Empire- “Et Tu, Brute?”

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(Not Anymore!)

I took last week off from recapping Empire. I had a prior engagement in that I felt it was a rite of passage to do my first ever Thanksgiving Eve in my hometown. And let me tell you…it was WORTH it. I got drunk, served some dirty looks and ended the night with a bowl full of queso. Hot damn. Hope ya’ll can forgive me and we’ll just go right ahead and pick up with this week’s drama, or in the case of all finales, 50 minutes of lackluster TV and then 10 minutes of HOLY SHIT.

We kick off last night’s episode with a little Jaaaayyyysuuunnn Deruuuuuloooo. He announces the first nominees for the American Sound Awards, which sound like they have just about as much credibility as the AMA’s in real life. Can we please get a Jason/Jamal duet? Oh YEAH! (That only works if you read that in Jason’s voice, otherwise it seems like an odd sentence.) Anyway, Jason announces a nomination for his boy Jamal. They boyz now.

Speaking of boys, Jamal takes a quick hiatus from them to have relations with the purple haired goddess that is Sky. Naturally we’re all like huh? But leave it to Lucious to gracefully get right to the point when he asks, “Are you hitting that?” Then assumes that Sky and her majestic locks “fixed” Jamal. That Lucious, what a genius. This is the same man who minutes later said the sentence, “Is you is or is you ain’t my Mimi?” Wut.

Later on they jam it out to Powerful and out of all the celeb guest stars in the world that Empire has snagged, they get Charlamagne Tha God onstage to ask the hard-hitting questions, Is you or is you ain’t black, Sky? JK he didn’t say that but he did take a big dump all over her for suddenly choosing to identify as black for this tune. It would be like Jamal being openly gay then dating a woman…HAHA do you know something Charlamagne? Since the Internet is hilarious, they harass Sky on twitter by adding a Rachel Dolezal afro to her pictures. Brava, computer bullies, brava. No seriously. Making Rachel Dolezal topical again months later in a sly way like that was spot on. Obviously Skyal doesn’t last very long because Jamal is still gay and Sky called their hookup SOOOOO beautiful. Do less, Sky. There’s no way Jamal was THAT good. He thinks girls are icky. Also their names would never work together so it’s for the best that they broke up before getting a couple hashtag.

PS the minute that Sky appeared last week I had some real hardcore Beyond the Lights flashbacks. Troubled, misunderstood pop singer with purple hair…Double PS if you haven’t seen this movie please watch it because it’s amahzing.

After rolling deep with drug dealer/baker Rosie O’Donnell, Cookie feels like it might be time to revisit her roots. JK she lost Cookie’s Cookout (because of that dirty good for nothin longhorns tatted Laz) and needs good PR like nobody’s biz. Cookie sets up a concert at her old prison and then rolls up in a latex dress to show everyone that she is ABOVE those orange jumpsuits. She then promptly gives a pre-show speech where she sobs about losing a music festival and having her heart broken and these bitches are like um, quick reminder that we’re in jail…soooo…I’m surprised Cookie didn’t get a shoe (or a shiv) thrown at her for being such a bougie snob. Hakeem and Laura recover quickly by performing a banger for the jailbirds.

And now for some of that good, good. The plot twist of the night is that suspicious Mimi and her wife that she keeps yapping about. Obviously we knew Mimi was a sketchathon but I never would’ve guessed that her wife is Hakeem’s cougar from season 1, Camilla. DOES EVERYONE WANT A PIECE OF HAKEEM’S D OR WHAT?! She comes crawling back thirstier than Anika at a Lyon family reunion. Either Hakeem lays mad pipe or he’s a real romantic Romeo type because I’m still having a tough time understanding why all these bitches want him. One little dick graze from Camilla and suddenly Hakeem’s convinced to oust Lucious from head of Empire. His vote is the deciding factor and Lucious is DUNZO. BOOM BOOM BOOM, BITCH.

