The highlight of this season was Cookie and Lucious back in love (don't worry about the loss of the empire,they'll get it back somehow).We've been yearning for that for God knows how long.When it looked like nothing could possibly come between,Lucious got blown by a car bomb and lost his memory at the end of the 3rd season.
Its long been established that Lee Daniels and his gang care a lot about our feelings so you always knew Lucious was going to get back his memory,it was just a question of how fast.They unwrapped the package at just the right time and particularly noteworthy is how the producers shut out a hymnic ambience all through his ordeal.There was enough to keep us excited-from the questionable motives of his therapist Claudia to the grand entry of Forrest Whitaker who plays Eddie Barker,a legendary producer and long time friend of the Lyons who had been called in to help run the company.
What makes Empire thick isn't nail-biting suspense,its the beauty of a navigation through with none of it.No matter how badly beaten the Lyons seemed in their battle with the Dubois,you knew they would win.Raising $750M to buy and save the Empire from the Eddie Barker-led jackals at a single concert appeared totally impossible but the Lyons just had to pull through.Knowing an outcome but forgetting you do while watching is pure art.The producers love the protagonists just as much as the fans and everyone enjoys that they do.
When they did hurt us a little with an unexpected Eddie blackmail move that resulted in his camp buying over the Empire,they tried to assuage our feelings with a Cookie 'loving and selfless' act for her family in letting go of the company and an official marriage to Lucious.A Tiana pregnancy by Hakeem as well to supplement that.
The 4th season witnessed the injection of sub-plots that added more bite to the story.We got to see Cookie coming to understand Pound Cake snitched on her in prison to get out and search for her daughter and that she also took the fall for Cook to be released and be with her family when she had a chance to make things right.In a drift back to the present,she found Pound Cake's daughter and eventually got her to agree to meet her biological mother on her death bed.Reading out the letter her mother had written for her has to be Empire's most emotional scene yet.Then we got officially introduced to Cookie's mother as well and were made to savour some interesting bonding process.Shyne's latest prodigy,white boy Blake was a great add.
You got a feeling there was an ulterior motive to the Shyne killing.He had just shared a heart to heart OG moment with Lucious and had already proven his loyalty by telling on Eddie.He had endeared himself to us and a fresh start for the Shyne character it seemed so perhaps Lucious Lyon was being set up for a huge ill that needed the audience hating him a little.Turns out wrong,killing Shyne just passed as doing what had to be done.
Shyne's ascot tie comment got to Lucious just a bit before he was shot,a big thumbs up to the acting skills of Terrence Howard for how he lets us in on that but a smart and experienced 'walking the talk' gangsta like Lucious Lyon leaves his ascot on Shyne's body after he had him shot?.Its ridiculous.There are better ways of leaving Eddie something to blackmail the Lyons with over the murder than that.
To bust your bubble further,that Andre would spike Anika's drink with an overdose of anti-psychotic drugs and know it was going to have her hallucinating about his dead wife is voodoo stuff.Excessively fictitious fiction.
The Empire is lost but we know they'll get it back.Every season closes with a heart-race scene and in this it was Blake's racist father showing up with a gun while he was out with Hakeem,Tiana and a baby she had just dropped in their SUV (Bella his baby with Anika or perhaps 9 months flew past).Three shots rang out and season 5 will reveal who got hit if any,Blake for hanging out with black elements and accosting his dad on live tv or Hakeem who had shielded Tiana,for polluting Blake's 'morals'.Or maybe some bodyguard had been lurking behind all along,you never know.
Empire season 4 was a great watch.The taste gets better.
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