TV Review: Empire Episodes 11 & 12

I think the last two episodes of Empire's first season are the most perfect encapsulation of what this season has been. I know that that might sound a bit like a compliment, but I don't think it's really intended to be. Because truth be told, the first hour in this two hour long extravaganza, "Die But Once," is brilliant for a number of different reasons, but the second hour, "Who I Am," is a train wreck. The Av Club Reviews of this season have often chided the show when it tackles issues surrounding the company or the music industry as a whole, but praised the show's work on the family and character level. In a nutshell, "Die But Once" is all about the characters and the Lyons family, and "Who I Am" in spite of its title is all about Empire Records and hostile corporate takeovers. As such, the writing is on the wall about which episode is the better of two. I also think that it's generally a better idea not to air two separate episodes back to back like this. I think there are a lot of good things to be said about a two-part episode being aired this way, or even two episodes of a show that's more tightly serialized than Empire is (look no further than the last day of How to Get Away With Murder episodes for an example of this). But what we had here were two very different episodes of the show that could have benefited from a week long break in between them.

But first things first, I'm going to try for a little optimism here and suggest something: What if the overall story of Empire's first season is a story about a hubristic man planning to bring his family together and unite them under his singular vision only to succeed in pushing them farther and farther apart? When you look at "Die But Once," that seems to be the suggestion. In the aftermath of Lucious' confession about his paternity of Lola, sending Camilla away, and leaving Andre alone with his illness, everyone (except Jamal, oddly) has just jumped clean off of the Lucious bandwagon. Cookie is off having a romantic weekend with Malcolm in the Berkshires, Hakeem is getting ready to sign with a different label and compose a freestyle that will be a blatant Fuck You to his father, and Andre is ready to turn in his resignation and give his life over to the Lord. Or to Jennifer Hudson, at least, and who can blame him on that front? And so it's in the penultimate episode that we finally see the fruits of all of Lucious' seeming labor. If when he sat his sons down in that first episode and purposed this little competition what he was hoping for was a moment when all of them would be standing shoulder to shoulder to bring Empire Records to the next step, then he was vastly mistaken.

But does that reading of the season track through all 12 episodes? His family didn't seem to be too torn apart at the beginning of that first episode. So what might he have been intending on bringing together? And at what point did we ever see Lucious doing anything that would ever benefit someone other than Lucious? So while I don't really accept that particular reading as gospel, it was the closet thing I could find to a seemingly full story that would have drawn to a close in these two episodes.

But that's to take nothing away from "Die But Once" itself which is a wonderfully engaging and entertaining episode for the show. Everything from Cookie and Malcolm's sexy fun times, to Becky's priceless sass, to Hakeem's revenge worked wonders. But the star of the hour had to be the latest in a season long run of Lucious and Jamal scenes; this one featuring the two of them banding together to make music. It's the honest culmination of their relationship. It's beautiful, moving, and powerful; the song they create is one of the better tracks the show produced all season, and it all can't help but to leave you feeling a bit warm and fuzzy inside.

If there's one downside to the scene, it's that it left me in a state of disbelief that Lucious could possibly have gone all this time without fully realizing just how talented Jamal is. I think the jealousy arc they set up back towards the beginning of the show (and never really touched on again) might account for some of that, but Jamal's been killing it on a level that Hakeem hasn't, and I'm simply not capable of believing that it would have taken this much time for Lucious, musical genius that he allegedly is, to see it. Here in lies the problem with Lucious' cartoonish level of homophobia. If you want me to believe that Lucious might try to deny that Jamal is his son, I'm willing to go with that, but if you want me to believe that because of Jamal's sexuality, Lucious would have spent years and years of his life ignoring his obvious talent, I can't really wrap my brain around that.

It's a powerfully moving scene when watched on its own, but it can take on a more sinister light when pitted against the scene where Lucious tells Jamal to get the rights to his old music by any means necessary. The scene where the two of them are making music is inter-cut with scenes of a murder Lucious committed. And then we see Jamal ready to throw Beretti from the roof in order to get what he wants. The suggestion is that in order for Lucious to fully accept Jamal, Jamal's got to become more like him. It also makes you wonder if Lucious' motivations for going off with Jamal and singing with him weren't this dark all along.

All of this brings us to the point where Lucious names Jamal the next leader of Empire records. These two episodes are written by Ilene Chaiken and Danny Strong, but both of them clarify just how much of Empire was always meant to be an exercise in Lee Daniels' own wish fulfillment. Daniels has been open about his own relationship with his father, and it's easy to see the parallels between his and Jamal's story. So I can't help but to think that Jamal getting the company and finally gaining Lucious' love and acceptance is meant to be something cathartic for Daniels. Whether or not it all rings true is is something I think everyone has to answer for themselves. I don't buy it, personally. I think especially in the wake of the news that he doesn't have ALS after all and won't necessarily be dying anytime soon, I think it's more likely that Lucious would put off making his decision for one more season just to give Hakeem more time to come around and find himself in a position to take over.

But Lucious naming Jamal as his successor is the decision that kicks off "Who I Am" and that leads to some of the most nonsensical moments of that finale. I mentioned before that these two episodes didn't have to be paired together on one night, but some part of me wonders whether or not Fox looked at them individually, saw how ridiculous this last one was, and then paired them together in the hopes that the first episode would carry enough positive momentum to propel viewers through the second and into hiatus without much complaint.

Lucious' decision has been made, the silly competition for who will run the company is over, and instead of allowing the brothers to heal and move past it, it simply incites a new revelry between them. Andre and Hakeem band together to unseat Jamal, and for some reason that isn't at all made clear and that I wouldn't buy anyway, Cookie joins them. Jamal and Cookie's relationship has been nothing but strong for this entire season, and yet in the course of one episode Jamal is pissed at Cookie for even entertaining the notion of killing Lucious, and Cookie seems to no longer think that Jamal should run Empire but that he should have immediately split it with Hakeem as soon as Lucious offered it to him.

Don't get me wrong, that's what I want too. I've been saying for weeks now that the perfect outcome for all of this would be the three bothers running company together. But the ease with which Cookie seems to jump from team Jamal to team Hakeem is ridiculous and it makes me think that she's less interested in her sons succeeding than she is in hitching her wagon up to whichever star will have the most benefit for herself. It's the first time I honestly stopped to wonder if Cookie was actually any better than Lucious at all. I'm also not saying that Jamal needn't be a bit disappointed in his mother for her homicidal intent, but the extent to which he looks shocked and disgusted was surprising to me. I think more of a "Well that's fucked up, Ma, but yeah I get it, he is a total dick after all," would have been more believable. But the look of betrayal on Jamal's face when Lucious showed him the tape of Cookie with the pillow was just a bit much to me.

