Empire season 3 premiere recap: Light in Darkness

Lucious, Cookie, the fight between Rhonda and Anika; we recap everything from the Empire season 3 premiere episode on FOX.

The Lyon family is finally back. The Empire season 3 premiere is in the books, and the drama is already at playing out. Fox’s hit series got off to a fast start, picking up where season 2 left off with Anika and Rhonda fighting on the ledge of the reception hall before one falls to their death.

Presumably that would be Anika, since it eliminates her as a liability in Lucious’ federal investigation. Rhonda’s miscarriage was enough for her and Andre to live through. Turns out, I was dead wrong (horrible pun not intended).

Rhonda comes flying off the top of the building, crashing through the top of a car as Lucious watches from the sidewalk a few feet away. Andre loses it and grabs Anika by her neck, only stopping when her water breaks.

Anika’s baby, Bella, is born six weeks prematurely. Hakeem misses all of this after he shows up at Tiana’s house, wasted, and falls out on her couch. Police show up at the hospital to question Anika about Rhonda’s death. Lucious ends up in the delivery room with his sham wife, being more supportive than you’d expect. It doesn’t take long to see why; he leans in close to Anika and advises her to lie to the police or else. He also signed Bella’s birth certificate, it turns out. Classic best of worst of Lucious Lyon moment.

Besides a brief psychotic Andre breakdown at the end of the episode, not much else comes from Rhonda’s death. No mourning, no funeral arrangements, condolences. Not even tears shed. It just happens … and we move on. Thanks for playing.

Guest Stars

French Montana and Birdman make their appearances early at a dinner meeting with Lucious. The trio chop it up about business, with Lucious telling them they’d regret not being part of Swift Stream, Empire’s version of TIDAL.

Xzibit is back as Lucious’ rival, Shyne. He crashes Hakeem’s studio session hoping to broker a deal for his artist Nessa (Sierra A. McClain). Lucious walks in and kicks them out, but not before Shyne beats the studio engineer down.

Nessa eventually gets a backup singer role at an Empire live event. She becomes a breakout star after Jamal, still dealing with post-traumatic stress after being shot by Freda, can’t perform.

Lucious Drama

After just one episode, Lucious is about as conflicted as ever. Cookie doesn’t want to be with him any more because he married Anika. That’s kind of surprising, seeing as how she knows it’s a sham marriage to protect the business. And she didn’t mind being with him when he actually was on the verge of marrying Anika in season 1. Eventually, they all agree Anika needs to move in to make the marriage appear legit.

Lucious’ mother is still out of her mind. Leah didn’t appear often in “Light in Darkness,” but she made her moments count. As Anika and the baby take a tour of the home, Leah approaches them, steak knife in hand. Leah lets her know she doesn’t trust her and would be on alert.

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His brother Tariq is closing in on him. He gets to Cookie’s friend Candace (Vivica Fox), hoping she could talk Cookie into cooperating with him. Tariq later has dinner with the Lyon family, trying to find evidence Lucious’ marriage is fake. He stirs resentment by trying to rile the Lyon’s up and play them against one another, but he doesn’t get anything before getting kicked out. The episode ends with him watching Lucious comfort Bella, through a camera he planted in a teddy bear.