'Empire' recap: 'This is history'

This week served as a more earnest attempt at substance from Empire, which has so far gotten off on excess and plot twist after plot twist. Here’s what happened:

“We be all night…”  

And day. And night. And day. And night. And… you get the picture. This week’s episode opened with a marathon caking session between Cookie and her secret lover, Laz — who is basically Satan with abs and a curious Longhorn tattoo that Cookie somehow missed in the 72 hours they spent in bed (SERIOUSLY, HOW IS SHE MISSING THIS?).

In the brief moments that they came up for air (and fluids and take-out), the ill-fated lovers discussed Cookie’s summer jam, an inaugural event to help catapult Lyon Dynasty’s artists into the spotlight. Laz pitched a few ideas of his own and Cookie teasingly asked if he was going to try to steal the credit for production.

But Laz played it smoother than your uncle's two-step to Earth, Wind & Fire at a family cookout.

“I’m not gonna take all the credit," he said. "I’m gonna take all the Cookie.”

Whew. Jesus be a fence ‘cause Cookie is wide open.

Daddy-daughter time 

Lucious gonna Lyon — and by that, we mean project all of his unresolved childhood issues onto Dej Loaf’s doppelgänger, Freda Gatz. In a preliminary recording session, Freda backs off her verse as self-doubt grips her. The empathetic father figure that he is, Lucious pounced on her, chiding her for stopping just short of her peak and asking, “What the hell your daddy do to you?” Pretty bold words for the man that had her father KILLED, but the series has already established that Lucious has little to no conscience so this is pretty much par for the course. Instead of crumpling under Lucious’ wrath like pretty much all of his biological children, Freda shot back, “What yours do to you?” At that point, Lucious reverted to his usual deflection tactics and curtly told Freda she needed to face her demons (PRACTICE WHAT YOU PREACH, BRUH).

Mommy Dearest

Jamal is still on his fake emotional kick. He loves cutting his parents off and then running up in their limos or iMessages when he needs advice on his music. But thankfully for him, Cookie’s love is patient and kind, not "new phone, who dis?" She helps Jamal perfect the sound on his new Heavy track, which lands him an exclusive living room session with the esteemed Sir Huey — who is presented as the Midas of music. His performance is hauntingly beautiful, too (unlike the Boom Boom Boom Boom track, which pervades the entire episode). But Jamal has always been able to artistically channel the vulnerability that his father keeps closeted.

No, bebe, no.

We really need Lyon Dynasty to get a bigger budget because this is simply unacceptable. In an informal announcement for Cookie's summer jam/cookout/fish fry, Hakeem addresses the crowd, looking like a Basquiat painting, while his girl group, Mirage à Trois, takes the "stage," looking like Mirage-a-Nah — Bebe dresses, Yaki ponytails and all. And the Dollar Tree Dreamgirls had drama, OK? Specifically, Carmen butt-bumped lead singer Laura out of the way. Cookie watched the shade fly and bluntly told Hakeem that his baby girl wasn’t a star, prompting him to spend the rest of the episode trying to upgrade her (we’ll come back to this in a bit).

A dope deal

#ThatAwkwardMomentWhen you pitch a new business strategy to your dad and his homegirl one-ups you. That's the situation Andre found himself in when he proposed an independent music streaming platform to Lucious — only for Mimi (Marisa Tomei) to hook Lucious up with an established brand in the form of Jago, the founder of SwiftStream.

The one hitch? Their initial negotiation meeting at the boxing ring didn't quite go as planned. Lucious wasn't really into the whole Fight Club thing and he definitely wasn't there for slander. As soon as Jago slickly said that he found Lucious' lyrics shallow, a trigger went off in Lucious. He had a flashback to his childhood when he used to hide bullets from his mentally ill mother. The misplaced anger set in once again and Lucious punched Jago with the fury of a thousand suns.

But all was not lost! Lucious and Mimi later visited Jago in the hospital, where they increased his morphine and suckered him into calling his lawyer to draft up a merger contract.

Does morphine even work that fast? Who knows but when has reality ever really mattered here?

"Baby, won’t you come my way!" 

OK, back to Hakeem and Laura. It's obvious that the two are feeling each other, but Cookie was NOT feeling their love connection or Laura's potential as an artist. At one point, she even tells Hakeem: “You’re wasting your time but you can’t see that ‘cause you blinded by the (bleep).”

Not to be dissuaded by his mother, Hakeem takes Laura to a random street corner to perform. She whisper-sings for about 2.5 seconds and, then, as if by magic, background music rises up — as do her struggle vocals. The crowd is in awe! Who is this super-confident fox? Where is Rosetta Stone to translate her music? We don't know, but we love it! Also, she and Hakeem kiss, which is totes adorable.

The breakthrough

In arguably the most fumbling attempt at a threesome, Mimi and Lucious bring back a groupie to celebrate their underhanded victory with SwiftStream. But, before they can get down with the get-down, Mimi gets a mysterious call that leaves her in feelings. Then, Lucious gets triggered by the groupie's convenient gun tattoo. After he slinks off to a closet, he fishes out a secret box that contains a pistol —presumably his mother's. There's another flashback, showing Lucious' mother rifling through the couch cushions to find her bullets and asking a petrified Lucious if he knows where they are. She manages to find one bullet that Lucious missed and loads it into the chamber. She then plays a game of Russian Roulette right in front of the then-innocent child, repeating "Boom boom boom boom" over and over again.

Now, up until this point, our feelings about the refrain had pretty much been:

But the song — which the producers have been beating us over the head with this entire episode — suddenly takes on a new meaning. Lucious rushes into the studio, calls Freda in and hosts the most Hustle & Flow-ish session yet. We aren't really here for drunk Lucious waving a gun in the air or his DMX growl, but it does seem to signal a potential turning point toward greater transparency for the mogul.

As he says, "This is history."