Empire (TV PREMIERE REVIEW)
Empire
TV Premiere Review
by Kam Williams
Terrence Howard and Taraji P. Henson Co-Star in Nighttime Soap Opera of Shakespearean
Proportions
Luscious Lyon (Terrence Howard) is
the ailing CEO of Empire Entertainment, a company he built into a music
industry titan while his wife Cookie (Taraji P. Henson) was doing 17 years
behind bars for a crime that he committed. Like a modern-day King Lear, he’s
ready to surrender the throne to one of his heirs. Lear had three daughters,
Luscious has three sons, and that similarity is just the tip of the iceberg in
terms of unabashed allusions to the works of William Shakespeare made in the
opening episode of Empire.
Directed by two-time Oscar-nominee Lee Daniels (for Precious), the
premiere of this nighttime soap opera is mostly devoted to introducing
characters and setting the stage for the impending struggle to control the thriving
family business. There’s ambitious eldest son, Andre (Trai Byers), a Stanford
MBA married to a greedy ice princess (Kaitlin Doubleday).
Middle child Jamal (Jussie Smollett) is quite a talented
performer, but he’s also gay and out of the closet, a potential career-killer
in the homophobic realm of macho hip-hop. Finally, we have youngest bro Hakeem
(Bryshere Y. Gray), a budding rap star already on the rise. Complicating
matters is the fact that their mom’s just been paroled, and she’s eager to
stake a claim to her rightful share of the firm for having quietly taken the
rap for their former-drug dealer daddy.
Among the supporting cast members are Gabby Sidibe as Luscious’
assistant Becky, Jennifer Joan Taylor as Dr. Shahani, and Tom Gaitsch as an
attorney. Though a tad melodramatic for this critic’s taste, the show’s over
the top antics are apt to cultivate a loyal following among the desired
demographic, provided Lee Daniels and his creative team come up with a weekly
cliffhanger to keep the audience curious enough to tune in again and again and
again.
A
word to the wise: Thou cannot
go wrong by pilfering plotlines from the brilliant Bard of Avon.
Very Good
(2.5 stars)
Rated TV-14
Running time: 42 minutes
Distributor: Fox
Television Network
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