Friday, March 24, 2017

My Review of Empire's 3x10: "Sound And Fury"


Written by Eric Haywood & Carlito Rodriguez
Directed by Craig Brewer

Cookie (to Lucious): "No. I said I was done with you. I meant it."

It's all about the DNA or at least that's what Lucious and Cookie both made it about this week. Cookie was always going to get her own back after Lucious dug up about Angelo's previous manslaughter incident and Cookie certainly went for the jugular when she publicly outed Leah being alive during the Inferno launch.

Naturally this was going to lead to some form of blow back for her as Lucious made it his mission to sabotage Angelo's bid for Mayor and give him even more bad publicity but hiring Anika as head of A&R really was the thing to push Cookie over the edge and she revolted in the most explosive way going.

Taraji P. Henson and Terrence Howard owned the last five minutes of the episode as Cookie went on one hell of a rampage, smashing everything inside Empire within swinging distance of a bat (watch out, Negan, you have some competition there). Even Lucious himself wasn't spared getting a whack from the bat and the last moment where it looked like Cookie's rage was going to manifest into something else was averted during the final moment.

I don't believe Cookie will ever be done with Lucious, not while she's still at Empire and playing her role in his and their sons careers and while the "17 years" spiel has been repeated ad infinite with her, it certainly had more potency in this episode than I expected it to do. As for Lucious, even he seemed genuinely shook at her lashing out this time.

Of course when Cookie and Lucious weren't going at each other, there was also the issue of Jamal's recovery. While I definitely think he left rehab way too early, I did enjoy his recording scenes with new friend, Tory Ash (Rumer Willis). I just hope though that he doesn't slip back now that he's out of rehab though.

As for the rest of the episode, I liked the Thirsty and Becky team up (including Leah) which took into two plot points - one undermining Tariq's crusade against Lucious by getting Bam Bam on side again and the other which also Xavier finally getting the sack. Unfortunately for Becky, Anika got the job she wanted. Still, at least one pointless character is gone with.

- I had to laugh at Nessa and Tiana's on stage scrap but mainly for Shyne's reaction though. Shyne also seems sceptical of Andre's scheme to kill Lucious though.
- Rumer's mother, Demi Moore will be appearing later in the season along with Eva Longoria and Nia Long. The show is upping the female guest stars for the second half of this season.
- Standout music: Inferno by Remy Ma/Sticky Fingaz, Nessa/Hakeem/Tiana's Get Me Right and Jamal/Tory's Simple Song.
- Chronology: Not long since the previous episode. Doesn't seem like a huge amount of time has passed for everyone.

Now that was an episode to come back with. I had been distracted with enough shows not to miss this one's absence too much but with Sound And Fury, the series came back swinging. Brilliant songs, some legitimate fireworks, one of the best five minutes the series has produced and a promise of more craziness to come. Yippee.

Rating: 8 out of 10

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