"Who I Am" suffers, as all the worst episodes of this season did, from Empire's inability to slow the fuck down. It's a breakneck episode rushing through setting up the Empire Records line of succession, the hostile takeover, and Lucious' arrest for Bunkie's murder (yes the same Bunkie that none of us have really even thought about in many many weeks). In its rush to setup some of the foundation for next season, Empire forgot that they needed to produce a strong caper to this season.

The majority of what happens within it is ridiculousness without the excitement of typically good Empire ridiculousness. Vernon dies because little old Rhonda hits him with what looks like a small candle holder in order to get him off of Andre? Give me a break! I neither believe that she's strong enough or that that weapon was hefty enough to do that much damage. It's a scene that reeks of forced drama intended to set the stage for their major crisis next season, but it doesn't feel real or earned by any means.

The scenes where Lucious gets arrested and where Cookie and Anika finally get into the fight we've all been waiting for are far better earned by the show simply because they've been setup from the very first episode. Granted the show forgot all about Bunkie's existence until this week, but it was still a storyline we all knew would have to be addressed sooner or later. The only problem with both of those scenes is that neither of them have any sort of long standing consequences to the show as a whole. Cookie and Anika are agreeing to work together immediately after throwing blows, and we all know Lucious won't be in jail long. So why get invested?

 It's a bit weird that a show so perfectly encapsulates everything it's been all season in two episodes, but there you have it. It was shocking, juciey and entertaining in parts, and boring, convoluted, and nonsense in other parts. But seeing as how this inconsistency is exactly what we'd been given for the 10 episodes prior to these two, should we really have been surprised?

Random Thoughts:

--I mentioned it once but didn't go into details, but Lucious isn't dying after all. Instead of ALS he has Myasthenia Gravis which is actually a real thing. I expected there to be some kind of cop out with his march towards death, but I was hoping it would come in the form of some kind of miraculous new treatment, or some change in circumstances that just caused his symptoms to slow down or something. His not having ALS at all annoys me and I'm not totally sure why.

--Snoop Dogg was great in "Die But Once," and Hakeem's freestyle was a lot more skillful than I expected. It wasn't perfect, but given Hakeem's silver spoon issue and the thought that he would have ultimately bypassed that underground kind of rap battling left me unsure as to how good he could be expected to be.

--Mario Van Peebles and Debbie Allen directed these two episodes. I didn't notice anything remarkable about the direction of either, but I'll have to watch them through a second time to make sure. Either way, Empire's ability to draw in big names both behind and in front of the camera has to continue to be commended. Especially since Snoop Dogg and Patti LaBelle also found themselves in these episodes.

--I'm very sad to see Malcolm go right when he and Cookie were getting started. We'll miss you, Derek Luke. And your great abs too!

--Speaking of which, I think the sex scene between Malcolm and Cookie was award worthy!

--Also great was the Cookie and Anika fight. Partially because it was a long time coming and everything we hoped it would be, but also partially because of how surprised I was that Anika honestly held her own in it. I didn't expect it to be such a close bout.

--The speed with which Jamal seems to start serving his own interest over those of his brothers when he's named the successor is ridiculous and unbelievable. The suggestion seems to be that he's had this darker, more Lucious-like, seed within him all along, but I don't buy that for one second. They could have done much better.

--Going forward, I would love to see Empire finally start to slow down and take its time with more of its storylines, plan its seasons out in advance instead of just playing it episode by episode, and get to the point where its capable of making the business storylines just as entertaining as the family drama. I can't think of anything I'm less interested in than this hostile takeover story.

--Thanks for sticking it out with them through this first season. Hopefully I'll be able to do this again next year with the show's second season.

TV Review: Secrets and Lies: Episodes 1-4

I've developed a new addiction in the last couple weeks. This one to ABC's new drama Secrets and Lies. It's yet another American import of an overseas original. I haven't seen the Australian version of the show, and I can't help but to assume that that's a good thing. Not knowing what similarities or differences can be found between the two series has got to be a part of the reason I've enjoyed the show's first 4 hours. After all, it was the specter of the great Broadchurch which stopped me from being able to watch more than the first 15 minutes of Gracepoint. And here we have another import show based around a young boy's murder, so I can't help but to think that the best way to tackle this series is to go in blind. Having done so, I can say that this is yet another flawed, but supremely enjoyable TV series.

Secrets and Lies starts off with Ben Crawford (Ryan Phillippe) stumbling across the body of his young neighbor Tom Murphy. Distraught over the fact that he just found a young boy's body in the woods, and also by the fact that this was a child he was particularly close to, Ben rushes to call the cops and try to put the wheels in motion to find Tom's killer. Enter Detective Andrea Cornell (Juliette Lewis). Her job, of course, is to find out who killed Tom, but for all intents and purposes she's decided that the answer to that question is Ben Crawford, and all of her work over the course of the first four episodes has been about trying to prove that. What follows is a series of events in which Ben works to clear his name and make sure the finger of blame is pointing everywhere but at him, and Detective Cornell does some of the worst detective work imaginable as she tries to get enough evidence against Ben to make a conviction stick. And, of course, the news that a young boy from their neighborhood is dead and that their father and husband is suspected of the crime tears the Crawford family apart.

What sets Secrets and Lies apart from other whodunit mysteries is that it's not really about solving the mystery. The steps Ben and Cornell are taking to clear his name and convict it respectively are just pathways through which the real story flows. The important thing about this show is right there in the title (subtlety is not their strong suit). This crime and the subsequent investigation serve to out the Crawfords and their neighbors' many different secrets and expose their many deceptions. The family and town drama aspects are the better and stronger aspects of the show; on another series the reverse would be true. Just today I was talking to a friend about this series and she said she doesn't even care who killed Tom, she's just tuning in each week to see what new salacious tidbit will be revealed. And I couldn't agree more because the truth is that no resolution to this story is capable of being as fun or interesting as the things we've seen thus far and still stand to see in the future. The strength of Secrets and Lies is in the journey not the destination.

But for as good as the family drama and the episodic twists and turns are, the basic framework of the show is really shoddy. When they aren't dropping atomic truth bombs, they're fighting against a number of elements that continually pull me out of their storytelling. For starters, no one on the show seems to honestly believe that Ben is innocent. The people firmly in his corner are thus far limited to his youngest daughter Abby (Belle Shouse), and his best friend Dave (Dan Fogler). Dave is a deadbeat who spends the first four episodes living in a kind of mother-in-law-suite in Ben's backyard, so maybe take his support with a grain of salt. Tom's mother, Jess (Natalie Martinez), is also on team Ben, but whether that's because she honestly believes Ben wouldn't be capable of that, or because she still harbors feelings for him after the fling they had which produced Tom (not so incidentally) is a matter that's still up for debate.

