It has been quite a long 3 months since Cookie spit in Camilla’s face, and I’ve been so anxious to see what happens next. Unfortunately, I was rewarded with a mostly predictable episode that didn’t do much besides start a few new plot lines.

First of all, I really don’t understand the clues and the air of mystery surrounding the identity of the person who pushed Rhonda down the stairs. It HAS to be Anika. Making the pusher another person would likely take the show into shark jumping territory. What was the point of making her go super crazy (Cuckoo Kitty?) if she wasn’t going to do something super crazy? Anyway, everyone gets to rally around the show’s most stable couple (think about it) and it’s heartwarming.

Camilla is officially out of exile and I guess she sent Mimi to take her place in London because she is spending all of her time pulling Hakeem’s strings at Empire. She somehow convinces him to double cross his family, but forgets that the whole family is essential to Empire’s success. I like her banter with Cookie, but she and her shortsightedness can go back to UK.

Meanwhile Lucious is busy brooding, ordering people around and planning mayhem, AKA being Lucious. I thought I was done with him before, but I am so beyond done now that he sent his gang of thugs to do horrible things to everyone who was in the running for CEO, including killing an innocent cat. Is Empire B613 now? I have a little former stray, so I’m glad I’m not on Lucious’ or Daddy Pope’s bad side.

All in all, this episode was not that great, but I feel like I need to keep watching to see what Rhonda does to Cuckoo Kitty once she finds out what she did. And I’m looking forward to seeing how the family finds their way together again, and then apart…and then together…

Thumbs Up/Thumbs Down

UP: Cookie’s broom – it’s back! I love that something associated with domesticity and servitude is her weapon of choice.

DOWN: Everything else Cookie hit Hakeem with. After a while, an ass kicking stops being amusing, especially between a mother and son.

UP: Rhonda is gunning for that Emmy and I am so here for it. Watching her plea to God for her baby’s life was spellbinding.

DOWN: Hakeem is cool with Jamal, then he threatens to hold his album. He’s a crazy drunk, and then he’s a level-headed businessman. He hates Laura, he loves Laura, then he doesn’t want to sleep with Laura. I thought Andre was the one with Bipolar Disorder?

WTF Moment of the Night
With all of Lucious’ talk about legacy and dynasty, he is really going to kill his son? REALLY?!

Final Grade: C

About The Author

Stephanie Taylor

Co-Editor/Entertainment Reporter

She may be a traffic engineer by day (hence the ‘stopsigngirl’ alias), but do not let her technical skills or multiple calculators fool you. Stephanie Taylor has a way with words. She will destroy any opponent in Scrabble, and get 50 points for using all 7 of her letters in the word “destroy.” She can a-n-n-i-h-i-l-a-t-e you in a spelling bee, having competed in no less than ten as a child. She uses correct punctuation in her text messages. It’s no wonder that copy editing comes naturally to her, and she is happy to fine tune the work of other writers before it reaches TRR readers.

Proofreading is not all that Stephanie loves to do. Regular reading without the proof is just fine, and she also loves to write. In fact, Steph has been writing since the tender age of 6 when she penned her would-be bestseller Mouse in Jail. It “would be” if all literary critics were in Kindergarten. Since elementary school, Stephanie has helped publish newsletters, yearbooks, and the Arts & Entertainment section of The Rice Thresher, Rice University’s student newspaper.

Stephanie’s other gigs have included singing her heart out in the chorus of My Fair Lady in Houston, doing improv comedy in front of hundreds of people in Atlanta, and teaching A.P. English in Los Angeles. She loves to travel and have cultural adventures like tubing down a river in Ecuador, dancing in a South Asian festival, or riding a ferry from Italy for 19 hours just to get real Greek food. Cooking and Yoga are also among Stephanie’s list of favorite things to do, but she cannot do them at the same time.

This native Texan genuinely adores reporting on entertainment as much as she loves to entertain, and is looking forward to learning more about what the D.C. area has to offer and sharing that news with you.

Stephanie Taylor also likes to write about herself in the third person.

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