Well, Lucious didn’t die.
ALS didn’t do it; he doesn’t have it anymore! Cookie didn’t do it; but, boy, did she try! No, Lucious Lyon did not, as many had predicted, die in the season finale of Empire. On the contrary, as Terrence Howard’s bombastic voiceover hauntingly warned in the final moments of the episode, “Even God can’t kill me…The day will come when Lucious Lyon will return.” And then, the final line of the first season of Empire: “Game time, bitches.”
That’s how the most talked-about, dissected, popular show on television ends it first season. Those are the final words in the first season of a series that has been heralded as groundbreaking, culturally important, and essential. “Game time, bitches.” Yessss. It’s Shakespearean in the age of hashtag. It’s operatic in the world of hip-hop. And it’s goofy as all hell.
It’s precisely why we’ve all become obsessed with this fascinating, juicy, absolutely ridiculous show. And why we’re barely able to wait until next season for more.
As a three-word ending, it was perfect for this series. The two-hour finale, as a whole, barrelled forth at breakneck speed, paying no caution to whiplash-inducing twists in a way that only a show as creatively bold and unabashedly sudsy as this soap opera could get away with. So much happened, so many people were betrayed, and so many morals were compromised that the episodes were as confusing as they were fun to watch. In other words, they were Empire.
When I spoke to Empire co-creator Danny Strong this week, he said the one thing he always thought of when writing this soap opera about a hip-hop mogul and the family he manipulates is that it should always be “epic.” After viewing the season finale, that label is the understatement of the century.
That much is evident just by the time the “previously on Empire…” catch-up reel that played before the episode finished recounting the major plot points from the season. It’s unsettling when you recall all the shit these people have done to each other over the course of just 12 episodes. Even when you just recall what happened in last week’s episode, in which it was revealed that Lucious forced his gay son Jamal (Jussie Smollett) to marry fellow young artist Olivia (Raven-Symone) and then allowed Jamal to think that he fathered a daughter with her, only for it to be revealed that Lucious impregnated Olivia himself.
And that’s just one plot point. Holy hell.
Then again, “holy hell” might just be the theme of this episode. God, religion, power, and paying for the sins you committed to get it resonated heavily throughout the two hours.
There was the Biblical punishing of the whore, with Lucious pushing Cookie out of the company after learning that she slept with Malcolm—but not punishing Malcolm at all. There was the delicious dialogue thick with religious imagery, like when Taraji P. Henson purred, “Hell wants its devil back and Lucious is on his way.” There was the obvious plot line of Andre (Trai Byers) finding salvation and clarity at church. And, finally, there was the temptation of St. Jamal, the purest of the Lyons and pop culture’s reigning folk hero, who finally takes the apple from the devil himself, Lucious, and lets his dark side take over as he ascends to power.
Recounting the plot of the finale would take more time than you and I have to give. Broadly, the action centered around a tribute concert to Lucious that was set to take place on the same day his company was going to officially go public. For it all to go as planned, Lucious’s family members, each of whom have been betrayed by him in varying degrees of severity, must rally around him—for their own selfish sakes.
The first hour breathed more, allowing it to indulge in a sex scene for Cookie and Malcolm that let Henson prove she can play vulnerable as skillfully as she can play ferocious, and a long pas de deux for Smollett and Howard that dredged up all of the ways Lucious has mistreated Jamal and mishandled his coming out—he once put a young Jamal in a trash can for trying on his mother’s heels, lest we ever forget—and had them reconcile, of sorts, through song. That scene, paired wiith Lucious and Jamal’s final scene together, were easily the episode’s strongest.
The big reveal of the episodes was that Lucious doesn’t have ALS as he thought, but another disease called MG that’s a “chronic, but highly treatable condition.” Without a looming death sentence, he now has carte blanche to pull the family puppet strings with more nimble dexterity than ever, especially now that he’s taking injections that will keep his tremors in check.
He’s also taking sedatives to combat the insomnia that these injections could cause, and it’s when he’s in a delirious stupor after taking those sleeping pills that the frenetic events of the last hour are set into motion. Cookie walks in on him while he’s hallucinating, and he confesses that he doesn’t have ALS, he’s not dying, and that he killed Bunky. For all of the talk of God in the episode, the “killer reveals all”-type monologue Lucious gives with Cookie in the room is some pretty divinely fortuitous deus ex machina plotting.
In response, naturally, Cookie tries to kill him. By trying to smother him with a pillow. The scene was ludicrous and all kinds of campy. I loved it. Yay, soap operas!
All of these events eventually lead to Jamal being made Lucious’s successor, Andre and Hakeem getting pissed off (Hakeem is even sleeping with Anika for revenge…ew!), and Cookie doing the unthinkable, ingratiating herself with Anika, so that the four of them can stage a hostile takeover and replace Lucious as the head of Empire.
All the acting is properly histrionic over the two hours, but Henson as Cookie is operating at another level, where the emotions are heightened but still acute and authentic. It’s actually the series’ other women, particularly Grace Gealey as Anika, who rise closest to her level. It’s hard to enter the tornado of power that is Henson’s performance in this series and come out the other side not just intact, but looking strong and powerful yourself, and Gealey does just that.
At the very least that’s evident in what is absolutely the finale’s most fun scene, a confrontation between Anika and Cookie before they plot their coup. Turns out that in a catfight, Boo Boo Kitty holds her own against a Lyon.
The episode, as has been the norm these past few weeks with Empire becoming more and more popular, was chock full of guest stars—some fun (Snoop Dogg), some random (Rita Ora), some superfluous (Patti LaBelle), and some phenomenal (Jennifer Hudson). Unlike with the majority of the season, the music in the finale was quite excellent. (I’m sorry, I just cannot be convinced that the songs from this series are good.) Hudson’s song and the duet between Jamal and Lucious, in particular, should be radio hits. Take that, “Drip Drop.”
The writing, too, was as over the top as ever, in the best way. Take when Lucious burns Cookie with the security cam footage of her trying to kill him. “Checkmate, bitch,” he says. And then when she’s out of the picture, “Sometimes you gotta be willing to sacrifice your queen in order to win the game.” It’s all very heavy-handed and silly…and absolutely wonderful.
As has also been the series’ pattern, Jamal’s tortured coming out storyline was the most emotionally affecting of the episode. Strong said that battling homophobia, especially in hip-hop, was always one of his agendas for the show, and it showed here. “Last time I checked hip-hop was born from the struggles of real men. Ain’t no place in this game for those bitches,” a rapper shouts when it’s announced that Jamal will be the future of Empire. How does Jamal shut him down? With talent.
It’s issue-based plotting that’s very in your face and aggressive, but it works. Sometime when a show deals with emotions and themes as loudly as Empire does, it allows for quiet moments like this to ring even more true.
It all sets up a haunting, if frenetic, final sequence in which Lucious is arrested for murdering Bunky, the hostile takeover is a success, and Jamal ascends to his throne of power in a sequence that beautifully contrasts his younger self walking down the stairs of their home in the projects wearing his mother’s high heels with him ascending the staircase at the tribute concert to announce, ominously, “I am the son of Lucious Lyon.”
As for Lucious, he’s in jail, a brilliant move setting up a Season Two in which, this time around, Lucious is the underdog—though we have a feeling he won’t be for long. Yep, he said it best himself. “Game time, bitch.”