But everyone else from the detective to his other neighbors to his wife and his oldest daughter all seem to think he did it. Or, at least in the case of his wife and oldest daughter, they don't seem to be sure one way or another. This surprises me most in the case of the wife and the neighbors. It's not that you wouldn't be sure of Ben's innocence were you close to him, but to think that he was at all capable of this act seems to be a base betrayal. We see Ben interact with people and it presents us with a picture of a man who's got along great with his neighbors for years now. All of a sudden they all think he's a child killer who should burn in hell? That's a big leap to take over night. And as for his wife,  Christy (KaDee Strickland), if she's ready to believe it's at all possible that her husband is a murderer, then why is she still with him at all?

The biggest place where the show seems to be straining credability is in the mystery and the murder investigation aspects. Ben is doing a lot of his own detective work to try and clear his name, and he's oddly kind of good at it. He at least finds Jess' abusive military husband who's on the run from the MP's and kind of from the cops too, and yet is found by Ben after an episode of looking. Ben Crawford is a painter, so where'd he get all these detective skills? Or is it that police work is so easy that anyone could do it? Because if that's the case, then why is Cornell so incapable? I don't think that the show is actually making the point that she is incapable so much as unwilling to look anywhere other than at Ben, but the extent to which she lacks any kind of counterbalancing is odd. No one else in the police department thinks she might be better served using the smallest amount of the effort she's putting into proving her suspicions to maybe look at other options?

Other than that, the show has a few logistical concerns to work out, some bad acting (or at least I think it's bad acting, it could just be poor character development) to overcome, and my overall biggest concern for it: how do you sustain this story over the course of multiple seasons? As I said before, I don't think that the question of who killed Tom Murphy is the central aspect of the show, but it is the skeleton holding all of these pieces together. And if it takes longer than a season to find out who killed Tom, or more importantly to prove once and for all that Ben didn't, then I think we're just in shoddy storytelling territory. But on the other hand, if that particular mystery is solved by the time this season is up, then what? Without the stress of the investigation, without the continued interactions between Ben and Cornell, then what is the show about? Do we stop revealing people's secrets and just start dealing full time with the fallout from those secrets? And even before that inevitability comes along, how long can the show continue to milk this shocking surprise for shock's sake methodology? Everyone has secrets and everyone lies, but for now those secrets are at least novel enough to keep us watching. Eventually they might either stop being surprising or have to get bigger and sillier and juicier just to keep our interest, and that'll put the show in shark jumping territory sooner rather than later. But for now, I don't think anyone is concerning themselves with those kinds of questions. The fact of the matter is the one thing this show does with great skill is reveal big sloppy secrets that can make jaws drop and people gasp with shock and anticipation. If that's their strong suit as well as the focal point of the series, then I'll continue to look forward to how they manage that each week.

Random Thoughts:

--About the bad acting thing, is it just me or is Juliette Lewis just the worst in this? I can't tell if her one expression, cardboard robot routine is the result of bad acting or something deeper going on with her character, but I think we need answers quick. If her character is somewhere on the autism spectrum, then I'd like to know for sure and I'll engage with her differently, but if she's not, then I'd like for her to develop a bit of range and more emotions.

--I hate to put this on a child but there's some odd choices being made with Ben's youngest daughter too. I don't want to think that Belle Shouse is a bad actress, but I also can't tell. I think the problem is probably more of the script's fault. She seems to be written a lot younger than that actress appears to be. A lot of her lines and affectations at least feel like they'd be better on a 7 or 8 year old, and while I don't know how old Shouse is in real life, my guess is around 11.

--Back on the subject of Jess' abusive military husband: I find him to be laughably unbelievable as a villain. He's a super military guy with specialized training who breaks into Ben's house in the night in order to stand over and him and make stupid threats. I'm not saying people like him don't exist, I'm just saying I have a hard time taking him seriously.

--One aspect of the story that I didn't talk about is the core spiral of Ben's mental state as he deals with these accusations. He no longer knows who he can trust, his family is kind of imploding, his teenage daughter is being as teenagery as you can get, and his paranoia is causing him to lash out at those closest to him and do stupid things. It all makes perfect sense and it's ridiculously fun to watch. To the extent that this is a story about how hard and impossible it is to keep it all together in the face of being accused of a murder you (probably) didn't commit, it's really quite brilliant. In fact, after the last two episodes, I'd say that that story is even better than the who's hiding what aspect of the show.

TV Review: Empire Episode 10: Sins of the Father

There's a common theme that creeps up in a number of stories and shows and countless other places: It doesn't matter where you start, it only matters what you become. I think it's a quintessentially American point of view. In a country that's founded on, or at least that has greatly embraced the principals that anyone can transcend their parents' station and just pull themselves up by their bootstraps and become anything they want to be, the idea that someone can start as a pauper and end as a prince is not only fanciful but believable. It's a story that I enjoy, but as a method of storytelling, it's something I find suspect. This is because in a perfect world the story would track at a consistent quality and pace throughout. But the world isn't perfect, and sometimes stories stumble out of the gate only to pick up steam in the middle and then rocket home at the end. And sometimes there are stories like the one about Jamal's alleged daughter. It was a horribly problematic beginning, a pointless and mostly absent middle, and then an explosive and surprisingly moving end. So I ask, if two thirds of the story were problems, but the last third totally sticks the landing, does it really matter? And what does this mean for the series as a whole? Empire started out strong, waned a bit in the middle, and now seems to be heading towards an entertaining if disconnected season finale. So what does that mean for the show as a whole through its first season?

I'm not sure about the answers to these questions. Chances are they're all purely subjective, but this episode was so enjoyable that I can't help but to ask them. It's not that I think this is the first episode that's been legitimately good in awhile. It's just that this is the first episode where the good soapy silliness was so good as to make the unbelievable ridiculous moments moot by comparison. Malcolm is declaring his deep love for Cookie after sharing only like three scenes with her and just last week explaining why she's off limits to him? Who cares, I ship it anyway so let's just get on with the sexy fun times. Olivia's back with her abusive boyfriend who's basically come back in order to get her and her daughter back so he can kill them? Who cares so long as we get the bombshell that Lola is actually Lucious' daughter and not Jamal's! The last few episodes of the show have had some fun moments, a few zingers, but no revelations on par with this. Jamal's coming out isn't as big a moment since we've known he was gay all along. Even Andre's psychotic break isn't all that surprising as you could have guessed it was coming since the moment the word bipolar was spoken. But this? You may have guessed that Lola wasn't Jamal's. You may even have speculated that she was Lucious'. But there's no way to guess at the effect that that news would have when divulged in this manner.

