SPOILER ALERT: This story includes details about tonights Empire Season 5 midseason finale
“The question will become if the Lyons retake Empire, what will it cost them?” says showrunner Brett Mahoney of where tonights Season 5 midseason finale is taking the Taraji P. Henson and Terrence Howard led Fox drama when it returns next year.
In the former Code Black EPs first full season as solo showrunner on the Danny Strong and Lee Daniels created series, the endless twists, turns and betrayals of Empire were rocked tonight by the confirmation that now vengeful CEO Jeff Kingsley is in fact the son of Howards Lucious Lyon. If the showcase revelation of the parentage of the A.Z. Kelsey played character wasnt Empire enough for you, plus his data selling to law enforcement, there was the midseason finales final minutes with eldest Lyon son Andre (Trai Byers) crashing fast in the emergency room surrounded by his wailing family.
Its only getting uglier. #Empire pic.twitter.com/aG8DwCT6Ne
— Empire (@EmpireFOX) December 6, 2018
Which, in a season hit the pedal on flash forwards, the family trying to regain their hip-hop perch and company and that ominous casket from the premiere, is too say – Mahoney let Empire be Empire tonight. Proving that, while no longer the blockbuster it was when it debuted in 2015, change has been refreshing for the soapy hip hop Bryshere Y. Gray and Jussie Smollett co-starrer, as sons Hakeem and Jamal Lyon, .
Getting ready to dig into work on the Season 5 finale itself after the holiday break, Mahoney chatted with me about tonights “Had It From My Father” episode, what that ER ending means, who lives, who dies and what will happen to Lucious and the Henson played Cookies marriage. The EP also talks about whats up with that damn casket and who could be in it.
DEADLINE: So, Brett, right away, is Andre dead?
MAHONEY: (LAUGHS) Is he? I cant tell you. Thats a flash-forward three months from now, so well find out in three months. The final moment in the club is the normal telling of the story in the present day. Where you see Andre in the hospital, thats three months from that final scene.
DEADLINE: What about that opening scene of the finale with Bella with the gun and the family trying to talk it out of her hands. Theres a mini encapsulation of a wake-up call to the hip-hop nation there, isnt there? I mean, you have Cookie saying ride or die is a lie, and then you have Lucious trying to tell Hakeem that a lot of what we sold the world is a dangerous myth of a life we want to leave behind …
MAHONEY: Well, its just a truth, but its not necessarily something that has to speak to a larger culture. If people see that and they see it speaking to a larger culture and a larger issue, thats great, but I think its certainly true for these particular characters. Its true for Cookie, and its true for Lucious, and its like that truth hopefully is illuminating to the audience.
DEADLINE: How do you mean?
MAHONEY: All season long, were looking at the things that occurred in the past and how it affects today. Can you make amends for the sins of the past and can you make things better? And that really is completely personified in terms of Kingsley, Jeff Kingsley, and how things youve done in the past are now rearing their head in the present, and how do you deal with them?
DEADLINE: Speaking of Kingsley, its now out in the open in the closing minutes that he believes himself to be Lucious son. Theres the showdown on the club floor with Andre as the family absorbs the shock of what they have just been told but where can it go from there?
MAHONEY: I think were going to hear Lucious side of the story. Then Cookie has to decide what shes going to do about it and how she feels about it. Then the question is can there be another Lyon? Can he be accepted into the family, or is it a war between this new Lyon and the present Lyons?
#Lucious is he or isnt he? #Empire @EmpireFOX pic.twitter.com/DMjlY6BUv1
— lee daniels (@leedanielsent) December 6, 2018
DEADLINE: Isnt that the essence of Empire in many ways? A peace shattered by the revelation of a new lie?
MAHONEY: Id say, its more along the lines of even if its not a lie, its another blindside for Cookie. So, Cookie, who, in this episode, decides shes all in with Lucious, and she sold the condo, and theyre to get back Empire, and theyre going to also launch LFM to success, only to be shocked and surprised that theres this new Lyon that she didnt know anything about. Now, shell hear Lucious side and what Lucious had to say, but Lucious, hes given her a lot of explanations for a lot of blindsides that shes suffered throughout the years. So, the question becomes can she take anymore?
DEADLINE: With that other pillar of Empire throughout the years and the context of what we saw in the finale, what is the thrust of the second part of Season 5?
MAHONEY: The question will become if the Lyons retake Empire, what will it cost them? Weve seen through the first half of the season the Lyons come together and appear where theyve gone back to where they were underdogs and back to trying to launch something new and create something new. OK, but if they get back Empire, what will it mean for their relationships? Because, previously, weve seen them drawn together, but at what cost will it take for them to retake the throne?
DEADLINE: Will we learn who is in that casket?
MAHONEY: Yes! By the end of the season, I promise well definitively know whos in that casket. its really just sort of like a testing of the family as we move forward into the back half. You know, there are quite a few people, quite a few candidates who might be in that casket.
Let me also say that we are done with flash-forwards at this point. Everything that well have in the back half of the season will be catching up to flash-forwards.
DEADLINE: Flashbacking for a sec, Empire has come down from the dizzying ratings heights it once had but the tone of the stories hasnt slowed down a bit. Five seasons in, and your first as full showrunner, the pace has changed but how do you keep the soap twists fresh for a crowd that has been there, done that?
MAHONEY: I think thats absolutely right in terms of one of my challenges.
You know, I watched Empire as a fan from the beginning, and, as a fan and as a writer, I just was amazed at how much story they just burned up so quickly, and how the audience seems to like that pace, So, for me now, its a matter of really just delving deeply into the characters and trying to find organic, real stories for these characters that havent been explored. You know, instances of things that havent been explored, or because some of it has been gone through so quickly previously, what can we take a breath, isolate, slow down, and show another side of it?
DEADLINE: An instance of that appears, at least to me, to be the now public relationship between Jamal and the Toby Onwumere portrayed Kai. In a show that has focused so much on the tumultuous relationship between Tarajis Cookie and Terrences Lucious, this has all the hallmarks of a real mature partnership, at least for now.
MAHONEY: Whats interesting here is weve seen also all season long is the maturation of the sons and the boys growing up and creating their own families and their own familial structures and trying to find their own partners. So, with Jamal and Kai, theyve truly found a partnership, but as we know from the beginning of the season, their relationship really grew in London outside of the purview of the Lyons. So now the question is, now that theyre back in New York and theyre with the Lyons, can that relationship be maintained?
What we see in the final episode is this crossing of a line where Kai is now getting involved in Lyon family business, and Jamal warns him and tells him this may not be the best thing for him to do. Ill say that I think that that warning has some real teeth to it. So, were going to see whether Kai can really throw down with the Lyons and what it means for him to mix both his professional with the family, and how that impacts his relationship with Jamal.
DEADLINE: Will that be paralleled in Lucious and Cookies marriage?
MAHONEY: I mean, I think what weve been dealing with all season long is the Cookie and Lucious marriage, havent we? What thats like, after the Kingsley news, and what their relationships like, and I think thats further truly tested in the back half of the season – youll see.
[contf]
[contfnew]
Deadline
[contfnewc]
[contfnewc]
