Empire Kills Off [Spoiler] in Last Midseason Premiere Ever
The following recap contains spoilers from this week’s Empire — proceed at your own peril.
White Tracy has a new alias: Dead as a Doornail Tracy.
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Lucious’ dumpster fire of a baby momma’s harebrained gambit to whack Cookie backfired big time in Empire‘s midseason premiere, the first of the Fox drama’s 10 final episodes. As the crack addict was about to pull the trigger, Andre charged in, sending bullets flying every which way but loose. Amid the commotion, Cookie grabbed Lucious’ piece and shot Tracy square in the chest, killing her instantly.
A two-week time jump followed and found an emotionally fraught Cookie unpacking the violent incident with her shrink. Yes, she’s traumatized, but not about killing Tracy. The whole sordid episode reawakened in her a painful chapter from her past in which she shot and killed a man with close ties to her sister Carol. We later learn that Carol has no idea her sis was behind the murder of this beloved guy we’ve never heard of prior to this episode.
On the bright side for Cookie, Lucious finally relented and granted her the divorce she has for months been begging for.
Meanwhile, Andre — who sustained a minor flesh wound in the aforementioned Tracy-centric melee — still can’t get his dead half-brother Kingsley out of his head. If anything, “Kingsley” — incensed by his mother’s death — is more emboldened than ever to drive Andre crazy. To wit, “Kingsley” convinced Andre to brush off his doctor’s strong recommendation that he commit himself to a psychiatric facility for six years months, and later goaded him into assuring wife Teri that his hallucinations were under control.
Elsewhere in Season 6, Episode 11, titled “Can’t Truss ‘Em”:
* The arrival of the first trailer for Birth of an Empire (fka Untitled Lucious Lyon Project) brought MIA Hakeem (who plays a Young Lucious in the pic) briefly back into the fold. Curiously, Hakeem’s biggest moment in the episode — the rekindling of his romance with his now-spoken-for ex Tiana — was communicated to the audience via an awkward mix of exposition and a blink-and-you-missed it flashback.
* Lucious felt an inspirational “jolt” to chart a new post-Empire course after listening to his ex-lover Yana sing. “I think you are so much more than a songwriter,” he cooed. “You should be a recording artist yourself. I can make you a star.” After initially shooting down his pipe dream to make her the next Rhianna, Yana agreed to give music stardom a shot.
* Becky reprimanded one of her Bossy Media underlings for snorting Adderall in the office bathroom in a hilarious scene that abruptly turned dark when, once alone, she phoned her pot dealer and ordered some of the recreational euphoriant for herself. Please tell me the show is not gonna do a Becky drug addiction storyline. Not with only nine episodes left. No one wants to see that.
Grade the episode below and then hit the comments with your thoughts on 6.11.
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