TV Review: Empire S3 E01, “Light Into Darkness”

By Sachin Hingoo

The life of a Lyon is never easy. Constantly hunted, often abused, and subjected to the threat of confinement. When Season 2 of Empire wrapped up, the Lyon family was in shambles. Hakeem (Bryshere Y. Gray) and Laura’s (Jamila Velazquez) fairytale wedding was broken up by a gun-toting, fight-starting, wasted Shyne Johnson (Xzibit) and Anika (Grace Gealey), still carrying Hakeem’s baby, was subpoenaed to testify against patriarch Lucious. In order to avoid this, Lucious (Terrence Howard) decided to hijack poor Hakeem’s wedding and force his whole family, including Cookie (Taraji P. Henson), to watch him marry Anika, a woman he clearly despises since she can’t testify against him if they tie the knot. Cookie finally swore off Lucious for good, but this predictably lasted about one minute because he’s just that charming. More on that later.

Of course, the biggest cliffhanger in last season’s finale was the fate of Rhonda (Kaitlin Doubleday) and Anika, battling it out on a balcony outside the wedding as the episode faded to black. That’s wrapped up pretty quickly, before the opening credits of “Light Into Darkness,” even, with the ghastly scene of Rhonda’s lifeless body falling onto some poor schlub’s car, a trickle of blood coming from her mouth. Empire’s favorite “ride or die” is toast, it seems, never having revealed that Anika pushed her down the stairs and caused her to lose her and Andre’s baby earlier last season. Rhonda was Andre’s everything, and the two were the most solid couple on this show, and Andre is predictably distraught.

As that’s happening, the horrified Anika backs away from the balcony as Andre screams for his dead wife. Sobbing, he goes to throttle Anika when her water breaks, and because he’s the only person that even slightly passes for good in this stupid family, stops strangling his stepmother and the mother to his future nephew, to take her to the hospital.

The whole Lyon clan, minus the still-sulking Hakeem, congregates at the hospital, where Lucious’s villainy goes next-level. As Anika’s literally pushing a baby out, Lucious is feeding her an alibi for Rhonda’s death for the FBI agents that show up outside the delivery room. And when the baby is born, a girl instead of the boy heir that Anika promised him, Lucious’s first act is to sneer that she lied. His second, is to sign his name on the birth certificate instead of Hakeem. Father of the year. Terrence Howard continues to be great in this role, and no matter how slimy and unlikeable his character is written, he infuses Lucious with an icy-cold charm that almost makes you understand why his family keeps falling all over themselves for his triflin’ ass.

As much as Cookie is the best character on Empire, and the glue that holds the show together both in and out of character, she gets an insanely raw deal here in season 3. Relegated to tasks like preparing Lucious’s mansion (you know, the one her talent helped build) for the arrival of Lucious’s new wife and baby, she’s as “ride or die” as Rhonda was. With Cookie though, her incentive to continue to protect Lucious is even thinner than with everyone else. He’s screwed her over time and time again, and it becomes vanishingly clear what Empire’s trying to say with all of this. So much of Season 2 was about Cookie striking off on her own and forming Lyon Dynasty, but it’s less distinct than ever from Empire as a whole, and Cookie comes off looking pretty bad here for continuing to support this.

Do you have that friend that can’t keep from causing drama for no reason? Like, I know Empire is a drama series, but the unimaginable lengths the Lyon family goes to to make their own lives difficult never cease to amaze me. If it isn’t inviting Lucious’s demented mother back into their house where she gaslights and abuses practically everyone she meets, it’s in this episode where these idiots invite Tariq, the FBI agent that’s currently investigating Lucious, to dinner. From what I can tell, the only reason they do this is to insult him, but he gives it right back, getting in some solid digs at Lucious while gnawing on a green bean. He really gets to Jamal, when he asks what we’re all asking, why does he keep defending the man who literally threw him in the garbage for being gay when he was a child? Save it, Tariq, there’s no good answer there. The answer we do get, is that despite all appearances to the contrary, the Lyons are “stronger than ever.”

The major problem with Empire, and it’s not a new problem, is that nothing seems to have much gravity. Lucious, sociopathic as he is, doesn’t react to anything that happens to the Lyons unless it affects him personally. This has spread to the rest of the cast as well, where Lucious will viciously cut down, say, Hakeem in one scene and in the next, they’re having dinner together. Even Rhonda’s death seems to roll off everyone’s, other than Andre’s, back. Jamal, especially, seems relatively unfazed by having his sister-in-law’s body land in front of him, though he’s also dealing with the trauma of being shot by Frida Gatts last season.

I’d like to believe that there’s change coming for Empire this season, but it doesn’t look that way. Still, there’s a lot to like here. The show is still able to tap into that soap opera vein and produce some genuinely thrilling moments, and the musical performances always help. For all it’s shortcomings, script-wise, the cast always brings it home. They may not be able (or willing) to elevate the show past it’s trashy drama roots, but if I’m being honest, that’s a giant amount of Empire’s appeal to me.

What Is Cookie Wearing?

Cookie Lyon has some of the most amazing, batshit wardrobe choices on television, and the wardrobe and overall design on this show is legitimately one of the biggest selling points of the series for me, so each week we’ll take a look at what wildness she’s found in that never-ending closet of hers.

Cookie’s first appearance at the office in “Light In Darkness” had her sporting what I can only describe as “business pajamas.” Take a look:

What is happening here? I’m not going to lie, this looks comfortable as anything, and if anyone’s got the business (and street) cred to pull this thing off, it’s Cookie. That said, it doesn’t really inspire confidence in your ability to run an A&R department when you look like you’ve just rolled out of bed, even if it’s Alexander McQueen’s bed.