If the first part of Empire’s second season featured the Lyon family divided into warring factions, eight final episodes will see them reunite against a new threat. But they’ll still be fighting outsiders — and each other.
When Fox's hip-hop drama returns Wednesday (9 p.m. ET/PT), Lucious (Terrence Howard), Cookie (Taraji P. Henson) and the rest of the family must figure out how to get their music empire back from Camilla Marks (Naomi Campbell), who manipulated youngest son Hakeem (Bryshere Y. Gray) to gain control.
“Fans can expect the family to rally around Lucious to win their kingdom back from the usurpers,” says executive producer Ilene Chaiken, explaining that doesn’t necessarily mean internal peace. “They are the family that will love one another and kill one another, all in the same breath.”
Empire, already renewed for a third season, remains a ratings powerhouse, averaging 17.7 million viewers and ranking as broadcast TV’s top entertainment program with young adults. However, its rising first-season trajectory flattened in Season 2, and critics griped about fall episodes, including an overuse of celebrity guest stars.
Co-creator Lee Daniels acknowledged the complaints at a PaleyFest panel in Los Angeles this month. “It was growing pains,” he said. “It’s trial and error. At the end of the day, we came back.”
Chaiken says there will be fewer celebrity guests in upcoming episodes as the focus shifts more on the family. “I think (these) are the best episodes we’ve made.”
After a four-month hiatus (its last episode aired Dec. 2), Empirepicks up right after Hakeem's dramatic boardroom vote wrested control of the company from his father.
“He’s taken over the empire and he’s betrayed his family, all for the love of Camilla. Camilla is basically running Hakeem’s thoughts and decisions through sex,” Gray tells USA TODAY. “I think it’s good for the show, to have a little villain.”
Still, Hakeem feels his family’s disappointment, Gray adds. “They feel that he betrayed them and he has to win them back.”
As Hakeem is estranged, there's tension between Lucious and middle son Jamal (Jussie Smollett) after both receive nominations for the same music award. And eldest son Andre (Trai Byers) must deal with a devastating situation after his pregnant wife, Rhonda (Kaitlin Doubleday) was pushed down a staircase by an intruder in a first-half cliffhanger.
Rhonda initially has no memory of the fall. “She doesn’t think someone pushed her but Andre does,” Doubleday says. Eventually, she confronts the person who pushed her.
That many fans think the culprit is Anika (Grace Gealey), who's secretly pregnant with Hakeem’s child, is fine with Gealey.
“It means you’re invested in the show,” she says. As far as Anika’s culpability, “you see her being very wronged, feeling bitter, maybe having some side motives. Because you’ve seen that and she’s befriended Rhonda, you automatically start to assume it might be her.”
Chaiken calls the fan theories “an understandable suspicion but not an absolute fact," and says the mystery "will be resolved over the course of the season.”
Beyond that, Chaiken gushes over Howard’s performance in coming episodes as “the best work he’s ever done, the best work being done by any actor in television.”
And Henson, whose Cookie was the breakout character of 2015? “Taraji is everything," the producer says. "There aren’t enough superlatives.”