And that's the real treat of the episode. The news that Lucious is the father is actually secondary to the fact that he would tell everyone not in a moment of self-aggrandizement, not in an effort to hurt Jamal, but at a moment when he thinks that that information might actually save everyone's lives. Is it a purely selfless act? I'm not so sure I'd go that far, but it's certainly as close as I think Lucious Lyon is capable of getting. And it's this element that impresses and intrigues me the most. Not even half an hour after telling Jamal that Lola doesn't need to be raised "In that lifestyle" (we'll come back to this issue later), he's willing to throw himself in front of a bullet in order to save Jamal's life. If there's one place Empire has been consistent throughout these ten episodes, it's in the complications in the Lucious/Jamal relationship. Lucious seems to hate him, and yet he'd take a bullet for him. Jamal undermines Lucious at every turn, and yet he's ready to sing on the family song after hearing that Lucious is dying. Their relationship goes so much deeper than just gay son and bigoted dad, and that will forever be to the show's credit. I've complained about the uselessness of Lola's presence multiple times since she was introduced four episodes ago, and I stand by those complaints wholeheartedly, but if this is where the show was heading all along, I'll scale back my criticism.

Another story seems to end this week but this one simply fizzles out instead of getting the bang that Lola and Olivia get. Camilla is gone. Hopefully for good, but ultimately who knows. She spends a lot of time this week trying to makeover Hakeem, give him a new sound, and using the word "we" when she's talking about his career, but by the end of the episode Lucious has shipped her back to her homeland not to return until he's dead. On the one hand, I'm happy to see her go, on the other hand what did we actually learn about her, or through her about Hakeem, while she was with us? In my notes while watching the episode, I question who she was, what was her motivation, and what was she getting out of this entire relationship? We can do a lot of the shading in of this character ourselves, and perhaps that's the show's ultimate goal, but I would like to at least feel like the show has the answers to these questions instead of putting it all on the viewer, and I'm not sure I left this episode feeling as though that was the case. It would have been an interesting development had she actually taken the money and we saw that she'd been just using Hakeem all this time to get out of her considerable debt. But she didn't, so it seems as though she wasn't, and if not that then what? Love? Camilla truly loving Hakeem is a possibility that would make sense, but I'm not sure how interesting I'd find it in the grand scheme of things. Either way, what a waste of Naomi Campbell that turned out to be.

There are also two small moments in this episode that reek of the show wanting to make mention of a big issue only to then skate over it and not engage with it fully. The first comes at the beginning of the hour when Cookie makes a passing mention of how bipolar disorder and music therapy are just silly white people nonsense. Here's a moment when the show could fully engage with the problematic manner in which the black community tends to view mental illness and how that often leads to people of color not getting the help they need to make it through such troubled waters. But instead the show treats it as a funny Cookie throwaway one liner and moves on. Even later in the episode when Jamal calls Lucious on the way he ignores issues about his kids that don't fit in with his perfect little world view, it's treated more as just another instance of Lucious' bigotry than the deeper racial problem that it is.

The other moment is in Lucious' conversation with Vernon. He mentions how he would expect the power grab move from Andre since Andre is book smart, but he never would have expected it from Vernon who's street smart and therefore should have known better. The difference between the two and the manner in which Lucious clearly values the latter over the former could be important. It's a subject the show has touched on a couple times now. But yet again it's just a quick one off mention meant to spur Vernon's drug fueled pity party and make him the catalyst for the episode's big climax.

Next week is Empire's big two hour season finale. Based on the preview, I can't say that I'm not ridiculously excited to see what the big soapy drama that will have everyone talking on Thursday will be. But what I'm more interested in is whether or not they can stick the landing. Empire started strong, got bumpy in the middle, and now has the ability to finish strong as well. If it does that, they'll have bookended the first season well, and I think most people will easily forgive the questionable middle passages. But if it simply fizzles out like the Camilla storyline did, then a few people might find themselves questioning why they spent those thirteen hours going along for the ride in the first place.

Random Thoughts:

--I mentioned early on in these reviews that one of the good things about this show could end up being the way it was capable of zigging when you expected it to zag. One place where I would have liked to see that happen is in Lucious' conversation with Jamal about why Lola shouldn't live with him. It'd have been funny if Jamal was assuming he meant he didn't want Lola raised by a gay guy when what he actually meant was he didn't want her to be raised by a poor person in the hood. Still problematic, but since I've recently become exhausted with each new iteration of Lucious' extreme homophobia, it would have been a breath of fresh air.

--I understand the easy interpretation of Lucious coming clean had more to do with him stepping in to save Cookie than it did him stepping in to save Jamal, but I like my reading better.

--When we got around to the reappearance of Olivia, I found myself thinking that she didn't seem to have any of the same manic fire that she did when she was dropping Lola off in the first place. One thing this ending did was give me the ability to re-conceptualize that earlier scene. If her manic presentation was more about a woman stressing out over coming to the conclusion that her only option to save her daughter was to give her away, then I think it makes a bit more sense. It'll be interesting to rewatch those scenes with this outcome in mind.

--With that being said, however, I would have liked to see a bit more emotional distress from Raven-Seymone in the scene where she's about to leave the state. If you're upset you had to leave your baby with Jamal in the first place, maybe you can also be upset that you're about to flee the state and officially never see her again at all.

--Nice work from Jennifer Hudson in her first guest starring episode. The scene where she asks Andre to pray with her when it looks like she's about to seduce him was another nice moment of the show subverting viewer expectations. Although the "Pray your troubles away" approach might fall in the black people not getting the mental help they need category.

--The flashback hair in this episode was just atrocious.

--Ryan left Jamal when Jamal decided he wanted to be a full time father to Lola. It's a development that I honestly don't care about one way or another as I'm not really attached to Ryan and because I'm not at all attached to the idea that Jamal had actually grown enough as a character to make that decision on his part make any kind of sense. But I did like the way they were capable of having a grownup discussion about it in which neither of them had to come off as the bad guy. It places them a step up above Jamal and Michael as much as it pains me to say it.

TV Review: Empire Episode 9: Unto the Breach

I think this week saw one of the better episodes of Empire that we've seen in awhile, but I also think that the heydays of the show's first block of episodes is officially dead and gone. That's not to say that the show isn't entertaining any longer, because nothing could be farther from the truth on that one. But the revelatory nature of the show's early movements are gone. Gone are the days when I thought we were in for some grand sweeping pronouncements and deep storylines dealing intelligently with topics that we just didn't see being touched on as often in TV. I'm mourning for those (seeming) losses, but still nowhere near close to wanting to give up on this show. Because at the end of the day, even considering the ridiculous lows this show is capable of hitting, it never ceases to be fun to watch.

