Thursday, May 05, 2016

My Review of Empire's 2x16: "The Lyon Who Cried Wolf"


Written by Joshua Allen
Directed by Millicent Shelton

Leah (to Lucious): "I was sick, now I'm sorry. Sorry I was too weak to kill you when I had the chance."

Okay, now I can see why Lucious was more than happy to let everyone else believe that Leah was dead. Andre might have meant well but he opened up the worst cans of worms by springing his grandmother back from Philadelphia and back into Lucious's life.

Lucious might be awful but that last scene where Leah is forcing him to eat cake and holding that knife, I did actually feel bad for him. With only two episode left, I don't see anything positive coming out of Lucious seeing his mother again. Andre just made things a lot worse and the promos are heavily implied some bad stuff is going down for the Lyons.

This week Lucious got Thirsty to get rid of Harper (she really should've left the city after last week's stunt) and we also learned during a conversation between Candace and Carol that the latter might have helped Lucious with some illegal activity (at least they didn't sleep together) and with the FBI looming around in the shape of a former friend/flame of Carol, it seems that things are going to out themselves pretty soon then.

I was surprised with the focus on Carol in this episode. She's not a character I care too much about but her guilt and desperation to want to do the right thing seemed genuine enough and between Candace telling her to keep quiet, Porscha comparing her to Cookie and that FBI agent sniffing around, she's clearly going to crack pretty soon.

Moving onto other plots though - Jamal got himself a new boyfriend of sorts in the shape of Acers producer, Derek 'D' Major. A minus point is that he's in the closet but he's certainly got a charisma that Michael lacks and the scenes with him and Jamal were pretty hot as well. With Derek on the scene, we really can put that Skye Summers plot well and truly behind us.

Meanwhile, is the show really going to have Anika as Rhonda's attacker? This week Rhonda was getting flashbacks and it did really look like Anika was going to be revealed as the culprit to boot. I really hope it's not her and that another suspect makes themselves known in the remaining two episodes.

Also in "The Lyon Who Cried Wolf"

When Lucious wasn't being threatened by his mother, he was also on a diet and Cookie seemed to be happy to remind him that she's co-runner of the company now.

Candace: "Nice place you've got here, Loretha."
Cookie: "What did I tell you about calling me by my real name?"

I don't think Candace is being that unreasonable by wanting Carol to start looking after her children again.

Derek (to Jamal): "There are ways to change my mind but ambushing me in the middle of my session is not it."

Lucious (to Andre, re Leah): "You have no idea what you've done."

I quite liked Becky's enthusiasm during Jamal/Hakeem's recording session and I loved her for telling Porscha to pull her weight now that she's been promoted. It also seems like Hakeem might be swayed back to Tiana, so bye bye Laura.

Leah: "You told your family bad things about me."
Lucious: "I was honest with them."

Standout music: Hakeem/Tiana's "No Competition", Jamal/Hakeem/Lucious "Chasing The Sky" and Mike Snow's "Genghis Khan".

Lucious (re his maid): "You can't send anyone away. She lives here, she works for me."
Leah: "Not anymore. Sit down."

Chronology: Not long from where More Than Kin left off.

Another excellent episode. The Lyon Who Cried Wolf had some truly excellent music, character moments, the right amount of sexiness and a tonne of hints in relation to some imminent peril for the Lyon family.

Rating: 9 out of 10

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