Written by Diane Ademu-John & Eric Haywood
Directed by Craig Brewer
Charlotte (to Andre): "Your family is very interesting."
Interesting might be an understatement there, Charlotte but yeah, being around the Lyons does tend to be an experience or something else. This episode, the first part of a two part finale was also something else too.
On one hand, we strayed into Ocean's Eleven territory with Cookie, Carol, Candace, Becky, Porsha and Thirsty all banding together to gatecrash the Leviticus Vegas night in order to steal Giuliana's dodgy ledgers and that provided a lot of amusing hijinks, especially when both Becky and Carol had to swap their assigned roles in order to pull off Cookie's genius heist.
However, with all the effort the gang made to get Giuliana out of Lucious's life, it didn't really pan out as Lucious managed to pay off Charlotte to look the other way of his current flame's dodgy dealings, much to Cookie's annoyance, although with Charlotte being rather sweet on Andre, Cookie still has an ace in her sleeve though.
I did like that this episode gave us a little more scope into Charlotte. We learned that she's a Mormon with seven children and doesn't approve of the tug culture that can come with the Lyons. However the hook up between her and Andre might have been a little more shocking had we not need it in the trailers though.
As for the rest of the episode, I hated that Giuliana's influence resulted in Lucious actually firing Thirsty but I loved that the latter threw in his lot with Cookie though and while Jamal came around to his album being postponed for a few months, Lucious is being rather reckless with Giuliana, especially considering that he was wary of her not so long ago.
Of course the biggest shock of this one was actually seeing both Lucious and Tariq working together in order to find Bella and actually seeing the pair of them bond with one another. It was a nice moment that was cut short when Leah decided to murder Tariq in front of Lucious before the latter could reveal Bella's whereabouts. Leah certainly knows how to pick her moments, doesn't she?
- The episode opened with casino antics before going back to "two weeks earlier" leading to Cookie being banned from the opening night.
- Becky can be somewhat hit and miss in the way the show writes for her but this was really one of those episode where the show utilised Gabourey Sidibe well.
- Standout music: Jamal's We Got Us and Dean Martin/RJD2's Ain't That A Kick To The Head.
- Chronology: More or less from where Absent Child left off.
Toil & Trouble Part 1 was a good start to the finale. I loved the casino antics and Leah murdering Tariq certainly provided a decent shocker but I am hoping the Bella storyline is actually resolved in the last episode.
Rating: 8 out of 10
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