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Cookie and Lucious’ reactions to having everything ripped from their hands were priceless. Cookie spits right in Camilla’s grill piece, prison style. And Lucious fires up his AK47 to shoot some ceramic décor in his home office. Don’t you mess with Lucious; he’ll take it out on a few selections from the pottery barn! Even Cookie is like getchyo ass together, you’re embarrassing me.

And for the final OMG moment, you know something’s fishy when Rhonda and Andre are living the vanilla life. Their biggest issue this episode was an alarm system in their million dollar mansion on the fritz. They chit chat about decorating the nursery and going to church on Sunday. Ho hum, everything’s going swell UNTIL RHONDA GETS PUSHED DOWN THE MASSIVE FLIGHT OF MARBLE STAIRS AT HER OWN HOME! I almost leapt right off my couch when with just a flicka the wrist Rhonda and baby lay lifeless at the bottom of the stairs. Who did it? Hm, I don’t know maybe that crazy bitch Anika who apparently wasn’t loving the fact that Rhonda’s son was named heir to the Empire throne. But like, what throne? Anywho, hey guys… Don’t forget to tune in next week for Cookie’s Cookout Christmas Special with a side of MJ Blige and Hakeem bullet to the name LYON. See you all in March!

Drip Drops:

– Jamal’s Pepsi commercial is lol-worthy. He gets people to dance with him on the subway after sippin on some soda. If anyone so much as looked at me while I was riding the subway in the city I nearly crapped my pants, I certainly wouldn’t be like JAMAL LYON IS THAT YOU? And then break dance.

-Cookie’s old prison squad asks Porsha if she’s the wifey and she was quick to set the record straight:

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-Thirsty licking all up on a middle aged board member in the elevator and her being like eh it was alright but not worth $10,000 was THE stuff. I mean come on, your NAME IS THIRSTY. You better be lapping that shit up like it’s the Sahara desert and her downstairs is the only pool of water in sight.

-The song that never ends–not lambchop singalong–but “Boom Boom Boom Boom” is nominated for song of the year up against Jamal’s “Heavy”. FATHER VS. SON. DIRT VS. BANGER. WHO WILL WIN?!

Empire, Television, Uncategorized

Empire- “My Bad Parts”

Battle

“I’m sorry this is not the Disney channel, we have no happy ending.”

We’ve only got one more episode of Empire before we have to go without Lucious creepily slurping on a lollipop for 3 whole months. (Seriously what’s with him ruining one of my favorite candies?)

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After their midseason finale they’re going away until March and it looks like the set up for some cray-cray cliffhanger is going really well. I’m lookin at you, Anika.

How old is Anika supposed to be? In her thirties? Either way, her pining after a teenager is getting real weird. Especially while said teenager is now pursuing a virgin. I actually laughed out loud when Laura was like hey let’s make this special because it’s my first time and Hakeem smoothly replies, “As in you follow me around like a little puppy after this?” Instead of coming to her senses she just giggles, accepts some diamonds (specially made) and allows Hakeem to check his phone during foreplay. Hold onto that V-card girls, because one day you could have moments as special as this. But before he can give her that sweet, sweet loving, Hakeem finds out Freda is after his name and calls him out for a rap battle with low blows such as, “I’m the son that your dad always wanted.” Let me surely not be the first to say that NO ONE should be fighting over Lucious as #1 D-A-D.

Hakeem gets all up on Periscope and is like listen bitches, I AIN’T PLAYIN and announces that rap battle shiz is on with Freda-the worst-Gatz. And I PRAY that she’s outed as the shitty rapper that I know she is. Although realistically if anyone ever boo’ed her off the stage she would just shoot them.

OR Freda could stab someone like Anika is considering as she holds a butcher’s knife in one hand and a positive pregnancy test in the other. Dum-Dum Anika boinked the son of her ex-boyfriend, got herself blacklisted from the music biz and is now carrying a child. YIKES, grl. I’m not saying she should be contemplating a wrist slashing, but she has reason to pretty much hate her life right now. Things start looking up for her when she runs into Rhonda and they get some bullshit align-your-chakra smoothies togets. Rhonda reveals that Lucious acts like he has a heart around babies and has been checking in her a lot recently. A light bulb goes off over Anika’s chic pixie cut and she’s like OH, REALLY?! Obviously wouldn’t be the first time ole Lucious has gotten the “I’m pregnant” bomb but probs would be the first time it’s actually his youngest son’s baby. This family is gross. Anyway, I assume that Anika will be doing a little paternity lying but apparently not because she amps up the crazy later on and throws us all for a loop.

