Empire season 2, episode 9, “Sinned Against,” just aired! What happened with that kiss? Read on with our recap of the episode.

Cookie’s sisters

At the end of last week’s episode, Candace (Vivica A. Fox) visited Cookie to inform her that their other sister Carol has gone missing. This week Cookie took Candace on an adventure in Philly.

One hilarious moment is when Lucious called Cookie and Cookie tells him she’s walking in a very dangerous part of town — but when the camera pans out we notice she’s in the suburbs surrounded by white women walking everywhere. It’s then that she meets with her old prison mate, Pepper (Rosie O’Donnel). She knows where Carol is and joins Cookie and Candace to locate her.

On the way to get Carol, Pepper mentions to Cookie that the girls back at the prison miss Cookie and that they should visit them on family night. Unfortunately, Cookie’s Cookout Blowout is the same night.

Once Carol is found, she chooses to head back to New York with Cookie. Candace said she’ll take care of Carol’s kids until she’s clean. When Cookie heads to the restroom, Candace tells Carol that if Cookie knew what Carol did when Cookie was in prison, Cookie probably wouldn’t be too happy.

Empire’s downward spiral

Lucious is a bit desperate to get this music streaming service going. He tries to convince Cookie to sign over the rights to the old songs she produced, but she didn’t budge. She said the music is what started Empire; they can’t go selling it because then they’ll end up with nothing.

Andre told Lucious the only other alternative was to try to sell Empire’s other non-musical brands, such as the clothing line or the alcohol brand, but it was Lucious who wasn’t budging… at least until later when he feels there is no other option.

Baby Lyons

Rhonda is loving the attention she’s getting from Lucious. He even bought her and Andre a new house, and it’s huge! Although she may not realize that her husband is being bought by his own father, it’s still…nice?

Anika visits Rhonda now that they’re, like, friends or whatever. Anika tells her she’s in love and Rhonda tells her a story about how she bullied a girl for trying to get with Andre. We’ll get to more on what Anika learned in a bit.

Skye Summers

Skye Summers (Alicia Keys) is an award winning artist/musician collaborating with Jamal on his new album. Skye has gotten where she’s at by being the cookie-cutter singer and conforming to whatever the music industry wants her to be.

She’s jealous that Jamal hasn’t conformed and he sings what and how he feels about everything. He has no boundaries. Jamal has been a fan of Skye’s since the beginning, he’s an “OG fan,” so it makes it easy for them to get along and collab together.

Their song, “Powerful,” is about racial injustice, so it touches a few intimate points. Speaking of intimate…

The ‘powerful’ kisses

Cookie and Laz: Lucious discovered Cookie’s new beau and he obviously didn’t like it. Later when he returned, he brought news that Laz is with the bulls, the same ones that attacked Hakeem. They’re known for extorting rappers. Laz tried to plead his case, but Cookie was already done at that point. She left her bull to the Lyons to deal with, as much as it hurt her to do so. Cookie can’t ever catch a break!

Hakeem and Laura/Anika: Apparently Anika took a page from Rhonda’s book because she’s been super creepy with Laura. First she drove her home as an undercover driver and then she party crashed at Hakeem’s and threw some serious low-blows at Laura. Later, Hakeem confronted her and pretty much told Anika to back off.

Jamal and Skye: These two got along so well that while writing and creating their song, they shared an intimate moment. Yes. That happened.

In their defense, listen to the beautiful and lyrically “powerful” song below. Who wouldn’t be emotionally charged after singing this together?