'Empire' Premiere Recap: Return to Cookie Mountain

Most of us spent our summers doing the normal things: Sweating beneath swamp coolers, attending family reunions, disappearing into the Ozarks for days on end where the long arm of the law couldn't reach us. But the writers and producers of Empire took neither road trips nor brain vacations: They worked HARD this summer. And they needed to, as the fate of 2015's undisputed breakout hit lay in the balance.

A quick refresher: Empire's first season hit big, fast, and hard with dizzying storytelling, outrageous performances, and broke unstoppable series of ratings records. But as I mentioned in my finale recap, there were two major causes for concern when it came to Season 2. One, could Empire continue to blow through plotlines at the same rate as it always had? And two, would the inevitable onslaught of guest stars distract and detract from the tone we'd all fallen in love with?

Much as Cookie and Lucious are always foolish for doubting each other, we ourselves were foolish to doubt Empire. “The Devils Are Here” was Empire's grand re-entry into the public consciousness and it was as riveting, lovable, and insane as we remembered, if not more so. Yes, Empire absolutely still blew through storylines at an impossible rate (this episode alone resolved both Cookie's snitching AND the hostile takeover stuff), and when it came to guest stars, they were used for maximum impact. By that I mean that Chris Rock played a cannibalistic drug lord, and the celebrities who played themselves were openly mocked by Cookie. Truly a best case scenario! But why am I TELLING you how great this episode was when I could be SHOWING you?

We began, obviously, at a huge rally modeled after a civil rights protest. That's right: Only a few seconds in and Empire WENT THERE. But aside from a joke — joke! — about Ferguson, this whole rally had nothing to do with IRL racial injustices, it was all about freeing an “unjustly” incarcerated Lucious Lyon from prison. And, just as a reminder, Lucious actually WAS a murderer. So yeah. Empire was already knee-deep in audacity! And we hadn't even gotten to the gorilla suit yet.

Backstage Cookie was flaunting a dress made of metallic feathers and sideboob, and she was busy hassling all her kids to get onstage and  stop worrying about the fact that they were about to steal the company from the very man they were pretending to honor. Well, at least Jamal still seemed to think he was running the company for Lucious, but everyone else was secretly teamed up to overthrow him. So yeah: drama brewing.

Then this happened:

Yep, Cookie, dressed in a gorilla suit, was locked in a cage and lowered onto the stage where she ripped off her mask and proceeded to give a fiery sermon about social injustice that would make Malcolm X slowly back away and slink down onto a beanbag chair.

During Season 1 we were led to believe that Cookie enjoyed a favorable opinion with the public, but this was the first time we saw her just how beloved she was with the masses. (Just ask Bill Clinton, who was allegedly in attendance on behalf of Hillary.)

So, right off the bat, we began Season 2's parade of celebrity cameos. But guess what? Rather than be annoying and distracting, the cameos were hilarious? And here's why: Cookie disrespected each and every one of them. First, she gave a too-skinny Al Sharpton the cold shoulder for not agreeing to help Lucious.

Then she got into it with Vogue's Andre Leon Talley when he pointed out that her Gucci outfit was from last season.

THEN Porsha called out CNN's Don Lemon for his sh*tty Ferguson coverage (though she mistakenly called it “Peterson” instead, which I obviously took personally), but then Cookie made nice with Don Lemon only to mumble under her breath that he “did mess up that N-word...” incident.

But one of the biggest developments was the introduction of Marisa Tomei as Mimi Whiteman (LOL, come on) as the primary businesswoman behind the hostile takeover company Cookie's hoping will buy into Empire Records. And since Mimi would have fit right in on The L Word if you catch my drift, a lot of the episode was devoted to wooing-slash-seducing her via the lady characters' feminine wiles. But Cookie's first mistake was getting too personal with Mimi in front of the camera, as Lucious Lyon was currently watching the concert from his very expensive flatscreen television in prison!

For his part, Lucious had been in this very strange prison for about three months and didn't seem to be doing too badly. People seemed to respect him, and, again, did you check out that flatscreen? But then things got complicated when a widely feared crime boss was transferred in!

Here's Chris Rock as Frank Gathers, the drug kingpin that Lucious and Cookie used to run drugs for, and also the very man that Cookie had snitched on as part of her plea deal. One thing about him? He's a cannibal, which is really only implied via Cookie referring to him as Hannibal, and also a scene later where he seems to be eating a fellow inmate (according to The Hollywood Reporter, actual flesh-eating was edited out of the episode). So yeah, he wasn't thrilled about what Cookie had done to him, so that was going to be a headache for Lucious right there.

Speaking of headaches, Jamal was not exactly thriving as interim CEO of Empire Records. For one thing, he was being very impatient and rude to everybody? For another, he'd spent too much hating on Hakeem's album to actually properly support his own. Still though, he seemed pretty ride-or-die for Lucious, so at least they still had each other.

Meanwhile Andre was having night terrors related to the time he and Rhonda buried Vernon's body in a shallow grave. That incident was not as romantic as it probably sounds, so they were now wracked with guilt. On the upside, she was still pregnant! Also, she had bangs now. A lot can change in three months!

I loved when Cookie threw a party for Mimi Whiteman and filled it with scantily clad ladies gyrating to and fro. But then Mimi Whiteman only had eyes for Anika, who felt compelled to play along. And then, at Cookie's encouragement, Anika actually took off her sweater and began a seductive twerk move that sent pulses pounding. Boo Boo Kitty was BACK, but this time she was more about the kitty, boo boo.

