'Empire' recap: Who's the man?

This week in the Empire... 

Shots fired!

Lucious decided to give the baby Lyon a public spanking and sicced his Rottweiler artist, Freda Gatz on the unsuspecting cub. Freda emerged from the depths of Hades Brownsville, looking like an extra out of The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly). But we can’t even lie: She ethered Hakeem.

Exhibit A:

 

“You don’t want to be the man? Guess I'll be it for you. / I got you goin' nuts. I see the paranoia.”  

Exhibit B:

“You cry to your mother ‘cause you ain’t as good as your brother. / I come from the gutter. In my hood, you a sucker. I'm knowin' you softer than butter.”

And finally, exhibit C:

“If you look around, I’m the son that your daddy always wanted.”

Talk about coming for blood. It’s going to be so tragic when Freda finds out that Lucious got her daddy murked. Po’ lil’ Tink Tink.

Trouble in paradise 

Following the stock tradition of the good-girl trope, we discover that Laura is a virgin. Being the chivalrous gentleman that he has proved himself to be over the course of the series, Hakeem offers Laura the equivalent of a promise ring in the form of a Value City bracelet (C’mon son, what’s 24 karats to you?).

As the sweethearts start to make out on a conveniently placed pool table, Hakeem suddenly gets a notification that Freda's diss is going viral.

“Get your little (bleep) kidnapped,” she rhymes as Hakeem seethes at the clip. “My bad, you already did that.”

Oh, no she didn't (but yes, yes she did). Hakeem's pride cracks wide open after hearing that and he challenges Freda to a rap battle.

No money, mo' problems 

Per last week, Empire is still in financial turmoil. The board really needs to seal the merger with Swift Stream, but Lucious refuses to liquidate any of his assets. He’s adamant, in fact. “Have Jago liquidate his assets,” he barks at Mimi and Andre. “Better yet, why don’t we liquidate his brain stem?”

Yes, Lucious. That’s how you handle business matters: Murder.

In the end, Lucious ends up moving forward with the deal, but we imagine with a snake oil salesman like Thirsty on his side that they've found some sort of contractual loophole.

“Go best friend! That’s my best friend, that’s my best friend!”

Jamal may be sometimey, but you can’t help but root for him. The middle Lyon was one of the top contenders to be the next face of Pepsi and was given a week to submit a song for the board’s consideration.

Because three heads are better than one, Jamal secretly accepts tracks from both of his parents to craft a new song. Cookie’s sound proves to be more ’97 Usher while Lucious is more Dance Dance Revolution (or 2010 Usher), but Jamal still manages to marry the two.

Ultimately, the reveal does not go over well with his parents. To quote the oh-so-quotable Cookie, “This ain’t the Disney Channel! We ain’t got happy endings.” But of course, there is one: when Jamal lands the Pepsi deal with the mashup.

Fatal Attraction

Anika has lost her ever-lovin’ mind. When we first see her in this episode, she’s in the bathroom, a butcher knife in one hand and a pregnancy test in the other. Thankfully, she doesn’t wound herself and instead uses the knife to open up the box (because apparently, she just couldn’t do it with press-ons?). She takes the test and finds that she is pregnant with Hakeem’s child.

Anika later shows up to Hakeem's lair and pours herself some Henny — which she self-consciously hands to Hakeem when she remembers there’s a human growing inside of her. She then tries to seduce the lovestruck, barely-legal boy, only to receive the ultimate curve: “Can we, like, talk, no touching?” followed by “Look, here’s the thing. I think I’m in love. I know it sound crazy, but I ain’t ever feel this way in my life. But we still homies, right? I still think you’re dope.”

After that courteous dismissal, Anika opts not to tell Hakeem about her pregnancy.

Run up, get done up

Let’s be real: Hakeem has some serious attention issues. While Cookie and Laz are strategizing for the summer jam, Hakeem busts in, railing to Cookie about the battle (he does this again later in the episode when Cookie is Skyping with Jamal). Cookie seizes that moment to chide Hakeem, insisting that the proposition was ill-conceived because Lyon Dynasty stands to lose all credibility if Freda wins. But Hakeem argues that his stunt will give the startup the hype they so desperately need.

Meanwhile, Laz is just chillin’ in the corner, being seen and not heard like a good side piece. But for some reason, his spirit is moved to step to Hakeem, who immediately reminds him of his place: “You a punk-(bleep) promoter, so go hand out some flyers.”

Except when Laz attempts to leave — presumably, to hand out flyers — Hakeem stands in his way. The two then get into a shoving match before Cookie breaks them up, smacks the taste out of Laz’s mouth and tells him never to touch her son. Moral of the story: Don’t mess with the lioness.

The jig

Was ascending during the entire rap battle, OK? There is no way the man that called his opponent “sweeter than a honey bun” should have won over the woman who gave us the classic “Tell Cookie get the milk ‘cause her baby keep on crying.”

We really have a conspiracy theory that Hakeem paid the crowd off because there is also no way that they could have known the words to his Flava in Ya Ear "freestyle" and there is no reason that his hypeman antics should have overshadowed Freda’s fire. I mean, the woman raps with the passion that only comes from years of eating pork and beans, but whatever.

Hakeem took the crown and a “bullet to the name Lyon.” Yes, after smashing the LED lights out of his last name, Hakeem declared that he would only go by his first name from now on.

"After the show, it's the afterparty!"

Not even Lucious' bitterness could break up the Kodak moment between Cookie and her sons following Hakeem's victory. But there was the issue of Candace (Vivica A. Fox), aka Cookie's sister, who bust up in the club looking like your bougie auntie who thinks she’s too good for collards.

Candace sauntered in, making a scene and calling Cookie by her government (Loretha). Apparently, Cookie’s sister, Carol, has gone on a drug binge and left her kids with Candace. Cookie is momentarily floored and barks that they need to head to Philly. Drama to be continued.

Fatal Attraction Part II

The Lyon men must be coming with some heat because Boo Boo Kitty has lost all of her chill. In the final scene for this week's episode, she hijacks the car Hakeem has arranged to take Laura home and we can only imagine that she intends to crash it. Stay tuned for that mess.