‘Empire’ season 2, episode 9 preview: ‘Sinned Against’ brings you Rosie O’Donnell, Vivica A. Fox, more

Wednesday night’s new episode of “Empire” brought you almost everything that you could want in an hour of entertainment from the show, whether it be guest stars, Jamal auditioning for a Pepsi ad, and Lucious and Cookie Lyon that they can work together and produce something that is well-liked. Whether or not they actually do that moving forward, however, remains to be seen.

Next week’s episode “Sinned Against” (yes, the show is airing the week before Thanksgiving) is going to pick up on some of these stories, but we’re also going to see a variety of new events. Cookie is going to be spending time with her sister Candace, while guest stars are going to be all over the place per the synopsis below:

“Cookie and her sister, Candace (guest star Vivica A. Fox), team up with a former prison mate (guest star Rosie O’Donnell) to rescue their sister, Carol. Back at Empire, Jamal and critically acclaimed pop star Skye Summers (guest star Alicia Keys) begin collaborating and soon share a deep connection. Meanwhile, Laz (guest star Adam Rodriguez) has truly fallen for Cookie, but things get complicated when she finds out the truth about him.”

This sounds fun, and we like most of the people coming on as performers. Still, isn’t this the sort of story that makes you wonder whether or not the show is going crazy with the big names? The thing to remember that some of the best stuff on the show tonight features Jamal, Cookie, and Lucious. They kept it simple! We don’t see that enough.

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