'Empire' season 3 news and spoilers: Casting underway for teenage Lucious and Cookie, storyline to focus on 'family dynamic,' Rhonda dies?
The sophomore run of hit Fox musical drama "Empire" wrapped up with the Lyon family facing more complications, and it seems like more trouble are coming their way once season 3 rolls in. Shyne Johnson (Xzibit) will definitely make Lucious' (Terrence Howard) life more difficult as actor-rapper Xzibit has been recently promoted as series regular.
The series will further explore the younger lives of Cookie and Lucious, as casting is currently underway for two African-American actors to portray the two leads during their teenage years. It was not clarified what age the characters will be, but they are required to be "18 to play younger." The teenage Loretha (a.k.a. Cookie) is described as a "beautiful but innocent Catholic schoolgirl," while teenage Lucious is characterized to already have "an incredible voice and his own sense of style."
As for how the storyline will play out, director Sanaa Hamri hinted that season 3 will focus on the "family dynamic." Aside from Lucious having to deal with the return of his estranged mother and the family being broken up after the events of the season 2 finale, viewers will also have a glimpse of how Cookie will come face-to-face with her former husband's decision to marry Anika. "We also have to deal with Cookie (Taraji P. Henson), who is so devastated by Lucious' decision," she explained. "We're going to follow her new path and see what happens between Lucious and Cookie because the great thing is, they're co-CEOs of Empire. Let's not forget, we have the half brother Tariq (Morocco Omari) that Lucious has to deal with and who's in the FBI. You have Jamal (Jussie Smollett) who is literally broken by being shot and then, of course, we ended on Andre (Trai Byers) witnessing a death so that's going to deeply affect him. There's so much and it's going to be an exciting season."
As fans can recall, the season 2 finale saw an intense brawl involving Anika and Rhonda which ended with one of them falling off the building. Andre does not have emotional ties to Anika, and if the death will "deeply" affect him, it might be his wife Rhonda who died in the finale.
Catch all-new episodes of "Empire" season 3 which kicks off this coming Sept. 21, Wednesday at 9 p.m. on Fox.
