Empire just returned for Season 2 and already the stakes and expectations are higher than ever. Terrence Howard (Lucious Lyon) is here with his team again and their drama couldn’t be any more captivating. By the end of Season 1, most of the viewers did not want it to end as the drama packed series had a compelling aspect that kept you wanting more. It finally ended with a lot of unanswered questions which will probably be answered in Season 2.
Season 1 was such an intense experience for everyone that watched it, the anticipation of season 2 was unimaginable once it was announced. Right from the start, I was never in a rush to watch Empire. I did not believe it was as good as the hype and all the extolment. But once I finally got around to watching it, I loved it and became an addict like everyone else around me.
However I was a little bit worried about its future. It gave the audience exactly what we wanted to see basing their enthrallment on a lot of drama and not so much of the character’s stories. I was very relieved when it reached the season finale with the same hype it began with or even more.
A few nights ago, I watched the first episode of season 2 and it wasn’t structured as I thought it probably would be. It was packed with so much drama and revelations it left me wondering what the rest of the season has for us.
Warning; spoiler alert for those that haven’t watched it yet.
When Chris Rock (Frank Gathers) is brought to the prison where Lucious Lyon is being held, he has some questions he needs answered. Most importantly he needs to know who “snitched” and got him arrested. We later learn that it was Taraji P. Henson (Cookie Lyon) that snitched. This was such a great opportunity for the story to ride on and bring us a few twists and intriguing plot connections but they don’t. Cookie is alerted that Frank knows and she informs Lucious who gets Frank killed. That felt a little too rushed and frankly I wasn’t satisfied with how that played out.
Then we have Cookie, Hakeem and Andre trying to buy controlling interest shares in Empire to take back the company from Lucious but that also quickly back fires.
What I saw in the premier episode was a show that is still trying to sell us drama. The plot is built on keeping things as intense as can be and unless the writers, producers and directors have a whole new out of the box approach for this, we all know how difficult it is to maintain the hype. I feel like in a bid to keep us hooked, they revealed too much that could have been very essential to the plot of the new season. It’s interesting though, such a daring approach can only mean that the empire team has a lot in stock and what they revealed was just a tip of the ice berg that won’t hurt the story’s content.
In season one Empire proved that they can sell us drama all the way and keep us as hooked as addicts thus I have a lot of confidence that the show will deliver once again. This does not however erase the fact that season two has very big shoes to fill and it had better have such adrenaline spilling drama coming to us for the rest of the season otherwise, Empire’s hype could fade as fast as it succeeded. The premier episode of season two left too many questions answered and it makes me anxious to know what the rest of the episodes contain. But the good news is the show looks like it has a major game plan for its season so let’s sit back and watch if Empire season 2 will keep up.