“Empire” arrived on Fox on January 7, 2015, and spent six seasons turning a family fight over a record label into one of the most-watched shows on the network. Created by Lee Daniels and Danny Strong, it ran 102 episodes and ended on April 21, 2020. The premise is a throne room with no throne: Lucious Lyon, a hip hop mogul and former drug dealer, learns he has ALS and must pick one of his three sons to run Empire Entertainment.
That is the engine. Everything else — the music, the wardrobes, the betrayals — is what the engine drags behind it.
Lucious Lyon and the ALS Deadline
Terrence Howard plays Lucious as a man who built an empire and now has to give it away. The diagnosis is ALS, and the show treats it as a deadline. Lucious starts grooming a successor from among his sons, and he does it the way he does everything: by setting them against each other.
The three candidates are Andre, the CFO; Jamal, a singer-songwriter; and Hakeem, a rapper. Lucious pits them against each other rather than choosing. That choice — to make the succession a contest instead of a decision — is the show’s smartest structural move. It gives every season a reason for the family to keep circling.
Howard was cast in the lead on February 19, 2014. He had worked with Taraji P. Henson before, as love interests in “Hustle & Flow” and again in 2005’s “Four Brothers.” That history shows on screen. The two of them fight like people who know exactly where the old wounds are.
Cookie Lyon Walks Out of Prison
Henson plays Loretha “Cookie” Lyon, Lucious’ ex-wife and the mother of his three sons. She served a 17-year prison sentence for drug dealing, and those drugs financed the early part of Lucious’ career while she took the fall for him. She comes home and wants her share of what she built.
Cookie is the best thing in “Empire,” and it is not close. She is outspoken, she is furious, and she is right. In the second season she leaves and starts her own label, Lyon Dynasty. Empire later acquires it, and she returns as co-CEO and Head of A&R. That arc — build it, lose it, come back inside the thing you hate — is the whole show in miniature.
In the second season, Cookie leaves the Empire group and starts her own record label, Lyon Dynasty.
The Three Sons
Bryshere Y. Gray plays Hakeem, the youngest and Lucious’ favorite, a hip hop star on the rise. He starts out combative toward Cookie and warms to her. Trai Byers plays Andre, the CFO. Jussie Smollett plays Jamal, the middle son, a gay singer-songwriter who hates the corporate side of the business and is estranged from his father, who calls him the family’s black sheep.
The sons carry the least weight of the main cast, and that is this paper’s reading, not the source’s. Andre’s story swings between business and breakdown. Hakeem’s swings between music and romance. Jamal gets the clearest arc of the three, partly because his conflict with Lucious is the only one with a fixed cause.
Smollett appeared in seasons 1 through 5. Fox renewed the show for a sixth and final season on April 30, 2019, and that season was the first and only one without him. The source does not say how the criminal case against him ended, and this paper will not guess. The final season had to close a story built around a character who was no longer there.
A Cast That Keeps Growing
“Empire” added names constantly. The supporting bench is crowded, and the show rarely gave it room to breathe.
- Gabourey Sidibe as Becky, Lucious’ assistant, cast March 10, 2014, after working with Daniels on “Precious”
- Ta’Rhonda Jones as Porsha
- Serayah as Tiana Brown
- Grace Gealey and Trai Byers in regular roles
- Malik Yoba and Bryshere Y. Gray in starring roles
- Courtney Love, added October 23, 2014
- Naomi Campbell, announced in a recurring role September 29, 2014
- Adam Rodriguez, joining season 2 as Laz Delgado, a potential love interest for Cookie
- Phylicia Rashad, cast in 2016 as Diana DuBois for season 3
- Rumer Willis, joining season 3 in a recurring role in February 2017
Some of these worked. Some were noise. The habit of stacking guest stars is the same habit that eventually blurs the show’s own center.
Shot in Chicago, Set in New York
“Empire” was filmed in Chicago and set in New York. It was a joint production of Imagine Television and 20th Century Fox Television. The label at the middle of it, Empire Entertainment, is fictional.
The first season drew praise for its acting — Henson’s in particular — along with its direction, music, writing, costumes, editing and overall tone. More than one critic called it a fresh take on a musical. The second season was the most well received of the run. That point matters, because it cuts against the usual assumption that a show like this peaks in year one and coasts.
The numbers back up the noise. The premiere pulled in nearly 10 million viewers. The first-season finale was watched by 17 million. During its run it was one of the most-watched shows on Fox.
What Actually Holds Up
Six seasons is a long time to sustain a premise that starts with a death sentence. “Empire” did not manage it evenly. The ALS deadline forces everyone to move, and once that pressure loosens, the show starts substituting new villains and new guest stars for the thing that made it work: a family trapped in one room with one company.
Henson is the reason to watch and the reason the weaker seasons stay watchable. Cookie is the only character whose motives never need explaining. She says what she wants, and she says it loud. Howard is her equal in the scenes where Lucious has to admit he needs her, and those scenes are rarer than they should be.
The music is better than the plotting. The plotting repeats. The show keeps re-running the same fight — who runs Empire — and swapping out who is winning. That is a soap’s job, and “Empire” does it well enough to hold an audience for 102 episodes.
What matters most is the thing the show got right at the start and never fully abandoned: Cookie Lyon as the person who paid for the empire and got none of the credit. That is the argument “Empire” is making, and it is a good one. The show around it is uneven, loud, and frequently better than it needs to be.
Metacritic 72/100.
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