Another shocker this episode, was how much I was loving on Hakeem. I mean he’s a real asshole usually, entitled AF and super slutty but his sassy comments lately have been on point. For instance, when he goes head to head with Laz, whose none to pleased about the impromptu rap battle that could bring negative press to the complete farce that is “Cookie’s Cookout.” I curse myself every time I have to type that name. Hakeem swiftly puts Laz in his place…underneath Cookie, obv. JK he shouts at him, “No you a punk ass promoter so go hang up some flyers.” ZING city, bruh. Laz doesn’t love Hakeem’s tone and gets a little slap-happy with him except NOBODY gets to smack Hakeem unless they’re named Cookie so she’s like get your hands off my G-D son. BUT THEY’RE STILL TOGETHER. UGH, Cookie. Girlfriend. Get rid of Laz right quick. You’re better than this.

Don’t worry; she’s still cheating on Laz with her son though, sneaking around his apt to produce a new song to present to Pepsi. Lurking in the shadows when Lucious drops by to show off a new beat that KILLS. At least this one is just instrumental and not a bunch of booms that make my ears fall off. Either way, Jamal can only bounce back and forth between mommy and daddy for so long producing this song so naturally he pulls a Parent Trap and gets both of them to show up at the studio and merge their beats. He’s like hey I know you’re both not going to get re-married on the QEII but maybe you could just make sweet, sweet music together. It ends in them screaming and Lucious referring to Jamal as “his” son as if HE carried that baby for 9 months and then let it stomp out his vagina. Nice try, you piglet. They settle the worst example of parents post-divorce ever by betting on their kids’ success. If Hakeem wins the battle, Cookie can produce Jamal’s album and vice versa.

It’s a good thing the kids are more mature than their parents in this scenario. We have a quick wah-wah moment from Hakeem when he sees Jamal and Cookie face timing and is like WHY DON’T YOU LOVE ME, MOM?! Then threatens to out their sneakiness to Lucious before the parent trapping. Cookie calls her son a snitch bitch, as good moms do. But then the Lyon boys smarten up and get together for some Doritos and hot sauce with a side of wisdom. Hakeem tells Jamal to treat their dumbass parents like business partners and Jamal gives Hakeem some pointers for how to crush Freda in the rap battle. Not that he should need any pointers because when they show the rehearsal Freda’s rap is a literal checklist. Like she bubbles out gibberish then punctuates it with a manly shout of the word CHECK! Sick rap, Freda. I have less street cred than Elmo and I could freestyle better than this bid.

But before we get to that juicy rap battle, Jamal performs this highly-anticipated Cookie-Lucious combo deal and to add a little more pack to his punch he wears a floor length linen cardigan for the show, sassily flipping it up when the beat changes. He also kicks around a lot, which I think is Jamal’s way of integrating choreography. Safe to say he should stick behind a piano from here on out. He snags the Pepsi deal, announces BOTH parents will produce his album while Lucious barks, “WHO’S GREAT?” over and over again. A celebratory moment, indeed. Until those two fiery personalities are stuck in a studio togets, of course. Who will get the rights to wear a fedora? It would be preposterous for them to both rock hats, obviously.

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Almost as preposterous as Lucious standing in the crowd at the rap battle looking like he’s trying way too hard to be a young thug in Freda’s crew. Lucious, please accept the fact that you’re a dad of three grown men and do a billion times less.

