‘Empire’ season 2, episode 11 reaction: Show exec on Rhonda’s mystery attacker

On Wednesday night’s midseason premiere of “Empire,” there were quite a few different surprises that took place over the course of the hour. We saw Hakeem step into some power at Empire Entertainment after Lucious was dethroned, there was a confrontation between the two like no other, and to cap all of this off, we learned that Rhonda and Andre have lost their baby. We also learned a thing or two about whoever sent her down those stairs: They were sporting a pair of red-soled shoes.

This is obviously a pretty big clue as to who the attacker could be, and we’re sure that Anika in particular is high on many people’s list of possible suspects. However, executive producer Ilene Chaiken cautions in a Deadline postmortem that while there are answers coming, they are not necessarily the answers everyone out there expects:

“That’s not going to be left open. It will be resolved by the end of the season, but it’s not easily resolved. It’s not quickly resolved. It’s not as evident as it seems.”

Chaiken also reiterates in this interview comments that she’s made many times before now, stating effectively that one of the real stories on the show moving forward this season is the continued conflict that is coming between the Lyon family. The goal is to really focus on that. Sure, guest stars and songs are nice and maybe we’ll have some of that, but it cannot come very well at the expense of what is a pretty exciting story.

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