One of the places the show teeters on the line between important storytelling, and silly soapy nonsense is in the Andre storyline this week. Allow me to start with a disclaimer: I do not have, nor have I lived with or spent an abundance of time with anyone who does have bipolar disorder, at least not to the extent that Andre seems to. All of my limited experience on the subject comes from storylines on other shows and years of watching ER. With that being said, I don't buy the progression of Andre's illness and symptoms this week. I'm not saying that it's impossible; again I have no extensive knowledge of this kind of thing. I'm simply saying that I don't buy it. I don't believe that someone could stop taking their meds and in the course of less than 24 hours proceed from a relatively stable state into a complete manic state such as we see Andre in before the episode's midway point. It's another situation where the show needs to (say it with me now) slow down.

Had Andre gone off of his meds in the last episode, and slowly spiraled into his manic state, this wouldn't be a concern. Or if the episode had taken place over the course of a couple days instead of the one day it's clearly established to have taken place in, this wouldn't be a concern. But when I spend more of my time saying "It doesn't make sense for him to have hit this low this quickly," then my attention is taken away from what he's doing and how the other characters are reacting to same. Which brings us to one of the more pivotal moments in the episode: the elevator scene. I think this scene would be important even without being underscored by Andre's mania since its really the first scene between the three brothers without the divisive influence of their wives or parents. But I couldn't help but to imagine just how much better the entire thing would have played out with more build up to it. What if Andre went off his meds an episode or more ago and we watched a progressive spiraling of his mental state over time? And what if two or three episodes back we were treated to a flashback scene of the boys living in that bad neighborhood and gunshots are heard and Andre is the one that rushes to get Jamal and Hakeem, both of whom are crying, and get them both down on the ground in case more gunshots ring out. And while they're all down there crying and afraid, Andre starts to sing Lean on Me, and Jamal quiets down with tear streaks all down his face, and baby Hakeem even stops squalling to listen. And then you jump to this episode where Andre, hitting the rock bottom of his days long cycle, freaks out while trapped in the elevator and in the midst of his yelling and panicking, all we hear is Jamal and Hakeem starting to sing and beat box Lean on Me, and it calms and quiets their older brother down. The benefits of those changes, of that little bit of per-planing on behalf of the show would have worked wonders. You're welcome, Empire, I fixed the scene.

Not that the scene, as is, is fully broken, per se. The truth is that I watched that scene and felt the intended emotion from it. It didn't bring tears to my eyes or anything (though I think had it happened the way I prescribed above, then it would have), but I certainly understood where they were going with it all and I was able to meet them halfway. All I'm saying is that those little things that the show still isn't doing to the best of its ability takes a scene that could be great and meaningful and important and leaves them just good. Maybe to a certain extent this is just me trying to enforce my own view of what the show could and should be onto it. Maybe Empire has no interest in being great or important on that level. But if that's the case, then I think there's a serious problem with some of what they've leveled against their characters. If you don't have something meaningful to say about living with bipolar disorder, then making one of your main characters bipolar starts to feel like a gimmick. It feels exploitative and reductive to people living with it if the only reason you made Andre bipolar is so that you could have scenes of heightened drama and explosiveness. There's more to a person with mental illness than that, but I'm not sure that there's more to Andre than that. In the end, I feel as though none of the writers have ever dealt with mental illness, and as such, Andre feels like a token. I may be wrong around that, but if I am and if this is something the writers have first hand knowledge of, then they need to do a better job making it feel real and accessible to the rest of us.

The rest of the episode is pretty standard Empire fare. Lucious' bigotry is kicked up a few notches in the wake of Jamal's coming out. It was expected, but I thought the show missed an opportunity here. If Lucious' anger had been based more on Jamal's ability to take one of his old songs and update it, personalize it, and make it into something that was even more successful than before, then I think that would have been a more interesting development than the basic "I'm not going to respect any of the good you do just because you're gay" angle. Cookie's in rare form as she plays a drinking game with a group of men in order to ensure one of Empire's artist doesn't jump ship. She gets in a few great lines with Derek Luke's character, and then is magically sober again a couple hours later and ready to go for a meeting to bring Tiana back into the fold.

Speaking of which, it would appear that my prayers have been answered on the Tiana front, by which I mean that she came back around for another episode. I think the way she's handled in this episode is the equivalent of praying for food and someone handing you a poisoned apple. She's staying with Empire, but there's no real evidence that we'll be seeing more of her in the future, there's no mention of her sexuality (in an episode where Jamal's sexuality is a topic on just about everyone's lips no less), and for some reason that I don't even think the writers understand she wants to get back with Hakeem. Where was it established that she and Hakeem were meant to be some kind of deep forever love? I was under the impression that for Tiana at least their's was always more of a show relationship than anything deeper. Or is that still the case and all she wants is to be back with him for the boost it'll offer her career? Not knowing the answer to this question doesn't bother me nearly as much as my feeling that the writers don't know either.

But for all of this complaining (and really it's a lot more complaining than I originally intended there to be), the episode was fun, funny, and entertaining. The soapy moments are ridiculous, no one believes for a second that Lucious' and Baretti's men would be found in a Mexican standoff in the middle of the streets in broad daylight, but that doesn't make it any less fun to watch. And one place where the show's breakneck speed continues to work for them can be found in the first scene where Cookie outs Anika's backstabbing to Lucious. In another show, this would have hung over the characters heads for a lot longer, but here one episode ends with Anika going to Baretti's office and the next episode begins with Lucious being told about it. It's something I'll continue to respect the show for, I just wished they knew how to balance it. After all, anyone who drives with their foot constantly on the accelerator is eventually going to end up wrapped around a lamp pole somewhere.

Random Thoughts:

--If you want to see what I think of as a bipolar storyline done well, look to Showtime's Shameless. The way that show has been handling Ian for the past two seasons, and the things they were capable of showing with Monica in the first few seasons have just been stellar. The rest of the show is crap, but it continues to get the Ian storyline right on multiple levels.

--Another slight problem I have with the show is that we're only 3 episodes away from the season finale and it still doesn't really feel like we're building towards anything. I'm worried that when everyone looks back at the overarching story of the first season, we'll all be disappointed to find that there really wasn't one.

--Lucious as much as admits that he's tapped Hakeem as the person he wants running Empire when he's gone. This is what I suspected from the beginning as being the only reason the competition was introduced back in the pilot. Andre's got the most business sense and has worked there for years, so he makes the most sense, but it was clear from the start that Lucious wanted Hakeem. Which makes so much of the foundation of the show seem a little faulty in a couple ways.

--But along those lines, if there's one thing I'll continue to say for sure about this story, it's that all three of the brothers running the business together continues to be the outcome that just makes the most sense. The elevator scene confirmed this for me.