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Hakeem starts it off and kills it, obviously. Freda fires back with threats of shooting him because she’s a hoodrat who resorts to violence. She goes for the easy YOUR MOM diss and blows him a kiss at the end of her verse. I will begrudgingly give her props for the knock about Jamal’s tendency to wear nightgowns because that 100% deserves to be made fun of. Jamal and his linen housecoats are really pushing it. But anyway, everyone oohs and ahhs (a little too much if you ask me, not that I’m a regular at rap battles) and Hakeem keeps his shit together. He’s growing up so fast. Instead of getting aggress, he takes Jamal’s advice and wins over the crowd. He amps up a little call and response, moves around, spits some sick violence-free rhymes and finishes with: CALL ME HAKEEM BULLET TO THE NAME LYON. MIC F’ING DROP, yo. Then he beats the shit out of “Lyon” in lights and announces he’s going all Prince. One name ya’ll. Hakeem.

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Too bad the artist formerly known as Hakeem Lyon is about to be a dad. After Anika tricks us all into thinking she’s gonna pin it on Lucious, she seduces Hakeem and he’s like no touching pls, I’m in love now but we can still be homies. Anika doesn’t want to be just homies though, as we find out when Hakeem puts Laura in a car after the battle and is all be safe, boo and we see a sinister Anika driving the car, wearing a blonde wig. So it’s comforting to know that Anika is emotionally stable during this pregnancy. This is about to get Lifetime movie good and I’m going to kick back and lap that shit right up. I can only hope she does a little psycho warfare on virginal Laura. Maybe even bangs Hakeem in front of her? Jus sayin, this could go places.

Almost as exciting as a made for TV movie plot, we have a new character and it gets a real rise out of Cookie. Apparently she has more than one sister and Candace (Vivica A. Fox) strolls into town because their other sister is on a bender and peaced out on her kids. Rather than being pezzed at the boozy sis, Cookie channels her anger toward Candace who is apparently a bougie-ass bitch who married a white guy with lots of pocket change. Even Lucious is like yesssss, Candace is back, and pops a bag of popcorn. I look forward to their class vs. trash dynamic.

Drip Drops:

– That music streaming guy that Lucious & Mimi drugged last week asked for a lot more money and everyone told Lucious not to sign the deal so obviously he did. Mimi is certainly a trustworthy chick, gr8 idea, Loosh!

-Via dramatic flashback we learn that Lucious made up the last name Lyon because he once slept under a lion statue. Innovative.

-I’ve heard hair described as greasy, I’ve heard my dad call the roads in winter greasy (unfortunately) but Cookie’s use of the phrase is my new fave. When greeting her sis with “You talking slick outcha mouth, real greasy.” I almost peed a little. This will now be my new reaction to anyone speaking.

-THIS IS HOW YOU WEAR IT, KIM K… WITHOUT A BABY IN YOUR BELLY. laceensemble

Empire, Television

Empire- “True Love Never”

“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:

👅👄 #Empire pic.twitter.com/XkdWvDAnWc

— Empire (@EmpireFOX) November 12, 2015

Empire, Television

Empire- “Be True”

You know when WASP neighbors go around leaving secret gifts on each other’s doorsteps around Halloween with a note that reads “You just got Booed!”? Well leaving a rotting human’s skeleton for the prosecutor who’s after you is like the criminal version of Booing. SO festive. As you remember that’s how last week’s episode ended—and this week we pick up with headlines of Lucious being a free man, cleared of all charges, which means this stunt he pulled must have been about as casj as neighborhood fun and games. APPARENTLY putting a dead body that you dug up in a lawyer’s car throws them off the scent because the charges have disappeared into thin air, and so has that prosecutor with an enormous rack. (Gone2Soon.)

Although boob city is gone, her equally as outrageous competitive counterpart, Thirsty seems to be hanging around, to pick up Vernon’s old duties at Empire, AKA professional shadiness. Thankfully, we get to hear him welcome Andre back to Empire with a sneering “Nice to see you without a shovel.” But besides that these two butt heads because Thirsty is now Lucious’s puppet for all things dirty business while Andre is now one with G-o-d. I REALLY want to be on Team Andre here, but he’s wearing a chin strap these days that is starting to resemble historical American’s mutton chop style and I hate it a whole lot.

