Review: Empire, “Sins of the Father”

Remember that time Lucious shot his friend and left his body? Sometimes I wish he would kill more people. Like Camilla. She’d be a good start.

This week’s episode, “Sins of the Father,” is a whirlwind building to next week’s two-hour finale (I can’t talk about it. I’m already having withdrawal) with some very big revelations.

First up, Andre is in a treatment facility recovering from the breakdown he suffered last week. Here, we finally get some insight into his life, and get to see him as the complex individual that he is. We learn, not surprisingly, that Lucious has been close-minded about his bipolar disorder from the very start. When Lucious fails to show up to the treatment facility with the rest of the family, we flash back to Andre’s first breakdown, which occurred when he was still in college. The main takeaway from this flashback (other than getting to see Mary J. Blidge) is that Lucious immediately denied that his son had a mental illness.

Seems like Lucious has his head in the sand about lots of things.

The treatment facility seems to be helping Andre, who is very subdued. He is responding especially well to music therapy (administered by Jennifer Hudson). However, when it’s time to show up for the IPO sale, Andre can’t face his father and sends Rhonda as his proxy.

This was probably a good idea, since major drama breaks out at the family meeting. First, Hakeem shows up with Camilla and everyone’s all what is she doing here. Cookie is merciless in her teasing of Camilla, which I enjoy since Camilla is super annoying. Fed up with her meddling in Hakeem’s career, Lucious offers her a pay off to leave him alone.

Camilla doesn’t take the money, but she does agree to go to London and leave Hakeem alone. She tells Lucious that she’ll be back to dance on his grave when he dies, but it kinda seems like she won’t. Otherwise, why would she agree to leave in the first place? Lucious, in true Lucious form, is all, “God made Jesus in his image. I’m making Hakeem in mine.”

Yikes.

Unfortunately, Malcolm (the hot head of security) is called in to take Camilla to the airport, so he’s not at the house to protect the fam when the real crazy guests show up. That’s right, just when Jamal has come to the decision that he wants to raise Lola in his home (side note: this was too much for the cute documentarian, so he seems to be out of the picture), baby mama and ex-wife Olivia (Raven Symone) shows back up with a mystery man. Vernon has brought them to the meeting because he’s doing cocaine again and just, generally, seems to be over trying to help Lucious.

The mystery man is super creepy and controlling of Olivia, so I’m expecting him to sneak off and kidnap little Lola at some point. Instead, he just pulls a gun on Jamal! Lucious redeems himself ever so slightly here by trying to get the crazy guy to point his gun at him instead. He argues that everyone hates him, so why not be a hero and shoot him?

But he doesn’t stop there. Loosing the flicker of redemption just as it appears, Lucious confesses that he is Lola’s father. This is particularly bad since Lucious is the one who made Jamal participate in the sham marriage to Olivia in the first place. (Question: Did Jamal never sleep with Olivia? How do we know that Lucious is for sure the father?).

Malcolm shows up just in time and kills the creepy guy. The family says bye to Lola (which is disappointing since he’s just so dang cute) and is ready to move on. But what will happen with Lucious? It seems he’s finally figured out what he wants (Cookie) but it may be too late.

As usual, I was really impressed with this episode. I especially liked getting to know Andre’s character better. I do think, however, that at this point there’s no liking Lucious. I’m curious to see if he embraces the role of full out villain in next week’s season finale.

What did you think of “Sins of the Father”? Be sure to share your thoughts in the comments below!

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Empire airs Wednesdays at 9/8c on FOX.