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'Empire' Season 2 Episode 2: 'Without A Country'

Noah Camarena |
October 1, 2015 | 1:29 p.m. PDT

Staff Reporter

Bryshere Y. Gray and Jussie Smollett (FOX)
Bryshere Y. Gray and Jussie Smollett (FOX)
Just when you thought the Lyon family couldn’t be any more dysfunctional, well, we find out they are.

The episode starts off with Cookie (Taraji P. Henson), Hakeem (Bryshere Y. Gray) and Andre (Trai Byers) cleaning out their stuff and leaving the premises of Empire after Jamal (Jussie Smollett) kicked them out of the company for betraying his father. Cookie doesn't seem too worried about leaving the company because she helped start Empire and she believes that she can build a new company from scratch. She wants to work with Andre and Hakeem to build a new company to compete with Jamal.

The problem is that her sons don't know what they're doing.

Hakeem is tired of being labeled as only a rapper and he wants to develop his own artists. He has the bright idea of making an all-female group, but it seems as if he just wants to flirt and meet girls. Andre and Cookie are more concerned with releasing his album that is in the hands of Empire because they know Jamal won't release it. Hakeem is more concerned with his girl group and he does find one girl he really likes in Valentina (Becky G).

While the family out of Empire appears to be in shambles, Jamal’s life is great. He is back to making music and finally getting a hang of running a big company.

Cookie tries to take advantage of Jamal’s inexperience by asking him to give them Hakeem’s album to release.

Back in prison, Lucious (Terrence Howard) is having a rough time. One of the officers, Officer McKnight (Ludacris), and the rest of the staff are not giving him his medication in hopes that he will give up evidence to the prosecutor. However, while Lucious is meeting with Jamal, they happen to meet a lawyer named Thirsty Rawlings (Andre Royo) who seems to know more than he should and is willing to help Lucious.

Jamal decides that he will not listen to his mother and instead sides with his father. He offers Hakeem a position back at Empire so they can release and promote his album.

Thanks to Thirsty, Lucious is able to record a song in prison, ensuring that he still has an important influence on the outside world. Just as he finishes recording the track, McKinght busts through the doors and throws Lucious in solitary and confiscates the laptop that recorded the song.

However, Thirsty will not let McKnight win. He sends some goons to attack the officer and steal back the laptop so that Lucious can release his song.

Cookie’s business has yet to take off. Andre is tired of working for her and decides that he didn’t work his ass off to be unsuccessful. To make matters worse, Hakeem decided to release his album online with the possibility of getting sued and never making any money off of it.

Now that Andre is without a job for Cookie, he heads to prison to beg his father for a spot back at Empire. Lucious won't do it, prompting Andre to ask his father why he hates him. This makes Lucious think back to a time where his mother is singing him a song, but she has a dark look in her eyes as if something is wrong. This storyline will hopefully be explored later on in the season.

Hakeem goes back to his mom’s studio as they sweep the floors and hear Lucious’s new song on the radio, further proving that he will always be more powerful than them.

Lucious finally gets a hearing but his lawyer Thirsty is late. He eventually shows up and tells the judge that he has new evidence for the case. However, instead of evidence it is actually pictures of the judge that could be used as blackmail. This gets the judge to immediately release Lucious on $1 million bail. He’s going back to the Empire.

Watch "Empire" Wednesdays at 9 on Fox.

Reach Staff Reporter Noah here and follow him on Twitter here.



 

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