Empire

Fox TV’s hip hop soap opera Empire picked up where the Fall Finale cliffhanger left off.

After Rhonda Lyon (Kaitlyn Doubleday) was brutally shoved down a flight of stairs, she watched as her assailant, Anika Calhoun (Grace Gealey), calmly strolled out the front door wearing a pair of black red bottom flats.

Anika, who is pregnant with Hakeem Lyon’s seed, eliminated the competition for heir to Empire‘s throne by murdering Rhonda and Andre Lyon’s unborn baby.

In the next scene, Lucious Lyon (Terrence Howard) and his legal goon, “Thirsty” Rawlings (Andre Royo), plot to take Empire back from the conniving Camilla (Naomi Campbell) and her boy toy Hakeem Lyon (Bryshere Y. Gray).

Hakeem defies his mother Cookie (Taraji P. Henson) who orders him to take back his vote that kicked Lucious off the board of Empire.

When Hakeem remains defiant and refuses to take back his vote, Cookie beats him relentlessly with a broomstick until it breaks. She then assaults him with her chain purse.

Lucious and Thirsty hire a group of ex-convicts to “scare” Empire’s board members into withdrawing their CEO nominations.

Hakeem Lyon

Hakeem then names himself Empire CEO by default, thus pitting himself against his father, Lucious, in a strange duel of wits on the very spot where Lucious killed his best friend Bunkie in season 1.

Empire‘s young viewers endured 2 songs by Jamal “the goat” Lyon (Jussie Smollett), who now claims to be ambisexual. “Just because I have sex with, uh, two women in my entire life doesn’t mean I’m straight or bi or anything,” he says in a conversation with his mother, Cookie.

“Sexuality is fluid,” Jamal says. But Cookie reminds Jamal that heterosexual sex is how he was conceived.

Speaking of fluid sexuality, Camilla, who was married to a woman in the 1st half of season 2, is now presumably straight again.

Camilla resumes her relentless pursuit of Hakeem who has other plans to deflower his on-again, off-again girlfriend, Laura (Jamila Velazquez).

Hakeem deflowers Laura

Watch the full episode below, courtesy of Ddotomen.com (video is not hosted on sandrarose.com server).