Fox’s breakout, buzzed-about smash hit Empire starts its second season Wednesday, and it’s very much like the first: Taraji P. Henson’s (Cookie Lyon) remains the most wildly entertaining character in any primetime drama.
Cookie seizes the moment, seizes the day, seizes the reins. Even when she’s miserable or cross – and most of the characters in Empire are repeatedly miserable and cross, Cookie seems to be watching herself and nodding happily, “Now that’s how to be miserable and cross.” Like all great divas, she exults when she’s in control and she’s divine when she’s a mess.
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Every time Henson exits a scene, you wish the set could somehow be turned around so she could still be making an entrance somewhere else. Lolz.
In order to keep the plot details as vague as possible, I’ll say only a few …
• In the course of the first three episodes the whiplash reversals of fortune as the Lyons battle over their music empire lose some of their surprise and sting.
• Jussie Smollett, as on-the-rise son Jamal, gives a performance that could be mistaken for sweetly bland on the surface, but is in fact nicely positioned between Henson’s enthusiastically externalized emotionalism and papa Lucious Terrence Howard’s biliousness.
• Marisa Tomei has a guest-starring role as a lesbian with a lot of dough. A more realistically written role might be described as “a wealthy investor who is a lesbian,” but this is indeed a lesbian with a lot of dough. Tomei is smart enough to know that this should be played ridiculously.
Empire returns Wednesday at 9 p.m. ET on FOX.
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