Lucky for him the hoes in glitter hot pants that Lucious has gathered in the boardroom for Andre’s welcome back fiesta don’t care what Dre’s facial hair looks like. This party is really fitting for someone who just found Jesus and is about to be a dad. We can all see, short of a pants tent, that Lucious is enjoying Andre’s double team lap dance much more than his son. Meanwhile, Rhonda just wants to bone her husband because she’s all sorts of pregnancy horny and EVEN after she tells him she’s panty-less, he’s like meh, you’re a little late, my welcome party was hours ago. JK he talks about how much he wants the whole family to come together and watch him confess his sins as he is baptized into the church. Rhonda’s like good F’ing luck with that.

Over in Dynasty land (which could easily be the name of a strip club, jus sayin), Cookie directs a photo shoot of Tiana by shouting “WORK IT!” a lot and we see that it took Hakeem about five seconds to sign the virgin bar singer, Laura. Something tells me by the way Laura’s Bambi’ing around the studio gawking that she won’t last long in this cutthroat biz where Hakeem thinks it’s ok to smooch every single one of his signed recording artists.

Then Tiana is approached by two street rats outside of the studio for a selfie, one suddenly burps up a razor and in the blink of an eye they’ve robbed her. It was a pretty peculiar way to get mugged and I’ll probably have nightmares about someone producing a razor on their tongue for quite some time. It turns out they’re part of a masked terrifying gang. So THAT makes it better. The gang is trying to extort Lyon Dynasty for money and Cookie’s like they obviously don’t know who the F they’re dealing with. I take no greater pleasure than when street savvy Cookie comes out to play and you can tell by her tone that she’s about to teach these thugs a lesson.

Unfortunately still not on board with his bo$$ bitch mom is Jamal, who now has Lucious producing his album. If you’re wondering what Lucious as a producer looks like—it’s a fully grown man wearing sunglasses inside, a cardigan, and throwing his arms lazily around like he’s Drake in the Hotline Bling music video.

That’s not even the most entertaining part, because out of thin air, Ne-Yo appears to give his expert opinion. Ne-Yo is now a hipster with a fedora and round glasses and he’s also been pulled on board to help Jamal with his record and tour with him for a few because he obviously has nothing better to do. Jamal’s boyf, Michael meets Ne-Yo, pretty calmly tells him he’s a huge fan and Lucious dismisses the boyf like he just screeched SQUAD GOALS and forced Ne-Yo to take a selfie with him. Lucious strongly advocates that Jamal ditch his “girlfriend” for tour life.

Oh, yes and creeptastic photographer that I assumed would be a one and done terrible character has clung on for a second appearance unfortunately to burrow his head in between Jamal and Michael, literally. First he tries to give a surprise beej to Jamal in the club after getting him hammered, his reasoning of course, “a mouth is a mouth,” #noble. Jamal rejects him and then later ruins a “dope session” with Ne-Yo with his relayshe probz. Ne-Yo shows us his sensitive side when he LITERALLY tips his cap and advises Jamal to bring his boyfriend on tour if that’s what he wants and to never ever take relationship advice from that slut Lucious. PREACH. Then Ne-Yo does a lot of spirit fingers while Jamal sings—oh yeah and Michael allows pervy artist to slob on his knob at Jamal’s party later soooooo it’s looking like rocky roads ahead for these two.

Brothers who throw parties together, stay together. Unfortunately that’s not really the case for Hakeem and Jamal, who throw separate parties on the same night. While Jamal is showing off his nipples in a low-cut Henley at his house, Hakeem is whoring all over his female singers at his respective party. He tries to grind all up on Laura (initiation) and she’s like hey I have standards, thanks. YOU GO, GIRL! In the end Hakeem matures—sorry that was a strong word to use for someone who says, “I’m on my mogul swag now and you the real deal”—which is what he says to woo Laura back the next day, no kissies involved. He promises not to try and pork her again and even offers up his personal driver to show how serious he is. It’s cute, in like a skeevy way.

