This season of Empire is becoming one of the most solid years: the writers are following a straightforward direction and it is all connected with the evil Miss Dubois. The show needed a real villain and the writers created the perfect sassy and dangerous matriarch. I really enjoyed these two episodes, and Cupid Painted Blind was the fourth episode in a row that convinced me that Empire has still something to say.
Let’s summarize what happened. In the first episode which is called The Lady Doth Protest, the attention is focused on an internal strike. After constantly being badly treated by Cookie, Portia along with other collaborators decide to start a strike. They handled this storyline with the proper amount of time: they gave the secondary characters something to say, and by the end of the episode the situation had its proper conclusion. The juiciest moment is connected with Jamal: he finally finds out that his boyfriend was hired by the Dubois family. In an unexpected violent reaction, the young Lyon attacks him. Miss Dubois celebrates this new scandal. The situation is becoming disastrous, will Bella ever come back home?
In the second episode which is called Cupid Painted Blind, we have one of the most unexpected and crazy twists of the whole show. Andre’s former girlfriend didn’t work at the police station, she didn’t exist at all. Apparently, the medication that Andre was assuming made him hallucinate. I just didn’t see that coming: I thought that something was wrong, but this is totally crazy. I loved it. Cookie and Lucious are still struggling to get the situation back on track and Hakeem is full of guilt for his actions. These two episodes have also a flashback storyline in common: we follow Cookie in the period when she signed her divorce papers. I still don’t understand why they are showing us that specific moment in Cookie’s life, but I’m open to even new surprises.
I was pleasantly surprised by these two episodes. They dedicated the proper amount of time to each character, they gave us crazy twists, there seem to be more focused storylines. I strongly believe that Empire has still potential and the show is finally using it. The writers should follow this positive path and continue developing interesting characters like the Dubois family in a cohesive and coherent narration. Empire is a mostly a soap-opera, but it has its groove back, and we are loving it.
And you? What do you think of The Lady Doth Protest and Cupid Painted Blind?