TV Review: Empire Episode 8: The Lyon's Roar

What came first, the Character or the Story? I know it seems like a very writerly riddle, but I do think it's a perfectly valid question. If I have the most amazing story ever told, does it matter if the characters within it are a little bland and two-dimensional? Conversely, if I have the most fascinating characters, can I get away with a story that's a little less interesting? I think the best stories strike a balance between those two forces; placing interesting characters in interesting situations and having them do interesting things as a result is always the best way to go. But in a show's first season, typically, I think we might be more likely to have to choose one or the other. I don't think this is anyone's fault; it's simply down to the logistics of storytelling. How well rounded and flushed out can a character be within an ensemble after only seven hours? So if the character work is improbable after such a (relatively) small amount of time, then the story should swoop in and pick up the slack, right? But if I were to ask you what the central story of any given Empire episode was, could you tell me?

I was bored at work not too long ago and I asked a few friends of mine to name Buffy episodes for me to watch. A couple people responded by telling me that they don't remember the names of individual episodes, so they couldn't really help me. To this I responded, "Simply tell me the story of the episode in question, and I'll tell you the title of the episode." I'm capable of doing this partially because I've watched through Buffy more times than I can count, but mostly because Buffy is a show in which almost every episode is centered around a specific and memorable storyline. This is where I'm starting to think that Empire is facing the biggest problem. Any given week with this show is less about a central storyline and more about a string of things that happen. This week, there's a party, Cookie and Lucious hook up again with Lucious promising to dump Anika, Jamal comes out, and Andre and Vernon work together to try and get Andre on the books as the Interim CEO in case Lucious is incapacitated at any given time, but those are plot points within a story, not a story in and of themselves. So what is this episode centrally about? What is any episode of this show about when you get right down to it?

It's not that Empire hasn't been facing these problems all along. In spite of my praise of the show, these cracks have always been there. It's just that the ride was so much fun before now that it simply didn't matter. "The Lyon's Roar" just isn't fun. Nor is it particularly enlightening outside of a couple small moments. Ultimately, what we're left with is an episode that doesn't really get its characters or its story right, and it's all left feeling messy.

On the character front, I think we need to talk about Andre. This is one of the few Andre focused episodes of this first season, and I think everything suffered because of it. Empire has big and important things to say about art and artists, but as such, it doesn't seem to know what to say about the only non-artistic Lyon in the group. Andre's initial position within the show seemed to be about mental illness, and living with bipolar disorder, but that seems to have taken a backseat as of late.  So all that's left for him is his status as a good business man. But is he even that in this episode? The idea to be the interim CEO comes from Vernon, not from Andre. That seems like a simple enough idea that someone with all the learning Andre's amassed should have been able to come up with much sooner. His next big calculation in an attempt to get the votes he needs to make this happen is to pimp his wife out to one of the board members. This seems like the kind of thing that can work, until the plan goes wrong, Rhonda sees who she's supposed to be seducing, and decides she doesn't want to play anymore. And the closest thing a backup plan that Andre has seems to be calling another board member and simply asking him for his vote, which works out just fine. So why were we put through that painful dinner scene in the first place?

It all boils down to Empire not really knowing who its characters are. And how could they when the characters seem to change at the drop of a hat. One week Andre is a seeming business genius, the next he can't even figure out a way to make sure he can get the votes needed to be named interim CEO to the company he's worked at all his adult life. One week the Lyons are all banding together in the face of the knowledge of Lucious' illness, the next week Lucious is laying bare the long list of problems he has with Andre's wife. The sad thing about this moment is that it's actually a great storyline for Empire to tackle, but it comes so fast out of nowhere that you're only left with a vague feeling of WTF instead of a serious idea of what it all means. Empire continues to be a show with a lot to say, but with very little understanding of the best way to go about saying it.

That is, on just about every topic except for Art and Jamal's sexuality. At this point, I'm left wondering why the entire series isn't just a string of scenes about Jamal being gay and arguing with Lucious and other characters about the importance of Art and Music. The entire sequence of Jamal's coming out is about as perfect as we've seen from the show. From he and Lucious' discussion about why they do what they do (for the music of course, which will live on long after both of them are dead), to the overwhelming support coming from everyone in the audience except Lucious when they hear how Jamal's given a queer edit to the song. The entire audience cheers, the camera lingers on every one of the major characters in attendance, all of them give nods and salutes of approval, and Lucious simply stands there stone faced. It's the culmination of what the show, and Cookie, have been saying all along, and Cookie isn't shy about saying it again: no one but Lucious cares about Jamal's sexual orientation. He came out, he's been a huge story on the 24 hour news cycle, and the world keeps spinning.

But when all is said and done, will "The Lyon's Roar" be remembered as Jamal's coming out episode? Is that the core story of the hour? It's true that the issue of Jamal coming out is brought up early in the hour in the scene between him and Hakeem at the church, and then culminates in the act itself, but I don't know that I feel like there's enough there for it to even be the B-plot of the episode. Especially in the face of the story being teased out over the course of all eight of these first episodes. It feels more like the culmination of a season long story than anything self-contained within this hour. This episode left me feeling like Empire's actual longevity might be in question. The meteoric rise in viewership over this first season will probably be more than enough to keep it on the air through two, maybe even three seasons, but ask yourself this: What will Empire look like upon rewatch, or more specifically on binge watch. When people sit down to either relive this first season, or to introduce their skeptical friends to it during the upcoming hiatus, will they be as impressed and excited as we were through those first five or six hours, or will they struggle to latch onto any of the flat characters or find any of the non-existent episode to episode storylines?

Random Thoughts:

--I'm also really just pissed off at the show's treatment of Tiana. Given the fact that we haven't seen her again since her own big coming out episode, it feels like everything about her only served to further Hakeem's storyline, and I'm sick of seeing interesting female characters sidelined or used as props in a male character's story.

--Unless I'm mistaken, this is the first episode that's both written and directed by Danny Strong. Danny's had some serious writing success lately, and as a Buffy Alum I wish him all of the best, but this was not a very good showcase for his talents. All of the characters basically just say what they're thinking, and there wasn't any kind of special flare to the directing that I could see. I think he should stick to writing, but I also think he can show himself as being a stronger writer than this episode presented him as.

--The White Party at the center of the episode must be a different White Party than the one I'm thinking of.

--I can't express enough how disappointed I am that this is the first we're hearing about Lucious' feelings towards Andre marrying a white woman. I think Andre's self-consciousness about his lack of musical ability has been an undercurrent to the show and the character all along, so that doesn't surprise me, but the thought that he married a white woman and went to school in order to be accepted within white culture is new. As well as Lucious' feelings towards same, and the idea that no matter how hard Andre works for that acceptance, it's not possible. There are so many threads that the show could tease out here, and yet it does a disservice to all of them by speeding through them in that one scene.

