Empire recap: Season 3, Episode 9

Empire’s midseason finale had a few twists, but nothing so major it was completely unforeseen. (Maybe Fox had to save all its drama for the premiere of Star, which followed the episode?)

We open at an Angelo DuBois rally in Queens, where he’s immediately heckled by the crowd for schlepping his bougie self all the way out to the Rockaways and pretending he’s a man of the people — only to host a ritzy fundraiser later. Cookie senses he’s lost the crowd, so she takes the mic herself. “I’m just an around-the-way girl from the hood,” she says (Taraji, was that a book plug?). The crowd knows her and seems to trust her, so she uses her cred to vouch for Angelo: “So he went to Columbia — but he still lives in the same fifth-floor walk-up in Harlem!”

She doesn’t stop there. On the spot, she decides to tell the crowd they’re turning Angelo’s Captain’s Ball fundraiser into a concert called The People’s Ball instead, to be held right there in Queens. Jamal will headline and everyone’s invited. Angelo readily accepts the change and they get to planning, but Mrs. DuBois is skeptical. “You’re getting a little too local, darling,” she warns him. Well, I think maybe a grown man has his mother around just a little too much — even if she does seem to have the keys to the city.

Lucious drops by as Cookie plans the event in a fever. He tells her he also wants it to be a “smashing success” and thinks it’s time for New York to have a black mayor again (but hmm…that might not mean Angelo). He also takes the opportunity to warn her Jamal might not be ready to perform and she really shouldn’t be playing with her son’s health just to help a new man. Harsh.

Meanwhile, Tariq finally seems to be making progress on his case at the FBI. The video of Freda rapping at Nessa’s family party has helped him fill in the identities of the mysterious “MM” and “BK” Lucious paid after Frank Gathers’ death, so now he has enough evidence for his boss to freeze Empire’s assets for 30 days. But in those 30 days, Tariq must procure a murder indictment. And the boss has one other thing to add: “This smells personal, Agent Cousins,” he says. “It better not be.” Uh-oh…

Back on the boardwalk in Queens, two unlikely allies are sharing a seat on a Ferris wheel. Lucious and Mrs. DuBois circle around each other like boxers sizing up a fight, before Mrs. D finally brings up the reason she asked him here. Apparently, there’s a reporter who has something on Angelo — something with a “droplet” of truth she wants “evaporated” before it “causes a tidal wave.” Okay, thanks for the extended water metaphor, Mrs. D. Lucious asks what’s in it for him if he gets the reporter to back off, and she promises to end Cookie and Angelo’s relationship. So much for all that Cookie love she apparently felt after Jamal’s song at the dinner?

Lucious gets his side done quickly: He brings the reporter to Leviticus, and gets a hard rapper to perform a song about loyalty and soldiers following orders. It’s basically designed to threaten him — I have dogs I can sic on you, that kind of thing. The reporter seems kinda racist, so it works.

There’s a problem, though. The polling data after Cookie’s Rockaway speech has finally come in and Mrs. DuBois learns what we all already know: PEOPLE LOVE COOKIE. And as a result, Angelo’s numbers have gone up. They’re even calling it The Cookie Effect! So, Mrs. D asks if there’s something else Lucious wants instead: A seat at the state dinner? Anything? Lucious is pissed but says he’ll just consider it a personal contribution to Angelo’s campaign. “New York deserves a good mayor,” he says again — but it still feels purposefully vague to me.

Cookie heads to Jamal’s to talk about the event. She doesn’t want him to backslide, but he knows he needs to perform on that stage or Lucious will win. Cookie relents but says he must do it sober — so she throws all his different meds and pills down the drain. (Yes, it’s strange she didn’t flush them down the toilet…)

NEXT: Lucious visits the FBI

And what happened to Andre’s pills? Not sure, but he’s in the fetal position on his office couch when Nessa walks in and asks what’s wrong. Andre confesses he has bipolar disorder and Rhonda used to take care of him when he got like this, managing his meds and keeping him under control. “That’s intense, Andre,” Nessa says. “I’m not gonna do any of those things for you.” Whoa — is this all it took for Nessa to walk away? Not quite. “I want you to learn how to do those things for yourself, Dre. And I’m not going anywhere.” Aww! It’s a sweet moment until Ghost Rhonda shows up. We’ve missed you, GR! She warns Andre that Nessa is trying to take him away from her. Well, yeah… Wasn’t that why you guys had a Ghost Threesome? Wasn’t that, like, the whole point?

Back at Empire, the freeze has taken effect. Cookie asks Lucious why she can’t use any of her Empire credit cards, and he explains somebody snitched. He tells her to stay calm, but Cookie shoots back, “You stay calm! I did 17 years!” Fair point. There’s a flashback to when Cookie first kissed Lucious that feels kinda pointless. We already knew she was bold back then — remember when she walked right up to him rapping on the street and started dancing around him? Lucious tells her he has someone on the inside at the FBI, so everything will be fine. Oh, and he also warns Cookie that Angelo is just another opportunistic politician with skeletons in his closet. Can’t anybody on this show be 100-percent good? I guess that’s not realistic, but still. Not Angelo!

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Lucious decides to take matters into his own hands and waltzes into the FBI with his wrists out. “You want me? Here I am,” he says to Tariq. “You sent errand boys with calculators to take the food out of the mouths of my employees’ children. I know what you want, but you’re going about it like a coward.” He’s making a scene, and that’s exactly what he wants: He pulls out their father’s old Philly PD badge and says to the crowd, “Agent Cousins never told y’all that we’re brothers?” Whoops… Now everyone knows it’s personal. Lucious says their father told him to protect his little brother before he died, but he didn’t tell him his name. “This ain’t what brothers do,” he says before he left. WOW. That was pretty impressive power move. Also, I’m curious as to when Lucious did find out Tariq was his brother. It was earlier than the season 2 finale, right? Or no?