Even though Dynasty is under attack, Cookie is still trying to grow the business and that’s how we meet our latest guest star, Adam Rodriguez (lick) whose playing a promoter interested in working with Cookie and fingers crossed, WERRRRRKINNN with her, if you know what I mean, and I think you do. While he’s there talking biz with her in a flirty way, Lucious’s minions have broken in to steal their masters. Hot stuff and Cookie manage to get the tracks back, kick their asses, and show off that they are each packing. Some, more than others, WINK.

Anyway, as you would expect, the family that kills together ends up reuniting in church for Andre’s baptism. It actually is precious that everyone comes through for Dre and EVEN though Lucious told his son to man the hell up because tap water does not wash shit away, he still finds it in his black hole of a heart to attend. Unfortunately as the don of the family enters the church (late of course), I couldn’t help but get the feeling that he was about to have his three biggest competitors simultaneously offed while he witnessed Andre’s baptism. Although if we’re being realistic, the only people he has left to kill at this point are in that church. Therefore, instead of a “Do you renounce Satan?” POW-POW-POW scene, it’s just more of Lucious being an ass, i.e. when Andre says he loves his father and Lucious responds with, I know you do. And of course, Cookie finds the front pew in church a perfectly approps place to hand a surveillance bug over to Lucious and tell him to stick it up his ass. Thank God for Cookie, oh yeah and Andre’s baptism, I guess, which Lucious ducks out of before the grand finale because he apparently used to get water boarded by his bipolar mom for swearing. Since we can’t ever let the Lyon family give us the warm and fuzzies without a little trouble, after the baptism Hakeem is straight ‘napped while running, by of course the sketchy razorblade mouth gang. They stick a bag over his head, but leave his glistening, sweaty six-pack on display for us to ‘preciate. And ‘preciate them, I did.

Drip-Drops: (This is what I’ve decided to call commentary that I would like to make but doesn’t fit into a paragraph.)

-Portia interrupting Cookie’s sexy meeting to introduce her grandmother’s dog Whooptie-Woo as a guard dog was straight up gold. She earned her job back just with the pup’s name.

-Fashion W of the night: Cookie’s hot pink satin jacket. It was like a sexy businesswoman Barbie.

-Poor Uncle Vern, even after he’s murdered no one wants his ashes. R.I.P on someone’s mantle.

-This rapper that Lucious drooled all over sucks. Freda sounds like a man and her rapping is the woooooorst. Go away, punk.

-The only worthwhile cookie-ism this week is when she shouts “Tell Lucious to kiss my black ass.”

Empire, Television

Empire- “Poor Yorick”

(Let’s try to do away with the baby bangs on Cookie…not into it at all.)

After getting hooked on Empire mid-first season last year, I knew that once people started buzzing about it, the already outrageous show would just get bigger. Now that we’re a few episodes into season 2, it’s safe to say that this show is on a whole other level. Therefore, I’ve decided to add it to my recap lineup so that we can all together share the cringes that Lucious Lyon illicits.

Which obviously brings us to this week’s episode when the feds raid Empire, Dynasty, and Lucious’s personal abode, where he’s in bed the morning after boinking another young’n. Prosecutor Cleavage rolls up and he gloriously steps out of bed in the nude to purr, “Hi there baby, look wherever you like.” If Empire was intending to make half of their audience throw up a little bit in their mouths, they were quite successful.

For those who might be as confused with the up and down story line as I often am, the feds are searching for evidence that Lucious killed Bunkie because Prosecutor Cleavage is out to crucify him. Instead of getting scared, Lucious declares to team Empire that an FBI investigation gives you street cred and he’s top OG now. Super normal reaction to being under a magnifying glass for committing a murder that you absolutely did, but that’s neither here nor there. What stressed me out the most in this Empire impromptu meeting about criminal activity was that lezzie Mimi is back and she’s finagled her hair into a twist to make it look like she has no hair and it’s roof stoof. She also does her best impression of a gangsta and it’s supes embarrassing on her part. Methinks she has never been behind bars and should probably zip her lips. (PS for anyone playing the Empire drinking game that should definitely exist, Lucious has uttered, “It’s game time bitches” for the 100^th time, and therefore deserves a shot each time it is forced upon us.)