--Something else that felt rushed, or at least unearned by the show was Hakeem's statement that he's always felt like Cookie loved Jamal more than she loved him. On the one hand, I want to say that that's a fair and succinct way to bottle up all of Hakeem's anger and frustration towards her, but on the other hand I don't get it. Cookie was in prison for 17 years, all of Hakeem's life basically, but he says she always paid more attention to Jamal than to him. For all those years, was she sending Jamal birthday and Christmas gifts from the slammer and not sending any to Hakeem? She wasn't really in a place, I assume, from which she was capable of reaching out, so what specifically happened to make Hakeem feel that way? Also, why then is all of his anger over that placed on her and none of it towards Jamal? It makes more sense that that feeling of neglect would sour his and Jamal's relationship as well, and yet it doesn't seem to have done so.

--Point to fact, Jamal and Hakeem seem to be great at a number of points in this episode. The scene at the end with Hakeem telling his big brother just how proud he is of him and just how brave he is was the single best moment of the night. That relationship continues to pay dividends.

--What does Jamal having a daughter add to the character or the overall plot and story of the show? So far I continue to say nothing, but it's possible I'm just missing something. It all seems like a horrible waste to me though.

TV Review: Empire Episode 7: Our Dancing Days

I think that sometimes it can be easy to forget that at its core Empire is about family. Or at least it ostensibly wants to be about family; on a week to week basis, Empire is about a million different things. But the show is rooted in family and I think most of its best moments stem from that root. If the chaos of the last couple episodes caused anyone to forget this important point, then here comes "Our Dancing Days" to help us remember.

But before the episode can be all family all the time, there's some fallout from last week they need to take care of. Namely, Michael's leaving Jamal. After he refused to come out during his interview last week, Michael has decided that it's a better idea to end things now before it gets worse. I've spoken before about Empire's refusal to slow its storytelling down and how that works both for and against the show at times, this is an example of the latter. How are we supposed to feel about Michael's decision? For that matter, how are we supposed to feel about Michael? Is he the first casualty of Jamal's meteoric rise to fame, or is he just a selfish nearsighted weakling who doesn't have the guts to stick it out. If I'm being honest, I'm inclined to take option number two, and I kind of think the show feels that way as well. Over the course of the last two episodes both Cookie and Lucious have mentioned that Michael isn't the one for Jamal because he doesn't understand how hard it is to love an artist. And in the end, they're right. I don't know that it necessarily is harder to love an artist than it is to love anyone else, but I do know that given the way the story has gone, Michael doesn't seem to have been cut out for it. It's not that Michael's desire to be acknowledged publicly (as well as privately) isn't valid, of course it is, but if he's unable to understand that at least for the moment he's got to be ok with being second to Jamal's young career, then he really isn't worth Jamal's time. In a situation where Michael has been number one for the duration of time that they've been dating, I don't think Jamal was asking too much expecting him to take a backseat briefly while his music took off.

Therefore, lines like Michael's "No I love you, you love music," don't feel earned. Every so often, Empire is going to fall into the trap of playing up it's soapy elements a bit more than it probably should, but something like the Michael--Jamal dilemma simply doesn't work. By rushing through the plot and forcing the story to take place over the course of two episodes, it leaves the entire thing feeling hollow. It also says something very negative about a character I had grown to like. It's really not that the storyline is a bad one for the show to run with, it's just that it doesn't make sense for it to happen in the 7th episode of a 12 episode season. Especially when the seeds for it were only planted one episode ago. For what I'm sure won't be the last time, I have to tell Empire to slow the hell down!

While the relationship drama fell flat this week, the family drama was perfect. Everything from Lucious falling sick at the beginning of the hour and being forced to pick Anika over Cookie to accompany him to the hospital, to the ongoing feud between Jamal and Hakeem, to the scene where Lucious finally comes clean about his ALS worked wonders. In life, things change, and of course in Empire things change rapidly, but family is the one constant. That's accentuated in this episode in the scene between Lucious and Jamal, and of course in the scene where Lucious tells his family about his illness. The Lucious--Jamal scene is the latest of many, but I think it might also be the best one yet. For what seems like the first time, they aren't yelling or insulting one another, they aren't at each other's throats, they're simply being there for one another. Jamal, in a moment that I do think reeks of the show's particular penchant for throwing consistency out the window, goes to his father for solace over Michael leaving and over the mess he finds himself in with his new found daughter. Lucious, to his credit, actually offers kind words of wisdom and some serious help on both fronts. He even expresses his hope that one day Jamal will meet a person who can love him the way he deserves. He says person! It's not as much of a victory as it would have been if he had said man, but it's no where near as dismissive as it would have been if he had said woman, so that's some serious progress for Lucious Lyons.

The capper to tonight's episode is of course the scene where Cookie and Lucious finally find themselves in bed together after 7 episodes of sexual tension so thick you could cut it with a knife. The entire thing is soapy and a bit contrived, but the fact that it's been building for the entire season at least allows it to make a certain kind of sense. Is it hackneyed that Cookie and Lucious sleep together after he shows himself to be vulnerable and tells her about his ALS? Of course it is. Is it horribly played out that Anika just so happens to come home and catch them sleeping together? You know it! But it's the payoff to 7 long hours of the two of them flirting around the issue, and of Henson and Howard lighting the screen on fire with their chemistry, so we'll take it.

Cookie and Lucious is actually the closest thing to a slow burn that the show has had thus far. While the two of them haven't come a long way from where they were in that pilot episode, the seeds for this development have certainly been germinating long enough for it to work. It was obvious and predictable is so many ways, but it was something the writers took their time getting to and allowed to develop organically. The best case scenario moving forward would be that they found the patience to treat more of their storylines this way and fewer of them the way they treated Jamal and Michael. I don't expect that to be the case, but I certainly hope that it is.

Random Thoughts:

--Even though I've felt that the Hakeem and Jamal rivalry of the last few episodes has been a bit forced, their truce in this episode, however brief it might turn out to be, was highly moving. Some part of this is because I like the show a lot more when the two of them are on the same side. But I also find reconciliation storylines to be cathartic in general.

--This marks another week without Tiana. Even though she's mentioned in passing between Hakeem and Camilla, she doesn't actually show up. I find the possibility that she wouldn't be at the huge event at the center of tonight's episode to be laughable at best and her continued absence is problematic. I think I'll give them one more week and then I'll start yelling for them to bring her back. It's a horrible waste of a fascinating character and a great storyline if they don't use her again. And with the extreme lack of fascinating female characters on TV (esp queer female characters) this would be unforgivable.

--Forgive me while I digress a little here, but the moment when it became clear that Glee wasn't going to be worth anyone's time anymore was when the show started to introduce interesting and important story developments only to then forget them the very next week. I bring this up because I feel like I'm starting to see a lot of that same tendency in Empire. Both shows come from Fox, both are musicals, and both are soapy to an extreme. But I think we have to continue to hope that Empire is capable of reaching far higher than Glee ever did. These comparisons might come more frequently in the future, but for now I think it's important to remember that Glee was equally as promising through its first 13 episodes as Empire has been through its first 7.

