The purpose of this recap is to break down the key moments from each episode without wasting time on unnecessary filler storylines.
Ready? Let’s jump in.

**Spoilers below. Scroll down at your own risk**
1. Lucious’ dark side comes out once again
At this point, we’re already familiar with Lucious’ sketchy past. However, despite the measures the millionaire takes to maintain a composed image, he’s not afraid to go back to his violent ways.
This week’s episode opens on the set of a music video for Tiana and Veronica, two Empire Records artists. Things escalated quickly after Veronica’s manager told Lucious that he thinks she should be showcased more in the video. Lucious decided that instead of dealing with the problem like professional businessmen would do, he should take Veronica’s manager into a trailer, beat him up, and fire him.
Lucious is still a complete anomaly to me. He’s capable of going from being almost too calm to deathly violent and back to calm in one beat. I may be reaching since it’s only episode three, but I’m getting sociopath vibes from Lucious. With the ruthless way he treats people around him, even those closest to him, does he have a conscience at all? 
2. Too Many Detectives
This episode was full of one person trying to find more dirt about something or someone else. 
Without telling Lucious, his girlfriend Anikka hired a private investigator to follow Cookie after she suspects that his  ex-wife might be up to no good. What the investigator finds is that Cookie has been meeting with the “feds.” Of course, we know that during last week’s episode Cookie was lured into a car where an FBI agent informed her that she may need to testify in court about something.
When the FBI agent realizes that Cookie is being followed, she gets the private investigator to stop following them, but they still need to get Annika to stop sniffing. Apparently, they’re not building a case against Lucious or Empire, but against a man named Frank Gattis. To get Lucious and Annika off of their case, the FBI agent disguises herself as Cookie’s probation officer during a meeting at Empire records. 
Lucious also met with a detective who is investigating Bunkie’s murder. The detective tells Lucious that they may have identified a witness to the incident. Obviously, Lucious didn’t know there was a possible witness and wants to make sure that he covers all his tracks. Lucious tells his son Andre to talk to his “contact” in the mayor’s office to see if they can get the police records and find the witness. Andre’s contact ends up being the Deputy Mayor, who helps out the oldest Lyon son in return for sexual favors. 
When Rhonda, Andre’s wife, finds out that the Deputy Mayor gave him such confidential police information for sex, you’d think she’d be upset, but she knows exactly what went down. Instead of being upset at Andre, she’s turned on. Obviously this couple is open to doing anything to get the upper hand. 
Later in the episode we see the witness, a homeless man with paranoid schizophrenia, identify Lucious as a suspect from an image on the detective’s phone. I have a feeling it won’t be hard for Lucious to swindle his way out of this one. 
3. Bunkie’s funeral
Family, friends, and Gladys Knight came together to honor Bunkie at his funeral. In what has to be one of the most twisted scenes in television history, we watch as Lucious, Bunkie’s murderer, tearfully performs the eulogy. 
Yet again, Lucious is doing the absolute most to keep up appearances, hiding who he truly is.
4. Cookie meets with Puma
Despite dealing with mourning her cousin and drama with the FBI, Jamal’s singing career is still in the forefront of Cookie’s mind. She’s doesn’t think Jamal can write a breakout hit for himself, so she tracks down an old songwriter friend, Puma.
Since Cookie last saw Puma, he has left the music industry and now simply goes by Dwayne. After Cookie pleads with him, Dwayne sends Jamal one of his older songs, “Up All Night,” that Cookie actually tried to pitch to Lucious back in the day.
As Cookie plays Dwayne’s song for Jamal, we go back and forth between present day and two decades ago when Cookie played the same song for fledgling artist, Lucious Lyon. The way these flashback and present-day scenes are placed together showcases how similar Lucious and Jamal actually are when it comes to the musical process.
When Cookie pushes Jamal to play the song for Lucious at a family dinner, Lucious tells them that he never really liked the song. However, hearing it now makes him want to bring it back, but not for Jamal. Technically, while Puma wrote the song, since Lucious bought it all those years ago, he owns the rights. 
An interesting tidbit is that the song, inspired by Dwayne’s unrequited love, was written for Cookie. Will the revival of this song finally bring them together? Or will Lucious shut all of it down in a jealous rage? And by “shut all of it down,” I mean get rid of both Dwayne and Jamal’s singing career for good.
5. Hakeem has mommy issues
Okay, every week it seems like Hakeem’s persona gets even weirder and more uncomfortable to watch.
Last week he was drunkenly exposing his little Hakeem at a restaurant, and this week we find out he’s been sleeping with a woman twice his age for over a year. That’s not even the weird part.
As they make out on a pool table, she grabs his chain and makes him call her “mama.” To make it even weirder than that, Hakeem’s cougar is played by Naomi Campbell. 
I need time to recover from watching that scene. 
6. Jamal vs. Lucious
Jamal and Lucious’ feud finally comes to a head when Lucious goes to visit his son after the tense family dinner.
Lucious tries to tell Jamal that he only wants to help him become tougher, but Jamal doesn’t want to hear it. He says that he knows that he was beaten growing up, not because Lucious wanted a tougher son, but simply because he didn’t like his son.
Lucious then goes on some spiel about how he “didn’t bring any women into this world” and it’s hard to see his son treated like a “bitch,” and tells Jamal that he doesn’t understand him. He then continues to try to hold onto the power he thinks he has over Jamal by mentioning that he still pays for the apartment. In that moment, Jamal calls his boyfriend from the other room and tells him they’re leaving. He no longer wants to be pushed around by a father that he feels doesn’t love or appreciate him.
This scene was painful to watch. A lot of LGBT stories that we see on television today show the ideals of how members of that community interact with family and society. Rarely do we see such raw, real moments like this.
Interestingly enough, even as Lucious is saying such disgusting things to his son, you can see in his eyes that, somewhere deep inside, he wants to love his son, but doesn’t know how.
While standing in the cold in the middle of the night, trying to hail a taxi, with a fire in his eyes, Jamal tells his boyfriend that he is going to be the one to take his father’s empire.
 Additional comments:
- We still need to find out exactly who Frank Gattis is and why the FBI is using Cookie to build a case against him.
– Throughout this episode, we see Lucious silently dealing with symptoms of his ALS. I don’t anticipate that his symptoms will get any easier to hide, so it will be interesting to see who will be the next person to find out about his illness. My money is on Cookie. 
Til next week! 
Lets chat about the show on Twitter: @AggiAshagre. 
Listen to music from this episode:
Watch the promo for next week’s episode, “False Imposition”: