“You can’t see that cause you blinded by the ass”- Cookie
WHAT a scandalous start to last night’s episode. Unfortunately we can’t enjoy the steamy soap opera sex scenes set to Selena’s bone worthy jam because we know what the inevitable outcome is for Cookie and Laz. Cookie is still none the wiser to Laz’s gang connects and spends roughly 3 days in his bed doin thangs. At one point Porsha delivers food to their sex jungle while they’re both naked, and all I can think is that this bitch is certainly not being paid enough for the verbal abuse and dirt tasks she’s given. Anyway, it turns out Laz’s “promoter” job is a whole cover so he can get his grubby hands on Cookie’s Dynasty money.
While Laz works on conquering her vagina and her business at the same damn time, Lucious is going through some things—and I’m actually not referring to under aged women for once. This new boom boom bang bang jam with Freda is stirring up some flashbacks to his unstable childhood. Everyone who tells him this episode that his music just isn’t there or his lyrics don’t have any substance just further send him spiraling down the memory hole and instead of just facing his emotions for the song, he acts like a bigger dick. Cause that’s how Lucious do.
Since he’s all caught up in trying to suppress his those weird things called feelings, he doesn’t noticed that his #2 prized musician (#1 is obv Freda) is sneaking around with Cookie to produce a new song. It starts with a little texty text of audio clips where Cookie responds “flip the perspective” and Jamal knows exactly what that means and suddenly the song sounds exactly the same but is SO MUCH BETTER. Whatever, I don’t question Cookie. She’s a mogul. But that was bullshit.
What ISN’T bullshit is Porsha. I know that I just mentioned she should be paid more but what I realized soon after is that she should be in the show more. Girl had like 4 lines in last night’s episode and she killed it. Cookie gets all spiffed up to go out—not with Laz—and asks for Porsha’s opinion of her front AND her back. This allows for Porsha to go OFF with sassy comments including, “Word up, Cook. Yaas my boss is a PIMP.” And I beg of Empire…more Porsha, pls.
Other than my Porsha praise, let’s focus on the fact that Cookie appeared to be getting extra dressed up and in need of advice on how she looked for a date with….HER SON. This makes me feel icky and I don’t like it because Lucious is the creepy parent, and there’s only room for one of those in the Lyon fam. Since we’re on the topic of things that I’m not loving, Cookie’s micro bangs that have been far too frequent this season have GOT TO GO. They are atrocious. Sorry, I got sidetracked with pure disdain for her bangs wig, but not distracted enough to see Cookie sharing an ear bud with Jamal at a restaurant, like a modern-day spaghetti slurp from Lady & the Tramp. Jamal is obviously the Tramp in this scenario. They even snake over to Lyon Dynasty to lay down the track and have to hide from Hakeem the next morning, walk of shame style.
Across the Lyon family line, Lucious continues to ignore every piece of business advice from Andre and sends him back to bang a city official to erase more legal troubles for Freda. I had completely forgotten that this used to be Andre’s thang before he found his lord & savior. Since cheating on your pregnant wife is kind of frowned upon in the bible, Andre seeks advice from his priest on how to handle it. Turns out blackmail is TOTES ok with baby J, so Andre uses a sex tape to threaten his government boo to clear Freda’s gang injunction then goes straight home to Rhonda to talk about praying. Just kitten, he finally lays it on her and she’s like my prayers have been answered. Turns out Rhonda has been REALLY hurtin for it.
Oh hey, remember how baby doe Laura told Hakeem that she didn’t want to hook up with him and he was like that’s cool we’ll be all business? Yeah that lasted like 5 minutes. At the teaser for Cookie’s latest idea inspired by her sex-cation with Laz, entitled “Cookie’s Cookout”, getting the D rreeeallllyyy makes her a creative genius. That name is SO innovative. Anywho, some hip-hop bloggers come to see the three ho’s perform a new song about mimosas in some sassy fringe dresses. The song is pretty much Grammy-worthy with one lyric being, “All dem girls in their yoga pants.” It’s like Mirage A Trois is the voice of our generation or something. Mimosas and yoga pants, cause that’s what a basic betch does. More buzzworthy than a cookout thrown by Cookie or a power struggle ass bump mid-song between Laura and Carmen…is obviously Cookie’s attire. She’s wearing a pair of sparkly boyfriend jeans that I never knew I needed.
Since Laura clearly doesn’t know how to be top hoe, Tiana gives her lessons on how to be sexier while Hakeem watches with his mouth agape. All part of her sexifying/star-making process, Hakeem brings Laura out to perform on the streets. She sings in Spanish, draws a crowd and definitely no suspicions as Hakeem stands directly in front of her with hood up, sunglasses on like a prowler. Laura decides right then that she must have this Unabomber and smooches him thus erasing her firm stance on no hooking up. Claps for holding out for SO long, grl. Her lessons clearly worked, because later when Mirage performs their new hit again (that sounds like it’s plagiarized from Trey Songz) Laura booty checks Carmen. TAKE THAT, CARMEN. Laura’s got balls of steel now, obv.
Kinda like Cookie who sets up a meeting with the nice neighborhood boys who kidnapped her son in attempts to extort her for money. Except now she’s handing the cash over freely because she thinks they work with Laz and are securing her a venue for Cookie’s Cookout. Hakeem smells the poop in this deal and although he agrees to it, he also tells Cookie that he doesn’t trust pretty boy. Sniff it out Hakeem before your mom gets F’ed, in more ways than one.
Aandd then a lot of sketchy shit goes down with Lucious that gave me all the uncomfies. First of all, lezzy Mimi is back to be shady. She suggests Lucious partner with a creator of a streaming service who Lucious meets with, KO’s, and then visits him in the hospital and coerces him to draw up a contract while Mimi dopes him up for compliance. Totes legit business. Then Mimi and Lucious get hammered and close the deal with a celebratory threesome that gets real weird, real quick. There’s tears, a secret phone call and guns. What threesome doesn’t end like this, amirite?! JK, Lucious is inspired by his lady friend’s gun tat to take his mom’s favorite Russian roulette instrument into the studio and finish boom boom…which by the way WE HEAR NO LESS THAN 4 TIMES IN THIS EPISODE. After the first play I swore I would chop my ears off if I heard it again. This song is terrible and it kills me that someone can repeat boom boom and bang bang and BAM you got yourself a track. To be clear Bam is not included in the song. Just boom and bang. And by the end of the episode with Lucious’ epiphany we’ve got some live gun sounds and a full transformation into DMX. No seriously, he yells so much I expected him to bark and yell UH UH, X GONN GIVE IT TO YA. But alas, he just finishes a hit that I’m guessing we haven’t heard the end of.
Drip Drops:
- What is it with Lucious standing in on a recording and tossing around spirit fingers? What producer contribution is this?
- Jamal finally performs his newest Cookie-touched song in earth tones and a fedora…Ne-Yo wore one last week, Lucious rocked one in the studio. This show is really putting JT circa 2002 back on the map and I’m not sure that I support the return of the fedora. Maybe just special occasions? Multiple fedoras per episode feels like a lot. Find your balance, Empire.
- Cookie tongue-ing Laz while wearing a gemstone ring literally the size of her entire hand gave me delicious visions of her finding out the truth and using that rock to destroy his pretty ass face. Fingers crossed for a beating by glamorous jewels.
- This totally wasn’t creepy or anything:
The Salty Ju 