‘Empire’ Recap: The Lyons Get Sweet Revenge But Face New Trouble

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The fall finale of Empire begins with a bleak reminder that Andre is in the hospital and he’s not doing well. He’s being heavily sedated so that doctors can clear the drugs, prescribed by his bum psychiatrist, from his system, and they won’t know whether he’ll sustain permanent brain damage or not.

That being said, Cookie and Lucious are about that revenge life, and they plan to do it at Diana’s upcoming Captain’s Ball. Diana Dubois is so shook about the Lyons messing up her event that she makes sure all the security is as tight as possible. She even has the wait staff and bathroom attendants vetted. Angelo brings up a great point, maybe she shouldn’t be having the ball at all given the fact that the war between these two families is so hot. She thinks the show must go on and that her security is airtight, but we all know the Lyon Clan always finds a way, especially with Thirsty on their side.
Warren pays Jamal a visit and manages to get up to his apartment by giving the doorman $10,000 in cash to let him up. That would be the $10,000 that his aunt gave him to skip town. He makes sure Jamal knows this and that he genuinely does love him. He also has something to tell Jamal that his family should know. Jamal tells him to get to stepping, but not before asking what it is he needs to tell him, and then we cut to commercial.
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Cookie and Lucious manage to infiltrate Angelo’s transportation to the ball. They get him to a secluded area and Lucious requests that he sign a confession that his mother kidnapped Bella and orchestrated the plan to take Bella away from Hakim. Angelo refuses, especially because if he signs it under duress it won’t be admissible in court. Then Angelo makes a sexually suggestive comment about Cookie and Lucious drops the nice guy shtick. No really, he snaps pistol whips Angelo with one ultimatum: either he signs it or his mama’s brains can be on it. Angelo signs it then they head to the ball to make a spectacle.
Cookie and Lucious force Angelo to get them into the ball and Diana is disturbed when she sees Angelo showing up looking like:

Next thing you know, Lucious and Cookie are on the floor doing the tango. Diana tries to have security get them out, but Angelo tells her not to make a scene. Turns out, they snuck in through the orchestra, the only facet of the ball that wasn’t pre-vetted. Bourgious Diana messed up by assuming the Lyons would be too ghetto to know anything about classical music. Hakeem and Jamal take the stage to perform their diss track, but not before dedicating the song to Dre, and putting it on blast that Diana has put him in the hospital.
Once the song is over, the crowd is standing there looking like:
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Then Cookie gets on stage to welcome everyone to the Captain’s Ball and she throws to a video of Diana’s nephew Warren making a confession. Diana is trying to have everything shut down but the Lyons have control of all of the technology. The only thing that makes her feel better is that police are on the way. Back to Warren, though. Warren reveals that Diana is one of the most disgusting people he has ever known and that she kidnapped Bella. Angelo gets irate and tells his mother that he’s going to find Warren and “put him down like the rabid dog he is.” Then they put the doctor on blast that prescribed Dre psychosis-inducing drugs (at Diana’s request) and divulges all of the details of Diana’s plan. Basically, Cookie tugs at the heartstrings saying that her sons might be messy, but they did not deserve to be treated the way they did and she finally wins the crowd over.
Diana is just standing there stuck on stupid, but also rage.
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Now we cut to Anika who has run upstairs to pack her bags. Her plan is to leave town with Anika. Then Hakim shows up with another release that she needs to sign. Basically, they have videotapes of Anika with Bella when Bella was supposed to be missing, which would make her an accessory to kidnapping. Anika breaks down in tears, talking about how she can’t go back to jail and we definitely don’t feel sorry for her.
Hakim gets her to sign the release and still remains civil through it all despite Anika being a c-u- next-Tuesday. He knows what it’s like to grow up without a mother and wants Amika to be part of Bella’s life under the condition that she no longer uses Bella to hurt him. He says he’s going to keep the tapes indefinitely since there’s no statute on them but he won’t show them to authorities so long as she behaves.
Back at the ball, Diana starts hurling smug insults at the Lyon family and she really thinks she’s good until the police come and surprise her by taking her away for kidnapping Bella.
Next, Jamal walks in on Angelo about to shoot Warren. Angelo, after having seen Jamal, now plans to set it up like a lovers quarrel where Jamal kills Warren and then himself, but Jamal rushes him. Angelo shoots Warren, but Jamal and Angelo continue to struggle until Angelo is shot dead. Warren is still conscious and says he was shot in the shoulder and Jamal is freaking out. However, he at least calls the police instead of tampering with the crime scene and making things worse, but we’ll have to hold indefinitely before finding out what happens with that situation.
Lucious pays Dre a visit to inform him that he got revenge and that they need Dre to come back. Dre kinda comes back to consciousness and says, “Pop I tried to kill you.” That’s when a nurse whose face we don’t see injects Lucious with something that knocks him out. Later on we find out that it’s Claudia, obvi. Basically, she has him chained up in a cabin, tells him she missed him and is really on her Misery steez.
And now we have to wait until March to find out what happens next. The preview looked juicy though.