Empire Season 2 Episode 7 Recap: Making History

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On the last episode of Empire, Cookie got frisky with her new head of security, Laz. Now it looks like she decided to do her work from Laz’s bed instead of actually showing up in the office. In fact, she hasn’t left his bed in three days. I don’t know if that’s romantic or creepy.

I’m also still confused as to how she hasn’t seen this huge longhorn on his back — or be OK with it, if she has. After all, they did kidnap her son.

At least Cookie comes up with the idea to host a summer jam for Lyon Dynasty while in bed with Laz. I like her idea — an old school cookout with all the Lyon Dynasty artists. She’s going to call it Cookie’s Cookout. Where’s my invite?

Empire Season 2 recaps: Episode 1 | Episode 2 | Episode 3 | Episode 4 | Episode 5 | Episode 6

The track that Lucious said he made for Hakeem has now been given to Freda, but Lucious is frustrated that Freda isn’t putting enough emotion into it. The reason why he’s so anxious is because he might be playing the song for Huey Jarvis, an award-winning studio executive. A quick pep talk from Lucious and Freda finally nails the verse.

EMP207-GirlsWhen Lucious plays his new track with Freda for Jarvis, Jarvis is interested in Freda. He tells Lucious that he’s onto something, but he still needs for him to dig deeper. Looks like this means Lucious will finally have to tap into his childhood for some inspiration.

During the Ménage a Trois performance, Carmen bumped Laura out of her spot. Cookie tells Hakeem that he needs to switch Carmen and Laura in order to make Carmen the lead. Of course Hakeem doesn’t want to do that since he has a thing for Laura, but if Laura doesn’t have the attitude to be the lead, Cookie will make the switch herself. To stop this from happening, Hakeem recruits Tiana to help Laura learn the basics of how to be a star.

Even though they aren’t working under the same roof, Cookie helped Jamal with a song he couldn’t quite get right. In fact, Cookie helped Jamal make such a hit that Jarvis invited Jamal to perform the song at his house during a living room session. Time to celebrate.

EMP207-MimiMimi tries to have Lucious negotiate a deal to become partners with Swift Stream. What Lucious wasn’t expecting was getting into the boxing ring during his meeting with the potential partner.

When someone talks about Lucious Lyon’s records being shallow and he has boxing gloves on, you might want to step out of the ring. I’m not sure Empire will be working with Swift Stream after Lucious knocked out Jago. Not going to lie — he deserved it.

Lucious puts Andre in charge of lifting a gang injunction for Freda. As if that’s not hard enough, he also has to persuade his former mistress, Deputy Mayor Raquel Alvarez, to do so without any special favors. Andre might have changed in some ways, but he’s still a Lyon who will blackmail someone to get his way. He threatens to show videos of his and Raquel’s past “sessions”  if she doesn’t agree to help Freda. That Lyons bunch. They sure know how to get their way.

Hakeem wants to prove Cookie wrong about Laura. In order to do so, he has Laura perform in the middle of the Hudson Plaza and tells her to make people stop and listen to her. She performs an amazing rendition of “I Will Survive” in Spanish which more than does the job. I’m getting a cool, young Selena Quintanilla vibe from her and I hope Cookie can see that she has potential.

To thank Hakeem for working with her, Laura plants a big one on him. Looks like all that hard work and respectfulness paid off, hey, Hakeem? I still ship them.

I guess I was wrong about Lucious not wanting to work with Jago. Lucious visits Jago in the hospital to let him know that he wants to merge Empire with Swift Stream. After hearing Jago talk about Lucious’ lyrics, it made Lucious dig deep down to write a beautiful song.

I guess Lucious needed to hear the truth about his lyrics being bad in order to write a hit song. But who would’ve thought Lucious could hear something negative about himself and do anything but retaliate?

EMP207-Cookie-Hakeem-meetingCookie meets with the Longhorns to make a deal about providing security. Surprisingly, Hakeem is okay with paying them a portion of their revenue in order to use their land and security services. I think Hakeem knows something is up with Laz. He warns Cookie to be careful around Laz and to think with her head versus her heart. If only Hakeem could see what’s on Laz’s back.

After recalling the horrible memory of his mother playing a fake game of Russian Roulette, Lucious knows just what his song is missing. He calls Freda at the crack of dawn to come record the new track that is now complete. I cannot lie, I love this new version of the song. Hopefully this helps Lucious deal with his childhood at the same time.

What were your thoughts on this episode of Empire? Do you think Laz’s feelings for Cookie are real or just a part of the job? What exactly is it that he wants with Cookie? It was odd that Hakeem told Cookie to watch out for Laz so I think he’s already on to something. Do you think Cookie will found out before it’s too late? What do you think will happen now that Empire has merged with Swift Stream? Andre didn’t seem to like the idea. Does that mean he could lose his position? Do you like Lucious and Freda’s new song? Leave your thoughts in the comment section below.

New episodes of Empire premiere Wednesday nights at 9/8CT on FOX.

Photos: Chuck Hodes/FOX