Empire - S1E1 - Pilot
When music mogul Lucious Lyon finds out he has ALS, he becomes obsessed with his company going public. His desire to leave the company to one of his three sons pits the young men against each other. And his ex-wife, Cookie, gets out of jail looking to be compensated for her part in starting the company 17 years ago.
Cookie’s Best Line(s): “You need to get la cucaracha to clean up around here.” “For a queen, you sure do keep a messy place.”
Lucious B. Lyings: “I’m sorry I stopped coming to visit you in jail,” Lucious says just before calling Cookie a pathological liar for claiming James Brown was her uncle.
Number of times you wanted to slap Hakeem: When he had his feet on his father’s $40K dining table. When he called Cookie a bitch and took an ass whupping with a broom. When he was breathing.
Most triflin character: Bunkie. Clearly he made poor life choices. To show up at this man’s house with a gun, and then threaten to bring down his whole life for $3 million just screams, “Hey, you should probably shoot me in the face at some point.”
Health Check-Up: Lucious gets word from his doctor that his disease is fatal. Andre takes meds for some condition, but we’re not told yet what it is.
Who should jump in line for relationship counseling: Lucious and Jamal. This is one of the most - if not THE most - damaged relationships on the show. The scene where Lucious throws a young Jamal in the trash for wearing his mother’s shoes is heartbreaking, but an all too true representation of how some fathers behave when they fear their child may be a homosexual. That event is a stain on their relationship and it’s going to take more than a few chats for either to deal with it and move beyond it.
Lee Daniels Extraness: “Tell Barack I’ll come, but this is the last time.” It’s like that Lucious? Damn.
The BET Award goes to: ‘Live in the Moment’ by Hakeem and Jamal (Yazz and Jussie Smollett)
Most Unbelievable Moment: “I never let anything come between friendship - except a bullet.” So, this would be the like the equivalent of: Diddy just murdered Farnsworth by the Hudson. Then he casually strolls to his car like he didn’t just shoot someone in the face without checking for witnesses.
Lucious told Hakeem that after Cookie went away, and Hakeem was about a year old, he meet a woman named Dottie who wanted to raise the kids - and seems like she didn’t want them visiting Cookie in jail. Hmph. Lucious admits that Dottie was shot on 42nd Street. What the hell is up with that?
