‘Empire’ season 2, episode 17 review: Jamal makes the ultimate sacrifice, but for who?

Lucious Lyon is a dangerous man. “Empire,” and he also just so happens to be the sort of guy who has to constantly pay the piper. For example, creating a narrative around your mother is going to lead to you having to face tough scrutiny. The same goes for having someone killed in prison whose daughter can come back to haunt you.

On Wednesday night’s new episode, this happened with Freda chose to ignite a revenge plot while on the red carpet for the ASAs, where there was going to be a performance by the entire Lyon family. Clearly, that didn’t go according to plan. Freda attempted to shoot Lucious, but in a pure moment of sacrifice, Jamal stepped in front to convince her not to do it.

To give you further insight on how selfless a move this was, just think for a minute about how Lucious went all homophobic on him earlier in the episode, and after that, Jamal did want to cut as many further ties with his family. Yet, he still did this to try to stop the violence. Cookie and Lucious had been getting closer in the episodes before this moment, but it’s fair to say that this was another dagger in their relationship. She reminded him that he has some good in him when it comes to his family, but that’s hardly a ringing endorsement for their future.

As if all of this wasn’t bad enough for Lucious, we also had this cliffhanger to close on: Her mother was in prime position to blow his secret out of the water. Will she? That’s the cliffhanger that comes out of a distressing, powerful episode of TV. Grade: A-.

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