Manly Musings: Shakir Rashaan on the romances on 'Empire'
I'm Shakir Rashaan, pleasure to meet you :). I'm a male erotic romance and mystery author for Strebor Books/Simon & Schuster, and I'm a newly minted regular contributor to the Happy Ever After blog!
Join me every other Friday as I give you a MANLY romance perspective on some of the hottest shows and movies that are upcoming or already out! I can't wait to get started, and I decided to go in with guns blazing by tackling the hottest show on television: Empire!
I've been a fan of the hit television show Empire from the very first episode. From the heartless and cutthroat Lucious Lyon, to his ex-wife, Cookie, to their sons Andre, Jamal and Hakeem, and all of the romantic connections that they all have enjoyed and lost, not to mention the music (OMG, the music!), this show has captured the attention of millions of viewers the entire season.
To give you an idea of what has had viewers so enthralled with this show (outside of the music and the Cookie-isms, of course), I will break down all of the romantic relationships and trysts that came to light during the season.
First love …
From the moment that we were first introduced to Lucious Lyon, we knew he would be the man we would love to hate, but at the same time, we would root for him due to an ailment that he was diagnosed with that had no known cure. Being the head of Empire Records, he had reached the pinnacle of his success. He's the ultimate Alpha male.
That Alpha male has to have paramours and ex-wives and women who can't resist him, right?
Enter Cookie Lyon, the ex-wife, and Anika Calhoun, the fiancée.
Anika is important, but we'll get to her later. Right now the focus is on Cookie and Lucious.
The connection between them is equal parts irresistible and repulsive, and we learn how deep their love is for one another through various vignettes the entire season. One moment, we're rooting for them to get together again after she was released from prison for not turning state's evidence (hood translation: she didn't snitch), the next moment, we find out how selfish Lucious truly is (divorcing her while she was in prison was one of many moments we found out about), and we want her to find someone better than Lucious.
The problem is that she can never quite get over him, no matter how hard she tries. Several different men from her past show their love for Cookie, and she even has a moment that viewers were waiting for when she falls in lust with the head of Lucious' security detail, enjoying a mountain cabin weekend with him. This weekend is significant, as she divulges to her paramour that he is only the second man she has ever had sex with.
What is it about a first love that has women swooning? I'm sure we will all be tuning in next season to see what fate has in store for Lucious and Cookie Lyon.
When a man loves a man …
Jamal Lyon, the middle son of the Lyon family, is probably the most arresting character on the show — outside of Cookie. (Can you tell I love me some Cookie Lyon?)
Anyway, we find out that Jamal is homosexual, and he's involved with a couple of men during the season. The first one was Michael Sanchez, and their relationship was hot at times, but as Jamal's career began to take off, Michael began to get left in the shadows, a typical industry scenario that we've seen play out in real life on occasion. Combine that complication with the fact that Jamal had not yet embraced his sexuality publicly, and you had a recipe for disaster. The watershed moment for Michael and Jamal was when Jamal was asked if he had anyone special, and Jamal hesitated before he answered that he didn't, and we as viewers knew that Michael's days were numbered. Their breakup was bittersweet. We wanted them to be together, but we also knew that Michael didn't fit in Jamal's new world.
Later in the season, we see a new love interest for Jamal, in the form of a free-spirited photographer, Ryan Morgan. Their connection is evident from the start, as they flirt on the fringes before Ryan tells Jamal that he wouldn't be free until he learned to embrace his authentic self. The lust between them is absolutely sexy, and while we would love for the two of them to get together, there's the feeling that this thing between them will be as fleeting as Ryan's laissez-faire attitude. Here's hoping that Jamal finds a love interest that might survive a full season.
Dangerously in love …
The relationship between Andre Lyon and his wife, Rhonda, can be described in myriad ways. Loving. Kinky. Unconventional. Those would be a few ways to describe them. Throw in Andre's bipolar condition, and life just got more interesting for these two.
From Rhonda being pseudo-pimped out by Andre in the interests of Andre gaining a larger investor share of Empire, to Rhonda and Andre's role-playing scene where he told her about the afternoon quickie he had with a female government official in her office while trying to get information for his father while they had sex and Rhonda asking her husband to call her by the other woman's name, there was never a dull moment between them.
Through it all, you could tell they were in love with each other, in good and bad times, through his sickness, and other twists and turns throughout the season. With the final twist in the season finale, we might get a chance to find out just how dangerously in love they truly are with each other next season.
May-December love …
Hakeem, the youngest of the Lyon boys, found himself in a few wild and crazy trysts and flings, including a pseudo-triad relationship with Tiana, a fellow recording artist on Empire's label.
But nothing compares to the proverbial "May-December" romance he had with Camille, who is, quite frankly, old enough to be best friends with his mother.
We watch as Camille morphs into a mother figure at times for Hakeem, wanting to guide his career and his image in one moment, while having sexual interludes with him in the next moment. We almost want to believe that she's into him like that, but the generational gap just felt too much to want to believe. Who knows? We'll see if Camille will make an appearance next season. There were some loose ends that weren't tied up with regard to her bizarre relationship with Hakeem.
Vengeful love …
Remember when I said I would get back to Anika, or Boo-Boo Kitty, as Cookie nicknamed her at the start of the season?
Yeah, about that …
Anika started out the season as Lucious' fiancée, but through a strange twist of fate (and some selfish betrayal on Lucious' part), Boo-Boo Kitty went from devoted fiancée destined to marry the greatest Lyon of them all, to a vengeful woman who flipped sides and went to work for Lucious' chief industry rival. Not only that, but we were shocked to see a scene where Lucious, in a fit to keep his sons from getting into a bad situation with his rival, finds Anika having sex with Hakeem!
This was, despite a conversation between them before the sexual rendezvous where Anika admits to Hakeem that she was still in love with his father, one of the many crazy twists that kept fans talking days after each episode aired.
What will become of Boo-Boo Kitty? Well, I guess we'll have to see what happens next season, won't we?
Who was your favorite coupling on Empire? Respond with your thoughts on the show for a chance to win autographed copies of my entire Nubian Underworld series!
Shakir Rashaan lives in suburban Atlanta with his wife and two children. Rashaan's catalog includes the Nubian Underworld series and the upcoming Kink, P.I. Series. He is also developing projects under the pen name P.K. Rashaan. You can see more of Rashaan at www.ShakirRashaan.com, or you can connect with him on Facebook and Twitter (@ShakirRashaan).