The Lyon family plan is to act like they love each other and aren’t running rival record labels until they can find Vernon (who Andre’s wife Miss Scarlett casj killed with the candlestick, in the study) and clear this whole Bunkie murder nonsense up. The second creepiest thing that Lucious does this episode is suck a lollipop while he schemes with Cookie how they can bring the fam back together while ALSO profit from it. After Lucious finds out how many licks it takes to get to the center of a tootsie pop, they settle on making a music video with Jamal & Hakeem, who pretty much hate each other’s stinkin guts.

Jamal is generally still really feelin himself and no one else, which is a shame because he could have that sweet Usher thing going for him if he wanted. Instead, he snagged the cover of Rolling Stone and the pervy photographer who shoots it actually tells Jamal, “I wanna be inside you,” as he directs him to play the piano mid-shoot. And Jamal doesn’t think anything about that was weird. Cue eye roll from his too good 4 life boyfriend and also, me. C’mon Jamal. Be better.

In the land of mental instability, Andre confesses to that wifey of his who looks like a real smokeshow—pregnancy clearly agrees with her—that God has been speaking to him and what he’s saying is dig up Vernon’s body that they buried and turn it into the cops so he can get back to working at Empire. MAKES TOTAL SENSE. Instead of being like hey Andre, let’s tune God out on this one, Rhonda’s like I’m all in, ride or die, yo. Except for the minor detail that they buried him surrounded by identical trees and the only note they took from where they stashed a dead body was that the tree had a hole. GENIUSES. Naturally they run into a little snafu of finding ole Uncle Vern.

But before the amateur murderers get themselves in a pickle, we have our glorious Lyons bro music video shoot consisting of some pyrotechnics, a jungle gym, video hoes (obv) and Jamal wearing a hat that can best be described as something straight outta the Cuban revolution. WHO OK’ED THIS? While we’re on the topic of fashion, Cookie shows up in a hot red leather Michael Jackson outfit adorned with gold chains but before she can shout sassy things at her bickering sons she’s arrested and I literally get down on my knees and pray that she gets to keep that number on for her mugshot. We don’t get to see but it does turn out that Prosecutor Cleavage is after her to give up the deets on Lucious. Not so fast though, Cookie gets a cloudy look in her eyes and flashes back to the man she once loved, serenading her with the beautiful words, “You ain’t nothin’ but a snitch, bitch. Snitchin’ ass bitch” in a jail broom closet and decides to clam up. Just kidding, she has flashbacks to her awful, lonely days in jail, WITHOUT A WIG, and decides to craft a story for boobs on boobs so she can get the hell outta there. She confesses that Bunkie and Lucious were arguing over the Apex radio deal knowing that miss Yabbos will stop the deal while Cookie moonwalks away.

Unfortunately while she’s in a holding cell trying to keep her sons safe from threats of being smothered to death by the prosecutors’ chest, her two youngest are back at each other’s throats. The creepy photographer unveils a painting of Jamals’ cover shoot that he probably had some private time with earlier sans pants and Hakeem sees Lucious & Jamal drooling all over it before declaring, “It’s the most ugliest painting I’ve seen in my life.” He has a real way with words. Then he stabs the painting and the brothers beat the shit out of each other mid-music video.

In other very conventional family bonding, Lucious and his purple suit lawyer Thirsty surprise attack the gravediggers right about the time they realize they’re not really cut out for the body burying business. They tracked Andre’s car, NBD, and Thirsty just happens to carry around a body detector. Bingo, bango they’ve located Vernon’s deteriorating remains and we have ourselves a very proud father-son moment. Dre is given a warm murderer welcome back into the Empire and all is well. Except for Vernon, who gets a personal goodbye from Lucious in the form of “You will rot in hell you snitch.” Obviously Vernon didn’t live long enough to learn a quick lesson from Lucious’ number one hit “Snitch Bitch”. It’s a shame really…it could’ve saved his life.