Oh, but guess who else was back?

That's right, Michael was fully back in Jamal's life now that Jamal had broken up with that one filmmaker dude (“Ryan is a ho”), and Michael had already resumed his #1 favorite activity: Hassling Jamal so much. Like, basically everything Jamal said or did in this scene was met with a weary sigh and a frown of disappointment. Question, why were these two together again? Anyway, Michael works for GLAAD and wanted Jamal to get more involved with the gay community, and we all know how Jamal feels about that nonsense.

America's sweetheart Porsha was in top form in this episode, especially in this scene, when Cookie's sister Carol was frantically trying to Facetime with her but Porsha hung up on her so that she could go to the bathroom. As it turned out, Carol had a REASON to be freaking out: Frank Gathers' goons had been delivering ominous roses to everybody! That was a bad sign. But Porsha had PRIORITIES and it's hard to blame her for that.

This gentleman was sprawled all over Jamal's desk singing Sylvester's “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)” and just between you and me, Jamal was not super into it. In fact, and this is just my personal opinion, I would not be comfortable with ANYONE rolling around on my desk singing a Sylvester song. Call me conservative, but also get off my desk? You've knocked over my pencil cup. Anyway, as you can imagine, Jamal immediately refused any further associations with GLAAD after this and instead just agreed to donate a ton of money. Michael frowned and called him shady, but that's classic Michael for you.

Look at this badass tableau. They're on their way into the board room to officially announce their hostile takeover, yet Hakeem was wearing his best shorts and riding his best hover Segway, or whatever that thing is. I laughed so hard. Hakeem is so Cookie's kid.

But guess what happened when Cookie announced to Jamal that things were going to change? Jamal flipped the script! Apparently Mimi Whiteman had decided that if she was going to invest in the company, it was only going to be with Lucious' involvement. Know why? Because Mimi Whiteman is not a dummy. She knew that Lucious was a genius and was NOT about to work without him. So yeah: Lucious was still in charge, hostile takeover was a failure, and now there was a delicious new lesbian on the board. (Anika confessed to Cookie that she'd even slept with Mimi in order to seal the deal, and Cookie responded, “You can't even d*ke right.” Then I passed away.)

OK, so, this was that scene that originally involved the consumption of human flesh, but is now just a weird scene in which Frank Gathers eats a regular meal while another man looked on pained. But the dialogue and subtext are all still there, so when the victim dude finally relents and admits that Cookie had been the one to sell out Frank Gathers, it was clearly because he didn't want any further flesh to be eaten off. But by far the creepiest part of this maybe-sorta cannibalism was the plastic bib? Where'd that come from? And what kind of prison gives its residents metal steak knives? Anyway, this was one of the crazier paragraphs I'll ever type, and I'm so grateful to Empire for that.

Cookie returned to her apartment to find Carol looking after one hundred thousand children, all of whom were messing with Cookie's wigs! Worse, Cookie opened a gift containing a severed head! But the wigs were all over the table by this point, just getting tangled and sticky, so that was probably the more annoying thing.

So yeah, if there had been any doubt before, this erased it: Frank Gathers was coming for Cookie. But in true Empire fashion, this led to a very heartwarming and wonderful scene in which Cookie finally visited Lucious in prison and they verbally sparred for a bit before Cookie finally asked for his help. And I got chills when he immediately dropped the drama and was 100 percent on her side again. Again, the easy rapport between Taraji P. Henson and Terrence Howard MAKES this show, and that scene was another one of those unexpectedly moving scenes between the two.

We were then treated to a VERY satisfying scene in which Lucious refused to kiss Frank Gathers' ring, and Frank ordered his goons to kill Lucious “quickly and quietly.” Except, Lucious had already bribed each and every one of them to join HIS side. So in a magnificent table-turning moment, Frank suddenly found himself surrounded by his own goons, and Lucious instructing them to kill him “loud and long.”

Never have the sounds of a man being literally torn apart been such music to our ears! Farewell, Frank Gathers. You were one of the most fascinating cannibals on network television.

Unfortunately, when Cookie went to the Lyon stronghold to tell everyone their emergency situation was over, Jamal decided that enough was enough: They had all betrayed Lucious a few too many times and they all needed to GTFO. Cookie slapped him across the face a twice (needed a few more, in my opinion) but it didn't work. Jamal was OVER his family.

Except yeah, pretty conflicted about it too. But as Cookie mentioned earlier in the episode, when she was in prison NOBODY visited her or had any concern for her well-being. So it's pretty rich for Jamal to guilt-trip everyone for turning their backs on Lucious, who, it's worth pointing out, really HAD murdered a man in cold blood, to say nothing of the emotional and physical abuse he'd subjected them all to over the years. But it's not Empire without constantly shifting sympathies, so for the time being it's Jamal the villain versus everyone else. We'll see how long that lasts!

“The Devils Are Here” was a fantastic re-entry into this lurid, ridiculous world and it accomplished everything it needed to. Time jump? Check. Familial dysfunction? Check. Insane outfits? You know it, friend. We may be only one hour into it, but so far our fears about this season were unfounded, and in a world where good news is so scarce, let's hold onto this occasion with both hands. Empire is BACK.

What did YOU think of the Empire Season 2 premiere?

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