--From the Hot Mess Pile: Camilla continues to be hot mess fodder. It feels like she's falling prey to the show's inherent lack of consistency. This week, she's sick of just being Hakeem's secret side piece and wants more. Where did this come from? She didn't seem to have a problem with it before. Just go with it I guess.

--So I guess we're to assume that Jamal really is that girl's father? Does this add anything at all to the show, the character, or the story in general? I was initially excited for the manic injection of life I thought Raven-Seymone would bring to the series, but if we've lost her and are just keeping the kid, then I'm going to say that this is stupid and pointless.

TV Review: Empire Episode 6: Out, Damned Spot

I've been sitting with my thoughts on this episode for the last couple days and I still don't fully know what to say. I think this week's Empire is the weakest the show has been thus far, but I don't think it was a boring or a bad episode. If we start with the good, I've got to say I like the focus on Jamal and Michael's relationship. They've always been cute and a high point of the series for me, but their scenes until now have mostly been the two of them being adorable with one another and not much more. I think a cute lovey relationship is great, but without some kind of complication it won't be believable. They get complicated, and it makes them seem more real than they were before, but I'm not sure how I feel about the tone of the storyline thus far. More on that in a bit.

Also in the good category is the introduction of a couple new guest stars. While I don't know that I like Elle (played by Courtney Love) or Olivia (played by a fired up Raven-Symone) just yet, I do maintain that the show's ability to draw in stars of this caliber bodes well down the line. Which isn't to say that either Love or Symone are a-listers or anything, but still, it was nice to see their faces.

Sadly I think that that's about where my compliments end this week. "Out, Damned Spot" was a bit of a mess in a lot of ways, but more importantly it was evidence that Empire hasn't got a very strong grasp on its serialized storylines thus far. Where was the fallout from Cookie having an innocent man murdered last week? The show going away from Tiana for an episode isn't a problem, but why has the Titan storyline, a story I thought should be a cornerstone for the show thematically going forward, not been brought up again since its introduction. Partially my frustration with this is rooted in my own opinion that that shouldn't have been a one time throw away episodic plot point. But the other part of my annoyance has to do with the fact that the other aspect of that story (Lucious' dealings with the nation of Islam) seemed to be seeds that could and should have germinated into full bloom by now. Or at least the buds should be opening. Instead the show's simply forgotten that it dropped that juicy tidbit for us at all and is on to other things.

The big stories are still progressing. Lucious' ALS takes another large step forward and he starts a highly unsafe (and really stupid) experimental drug trial which isn't even legal in the States. In the stand out moment of the episode, Cookie finds out that Lucious and Anika are getting married and blows up at them both. The entire episode was well worth it to see Taraji Henson in that sexy lingerie though. And Hakeem continues to spiral in the wake of his discovery about Tiana cheating on him. But while those stories are all touched on here, nothing really moves decidedly forward. There are more beginnings in this episode than there are middles or endings, and that just leaves it feeling kind of aimless.

And some of the beginnings in questions might leave a bit to be desired. As I stated before, I enjoyed the fact that Jamal and Michael were getting complicated in this episode, but the idea that Michael was worried he'd get left behind in favor of fame and fortune and the only way to combat that is for Jamal to agree that they go away for a weekend felt a bit hackneyed. I don't think that those concerns are invalid in any way, but I do think that we've seen that story a million times before and played out in many different ways, so do we really need to see it here. I don't think that Michael's pain at being dismissed by Jamal's statement that there isn't anyone important in his life right now is the wrong way for the story to go. I think the show's insistence on showcasing the homophobia in the black community has to include the ways in which that homophobia can be internalized. Cookie is seen off stage while Jamal is giving his interview, and her reaction shots to the questions are left open to interpretation. Is she warning him not to do it, or is she commiserating with him that this moment was inevitable and she knows it's tough but he has to make his own decision? I'm inclined to think the latter given her previous interest in throwing lavish coming out press conferences for him, but the truth is that I'm not sure. The scene between Cookie and Michael, and a later scene between her and Jamal suggest that she might have some reservations after all. If she's not concerned that her son is dating another man, then she's at least not happy about the man he's chosen.

Which brings me to another problematic aspect of the episode: Cookie doesn't think Michael is right for Jamal because he wants to be a chef? Don't get me wrong, I understand that Cookie would value ambition over what she might see as settling for a regular job, but I think the show should steer clear of the suggestion that finding something other than music or art that you enjoy and are good at and pursuing it as a career is somehow an unworthy goal. And in any event who's to say that Michael doesn't have ambitions of opening his own restaurant some day? I don't think Cookie's position should be that Jamal find someone in the same line of work or with the exact same drive and passion as himself.

All of that combines to make up what I thought was the weak link in an otherwise strong chain of six episodes. I don't think the series has stumble so hard that it can't recover, but it needs a return to stories that feel fresh, and to remember the stories that made it more than just a simple nighttime soap. I think primetime soap is a fine thing to be if that's all you're striving for, but I think Empire wants to be more and it's shown itself as capable of being more, but in order for it to accomplish that it needs to not peter out at the midway point of its first season.

Random Thoughts:

--Really Michael? You want to go to Fire Island? Do gay men in New York really still go to Fire Island? I haven't been, so I speak from no point of authority on this, but that line felt like it was written by a straight man who has only read about what gay men do in books.

--Also in the really Michael? category: expecting Jamal to just drop everything and go away for the weekend. I mean in his defense, if Jamal agrees to do something, I think he could try a little harder to keep his promise, but I think we all know it was an unreasonable request to begin with. No one with a new job can just drop everything at the drop of a hat and go away for a stretch of time, so expecting Jamal to be able to do so when he's embarking on something way bigger than just a regular nine to five is a bit silly.

--I think we'll skip the hot mess pile this week since the entire episode was a bit of a hot mess.

--Andre: “You ever put your hands on me again, I’ll slit your throat.” Was it just me or was that the single funniest line of the episode. And the extent of just how earnest he was when he said it just made it all the funnier. He's cute when he gets angry and thinks he actually has some level of power. If he really thinks Uncle Vernon couldn't break him without even breaking a sweat then he's even dumber than he looks.

--This episode was a fairly nice showcase for Malik Yoba who I've thought has been under utilized thus far. Hope we get to see more of him.

--Also hope we get to see more of Derek Luke's Malcolm the security specialist in the weeks to come. I'm already shipping him and Cookie like there's no tomorrow. Plus Derek Luke is a ridiculously talented and exceptionally good looking guy, so the more of him the better it will be for everyone.