Hakeem, now the most hated son, hits a Latina Michael Buble bar to pout over a drink and think about apologizing to his brother. Instead he discovers a fresh out da womb Latina singer performing in public for the very first time and girl can wail. His jeans suddenly get real tight as dollar signs and perhaps a new bath buddy dance in his head. Target acquired for the girl group that won’t die—unlike Vernon, whose very dead rotting body is straight chillin in Prosecutor Cleavage’s car the next morning. Lucious may be a bona fide cr33p but don’t ever doubt his creativity.

Cookie-isms:

“Tell me a grandma got an ass like this.”

“Do I look like I catch a subway?”

JUice

Weekly JUice

Week of 8/17/15

I don’t mean to alarm anyone but I did have a pretty serious incident this week where I was under the knife. I had my tongue sliced and stiched and therefore I’m basically bringing you the JUice this week while handicapped. I’ll take get well wishes in the form of Dunkin gift cards and appreciate you all keeping me in your #thoughtsandprayers.

1. New Fire Flametastic Music. CAN’T DRAG 1D DOWN. They lose a member, get in catty twitter fights and knock a “stylist” up but don’t say 1D goes quietly into the night. This song was released about a month ago when they were trying to convince everyone that all was well but they just dropped the music video where they’re a bunch of astronauts, NBD. Good song and even better flow for ya boy Harry…seriously, lettuce for days.

Nick Jonas also gifted us with Levels today and it already has the Cin stamp of approval. I was bumping it and noticed that she couldn’t help but bop her head as she was going through the mail. That’s just what Nick does…show his abs and crank out hits for all ages.

2. Bill Hader gets super stoned in Amsterdam with a bunch of famous comedians. You know what’s funny? People getting trashed. You know what’s funnier? Famous people who are paid to be hilarious getting trashed together and telling us about it. Bill does a killer Seth Rogen impression and then Vanessa Bayer shows up at the end sounding like I did when my mom used to pick me up from the bars at 4AM ~~back in the day~~ last weekend.

3. Julianne Hough is engaged while Brian Austin Green and Megan Fox are this week’s celeb trip to D-town.

We continue our theme of where there is love there is loss. Julianne Hough and her hottie hockey boyf get engaged (no ring pics yet BOOOOOO) and Brian Austin Green/Megan Fox are the next victims of the summer of Divorce. To be completely honest with you, I was more devastated by the news that Donna and David were having trouble in paradise than I was for this divorce of actual humans and not fictional characters. But seriously, 90210 ends with Donna and David finally togets forevs, then they announce a reboot 90210 and tease the dream team coming back for a guest appearance so I dutifully watched a GARBAGE show for an entire season only to see Donna come back SANS David and announce they’re probably getting divorced. I apologize, I just got fired up again merely rehashing it for you. DONNA MARTIN GRADUATES, DONNA AND DAVID FOREVER.

4. BaBaY New$. Jana Kramer got married like five minutes ago and now she’s preggeroni. This week she announced it will be a girl through an incredibly awksies gender reveal insta video.

https://instagram.com/p/6hwj73LMvj/?taken-by=kramergirl

Kelly Clarkson announced she’s having baby #2 accidentally after a case of the mid-concert sobsies. It’s cute because she wants to assure everyone she isn’t drunk or high she’s just pregnant and that’s why she can’t stop crying onstage. Watch 1:40 if you want to hear the announcement.

5. The She-Pratt had a casual crystal meth addiction at 14. I think I’m more shocked by the fact that anyone still keeps tabs on Stephanie Pratt rather than the fact that she apparently couldn’t get enough of the ice when she was barely a teen. It kind of all makes sense now. It’s the final piece of the missing puzzle. She once had a hamster when she was little but then she got all hopped up on the crank and bingo bango suddenly she has a guinea pig. The GREAT news is that you can read all about her childhood drug addiction in her memoir, because that’s what we were all missing in our lives.

Bonus: Cookie and Lucious battle it out Lyon style.

PRAISE Taraji doing Mary J Blige and MJB literally playing second fiddle to her onstage. That’s how you lip sync like a boss bitch. Credit where credit is due to Terrence for making the high notes of the greatest babymakin song of all time look real life. Clap it up for laying it all on the line just for round 1. More of this in Empire next season, pls.

The Salty Ju

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