‘Empire’ season 2, episode 14 review: Lucious’ mother rises from ashes

The thing about “Empire” is that there are plenty of twists that they do that, to be frank, don’t make a whole lot of sense. Yet, at the same exact time, the show still finds a way to be entertaining. This is what we had at the end of the episode with the big reveal that Lucious’ mother, the same one who was horrible to him for most of his childhood and supposedly had committed suicide, was actually still alive.

This is a move that will obviously change how many in the Lyon family behave, provided that they know the truth and how they know it. We saw Thirsty bring her an envelope at the end of the episode, and we wonder if that is hush money or something else entirely. There’s a story here, and something that is worth getting into at some point. (It’ll be something that, probably, will be talked about next week.)

Strangely, this was not the only life-or-death situation that we saw in this episode regarding a mother and their child. Anika, who is expecting a child with Hakeem, was basically threatened by Lucious to give in to his demands (i.e. take money), or there was a good chance that she may not make it to see her kid grow up. Lucious is awful, and this is yet another piece of evidence of it. Yet, at the same time we keep seeing that this is someone who continues to find a way to emerge. For one, it’s possible Cookie has feelings for him again. Also, Hakeem’s time as Empire CEO is already over after he proved himself absolutely terrible at it.

As for some other odds and ends from this week…

1. Can Rhonda please stop being around Anika right now? As bad as we may feel for her over what Lucious is doing, it still doesn’t mean that we trust her in the slightest.

2. Jamal needs to get some sort of creative consistency going, since his arc as of late has been a little bit of a mess.

3. Why is Freda even cutting people’s hair? Doesn’t she have other things to do now?

Like we said, a fun episode, but we’re not sure the twist makes even a lick of sense. Grade: B.

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