EMPIRE 203 Poor Yorick & Cookie Won’t Crumble

empire 2013 poor yorick recap 2015Every week, Empire gets more and more explosive (and unbelievable) and this week’s episode, it started and ended with a bang.

It opens with the FBI raiding Empire and you immediately just know that it was Cookie. I mean after all, Lucious did make it so that none of the music Lyon Dynasty makes will play on the radio. Just when you think she has exacted sweet revenge, Lyon Dynasty is raided by the FBI too. It is an intense first few minutes of the show. Lucious is sleep in his bed with some hottie as Thirsty bursts into his room letting him know what went down at Empire and that the feds are headed his way too. That’s okay to Luscious; he stays calm, cool and collected. When DA Ford (the badass attorney looking to nail him for Bunkie’s death) comes through his doors with her people (and her girls all out and about), Lucious is standing right there in the nude to greet her. I feel some sexual tension between these two and I won’t be surprised if they end up sleeping together at some point during the show. That’s just my two cents.

People panic back at Empire. Lu finally shows up and gives the pimp pep talk of the year. “Back in my hood, if the police raid your place you’re a G. If the FBI raid your place you’re an OG.” His speech reenergizes the staff, and all doubt of the business going down is out the window. Lucious really should be a motivational speaker.

He later meets with all Lyon family members as they discuss what happened, what it means and how to proceed. There is truly in interested dynamic here because in the real world, when family members break away to form their own whatever, they don’t keep huddling with the enemy. They do their own thing. But here, which further shows the show’s often uneven storyline, they don’t. It is actually somewhat psychotic. But I digress.

Cookie and Lucious have a personal meeting where they talk about the raid and more. Cookie lets him know that Anika told her about his coming for her masters and using Boo Boo Kitty to do so. He says she’s lying, which Cookie knows he’s lying but lets it be for the time.

Jamal and Hakeem also shoot a video, and it is clear that the young Lyon feels a certain way about the attention his brother continues to get. He doesn’t like how Jamal is put on a pedestal and has no issues with showing it. At the video shoot, which is so reminiscent of Dr. Dre. and Tupac’s “California Love” video with a cage dome and everything, things really explode as Lucious and Hakeem have “a moment.” At that moment, daddy tells son the reason he chose Jamal is because Hakeem can’t function without his momma and the middle Lyon can. This prompts Hakeem to put a dagger in a beautifully painted picture of Jamal in front of everyone. They go back to filming the video and break out into a fight, ending said video shoot.

Which Cookie would have been able to stop had she been there, but she was “occupied.” As in arrested occupied. She has a warrant out for her arrest because she jump a turnstile (she is shown a picture of Portia her assistant actually jumping the turnstile, and she supposedly gave Cookie’s name). It is just a way for DA Ford to get her in custody so that she can question and threaten her. Cookie is left alone for a second, and we see a flashback to her prison days. She comes to and then requests to speak to Ford. For a second you think that Cookie is about to be a snitch, bitch, but what she actually does is tell her that Bunkie, who we all know is dead, and Lu fought over something to do with a radio deal. This, I am sure, is a ploy to get them to look into Lu buying Apex Satellite Radio, the deal that somehow prohibits Dynasty from being on the radio.

This episode focuses on Vernon a lot and brings back into focus Andre’s newfound faith. He tells Rhonda that he has to dig up the body so that he can show his father his can handle making tough choices and because it’s the right thing to do. They go to the spot where Vernon is buried only to realize that they may be digging in the wrong place. They are at their wits end after digging several holes looking for the corpse when a car pulls up. They hide in a ditch but are told to “come out” by whomever just arrived. It is Lu and Thirsty (they put a tracking device on Dre’s car). They find the body with a gadget Thirsty has and put it in their trunk. Now, what do you suppose they are going to do with that dead Vernon?

Well, at the end of the episode we find out. DA Ford heads to her car the next morning, and as she gets in, Vernon’s body is right there in the passenger seat. WOW!

There were some “jump the shark moments” in this episode, which kind of makes me feel like the actual “jump the shark” moment is near. But until then, they keep the story going and audiences begging for more.