'Empire' season 3 spoilers, news: Jamal tries to perform again; Lucious tries to win back Cookie in episode 2
The season 3 premiere of Fox's "Empire" certainly had fans talking after the major cliffhanger from season 2 has finally been resolved, and one character's death will lead to more complications for the Lyon family as the story progresses.
After a huge fight with a pregnant Anika (Grace Gealey), Rhonda (Kaitlin Doubleday) was the one who fell off the building - landing right into Lucious' (Terrence Howard) car. Rhonda's husband Andre (Trai Byers) was helpless as he witnessed her death, and the altercation led Anika to prematurely give birth to her child with Hakeem (Bryshere Gray). Anika later gave birth to baby girl, which infuriated Lucious after discovering that she lied to him. While still in the operating room, Lucious threatened to kill Anika for betraying him.
Titled "Sin That Amends," episode 2 will introduce guest star Taye Diggs as the young businessman Angelo Dubois. In an attempt to deal with the trauma caused by being shot last season, Jamal (Jussie Smollett) will team up with Angelo to discuss the topic of gun violence and host a conference to raise public awareness about the issue. However, just when Jamal finally musters up the courage to perform in front of an audience again, things won't go as planned. Meanwhile, Lucious attempts to win back Cookie (Taraji P. Henson), Hakeem begins to record new music with his father's rival Shyne (Xzibit), and Andre runs into some trouble with the cops.
Showrunner Ilene Chaiken recently caught up with The Hollywood Reporter, and she mentioned that the overarching theme for season 3 is the story of how Lucious first met Cookie. "It's thematic for the entire season," she said. "Those flashbacks will continue through the entire season and they, thematically, reflect the story that we're telling in the present that I was just talking about --the story between Lucious and Cookie and Angelo, the Taye Diggs character. We're calling the flashback story 'When Cookie Met Lucious,' and it's a story we'll tell all season long and it gets picked up in a lot of different threads in our season. I think that it's a defining story for Empire in season three, when Cookie met Lucious."
