BWW Recap: Ay Will Surive on EMPIRE

The good news is, we discovered the inspiration behind Lucious' about to be classic hit, "Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom." The bad news is, said inspiration was his Mom's constant threat (?) to end her own life. Tonight, Lucious had to dig deep to find the music.

Laz and Cookie are in the throws of passion, like for days. Cookie decides to throw a big old music festival entitled, "Cookie's Cookout" for Lyon Dynasty. Laz advises her if she wants to use a specific park, she's going to have to sit down with the gang leader that kidnapped Hakeem to arrange security. But, see, Laz is a part of that gang and meets with the leader on the side. Hakeem is pretty horrified at the transaction, but eventually, as a businessman agrees to the contract. Hakeem, meanwhile, is still promoting Menage, but Cookie isn't convinced Laura has enough to be the lead singer and recommends bumping up Carmen to the position. Hakeem enlists Tiana to help Laura and has Laura perform in public to gain some confidence and stop people in her tracks. She performs a Spanish version of "I Will Survive" and blows away the streets of Philadelphia. When the plan succeeds, she not only kisses Hakeem, Cookie approves her for lead singer.

Lucious visits legend, Sir Huey Jarvis (Guest Star, Clarence Williams III) for some advice on his new collaboration with Freda. Huey advises Lucious that the missing link (#modquadhumor #datedreference #imquiteold) is that Lucious needs to dig deeper to push the song over the edge. Lucious also asks Huey to include Jamal in his next "Living Room Sessions" as they seem to be award machines. Jamal is over the moon at the invitation and asks Cookie for some assistance on his new song. They have to hide their partnership with, oh, everyone, but they enjoy working together.

Mimi is expressing disappointment that EMPIRE isn't living up to her financial expectations. Dre suggests designing a platform for streaming music. She likes the idea, but instead of designing it, she wants to merge with Swiftstream. After Lucious punches out the CEO in a sparring match and manipulates his morphine dose, the merger happens. In celebration, Lucious and Mimi decide to have a threeway with a prostitute which ends in Mimi breaking down on the phone to a mystery person and Lucious figuring out how to tap into his deep conscious or the song. He finds the gun his mother continuously threatened to kill herself with and takes it to the recording studio. He plays with it as he and Freda finish the recording of "Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom," a phrase his mother repeatedly said with a gun to her head. But we still don't know if she ever went through with it yet, do we? Did I miss that? So out of nowhere, Lucious was unbelievably protective of Mimi. Where did that come from? I actually felt bad for the prostitute in that scene. She must have left thinking, "Man... those people have issues!"

Dre dealt with his own issues, somehow figuring that blackmail is less of a sin than adultery and Ronda found that arousing (?), but at least their dry spell was broken. Hakeem warned Cookie to be careful of Laz, which was obviously justified, but now that he is blatantly working with the gang... anyone else suspecting undercover cop? Or is that just wishful thinking as we all hope for more shirtless Adam Rodriguez scenes?

Laura finally gave in to Hakeem, we knew that would happen sooner or later, but I'm doubting this girl with the heart of gold will be able to tame our playboy, Hakeem in the long run. I'm predicting some heartache for that child.

The real star of this episode was the music. All songs performed were winners and my iTunes bill will break $5 tomorrow, I'm sure. Anyone else have trouble getting "Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom" out of their head? And when Huey complimented Lucious on Jamal, was Lucious jealous or sad that he couldn't find that emotion in his own head? Little bit of both? Every week we learn more and more why Lucious is so afraid of/for Dre.

We'll file Becky and Anika in the "where the hell were they" pile this week. They can join Raven Simone and Lucious' love child and Malcolm and Michael and creepy artist... I can keep going...

Here's a preview for next week's all new episode:

Photo Credit: FOX

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