point Rhonda had all of her old baby stuff shipped over to Hakeem’s penthouse, and in all the bustle a mover nearly toppled a box onto her. Fortunately someone ran up behind Rhonda and pushed her! But all this did was trigger flashbacks to the time she was pushed down her own stairs and suffered a miscarriage. Typically those are the kinds of memories people would rather bury, so people should probably stop running up and pushing Rhonda from behind. Too risky!
So, finally Lucious and his sons performed a new composition he’d written, using music that his mother wrote. In fact, all it had taken was a quick sit-down at a grand piano with Elderly Kelly Rowland for the two of them to seem loving again. (Grand Pianos are the most successful mediators when it comes to Lyon family squabbles.) This new song was lovely. Not quite as great as “You’re So Beautiful” but still a winner. It was no wonder that the hunky ASA dude was BOUT IT.
Of course, he was also very about Jamal’s bod, so that probably helped also.
Rhonda and Anika were still hanging out, and Anika was rubbing her very normal-sized belly like she was your uncle finishing off his third plate at Thanksgiving. Like, kinda bloated but nothing crazy. Anyway, at this point Rhonda happened to notice that the soles of Anika’s shoes were RED, much like the shoes worn by the person who’d pushed her down the stairs!
So Rhonda was now onto Anika. Although, still… As shady as Anika’s been, why would Empire not just admit that Anika had been the pusher? Was there still a twist in store? Stay tuned I guess.
Okay, this scene. As much as this episode had its fair share of fun highlights, nothing beat this last scene, which was so bizarre and terrifying. Basically Lucious was awakened by Elderly Kelly Rowland and she forced him to sit down at the dining room table where she’d laid out NINE cakes that she’d baked in the middle of the night. At which point she picked up a giant knife and began cutting pieces for him to eat at knife point. In my opinion, she was not well in the head, and her yammerings about how Lucious was evil and she should have killed him when she had the chance only added to the tension. Ultimately nothing really happened in this scene, but it was still a TOTAL NIGHTMARE. And strange! What a strange scene! I mean that as a compliment, of course. Empire could use many, many more bizarre moments like this.
Yeah, “The Lyon Who Cried Wolf” was relatively uneventful for most of its running time, but this final moment pushed it back into greatness. When the idea of Lucious’s mother still being alive was first introduced I was incredibly underwhelmed, but steering her plotline into thriller territory is somehow both offensive (to the mental health community) and hilariously effective. Fingers crossed the last two episodes of the season can capitalize on this total weirdness!
What did YOU think of “The Lyon Who Cried Wolf”?
Empire airs Wednesdays at 9 p.m. on Fox.