Anyway, it’s time for The People’s Ball. WOKE performs, then Hakeem and Tiana do their duet and, amidst cheers of “TAKEEM!” from the crowd, kiss and seem to get back together. But Becky and the team are freaking out because Jamal isn’t there. Cookie heads home to get him and finds him sick on the couch, puking. He’s in withdrawal — but he still wishes he could go onstage so Lucious won’t win. “Lucious is not the enemy,” Cookie says. “He wants you to get better!” But through his tears, Jamal disagrees. “He is the enemy! He is!” He’s not ready for his career to be over, so Cookie once again takes matters into her hands. She grabs a wrench (“My daddy was a plumber”) and unscrews the U-bend pipe under the sink, where the pills she tossed earlier are still sitting there, albeit coated with sludge. (So that’s why they didn’t have her flush them down the toilet.) He takes them.

Elsewhere, Shyne asks Lucious why he can’t use his Empire funds to pay producers, and Lucious explains again about the freeze. “How much you need?” Shyne says, offering to spot him. “You gonna burp out $50 mil?” Lucious asks. Apparently, Shyne can provide even more — he just needs to liquidate some of the barber shops and Laundromats he bought with Nessa’s brother, Stone, back in the day. Lucious seems grateful but wants to know the catch. “I want a stake in Empire,” Shyne says. “A seat at the table.” When he leaves, Thirsty tells Lucious either choice is problematic for them, so basically it’s like rolling the dice.

NEXT: Andre drops a bomb

Speaking of taking chances on people… Andre is sitting on the beach, head in his hands, talking to Rhonda. “I need you to let me go,” he tells her. She tells him (or he tells himself?) he’s the “smartest, most devoted and most ruthless of the Lyon sons.” He likes the ruthless part. She tells him to make Nessa the biggest star, “and then you’ll control the music. And then you’ll have all the power.” Yeah, yeah, we’ve heard this before. We know this is the plan. I really thought Rhonda already authorized this. Anyway, they say a tearful goodbye — and in a way, Rhonda finally gets her funeral. Andre kisses his wedding ring and hurls it into the ocean. Ugh, I hate seeing potential money go to waste. Oh, wait, one last request from Rhonda: “Promise me that you will destroy that b-tch that murdered me and killed our baby.” WOW, I FORGOT ANIKA KILLED THEM BOTH. I can’t believe I let Anika’s mothering and enviable lingerie distract me from the murder! I wish I was being sarcastic, but I’m not. Wow.

Here’s something good to know: Sludge-covered sink-pipe pills still work! Jamal performs and he’s fantastic. The crowd is thrilled to see him again and everything goes off without a hitch…basically. When he gets off the stage, Cookie, Philip and the rest of the family are waiting for him on the ground. “You’re going to rehab, okay?” Cookie tells him, though it’s clear it’s breaking her heart a little. “Mom, please don’t do this to me right now,” Jamal pleads. But it’s no use — he has to go.

Over at Leviticus, Tariq and Shyne are at the bar, but it’s not a friendly meeting. Tariq asks why Shyne would give him the evidence to freeze Empire’s accounts but then front Lucious the money anyway. “Maybe you just got played,” Shyne says. But Lucious got played, too… It’s confusing. But Shyne has come prepared: “Don’t give me any of that mess about taking my immunity, because I know you can’t.” Still, Tariq has one more question. Why wouldn’t Shyne just start his own label if he had all that money? “It’s about Empire. It’s the crown jewel of all labels. It’s the iron throne,” Shyne says. “Everybody wants to be king. Don’t you?” Tariq pours out his drink and leaves. Little too close to home, I guess…

Back in the Rockaways, Cookie and Angelo are walking out when Lucious calls. He has a gift he forgot to give Angelo. Out from behind a bunch of balloons steps the reporter from earlier — looks like Lucious called him back when Mama D refused to hold up her side of the bargain. Mr. Cruise, the reporter, asks Angelo about Oct. 5, 1988. “The night of my DUI,” Angelo says. He was 17 years old, so Cookie jumps to his defense right away. Every teenager got into something, she says, listing George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama’s brushes with DUIs or weed. “None of those presidents ever drove drunk into a lake, saving themselves but leaving an innocent young woman to drown,” Cruise says. Well, maybe none of those presidents did anything too bad… But Angelo’s issue sure sounds awfully similar to Sen. Ted Kennedy’s Chappaquiddick incident (seriously, read up on that).

This is not good. But the next scene might be able to top it: Andre seeks out Shyne, who’s celebrating at Leviticus. He says he can prove Shyne leveraged his properties two weeks before the FBI froze the accounts, which means Shyne knew it was coming. But Andre doesn’t just want to tell on him — he wants something else. He lays out his request: Shyne’s going to respect the hierarchy as they both put things in place…until it’s “time.”

“Time for what?” Shyne asks.

“Time to kill my father,” Andre says. Wait — whoa! Whoa, Andre! I thought you were going to go after Anika first! Then again, Lucious is Satan, as I find myself typing literally every single week. So, maybe it’s time? Wouldn’t it be hilarious if Lucious died and then the rest of Empire was just about the Lyon family getting along and making money and living happily ever after? Not gonna lie, I’d probably watch just out of sheer relief after three (well, two and a half) seasons of stress.

Episode grade: C+