Empire season 3, episode 6, “Chimes at Midnight,” ended with some surprising moments! Read on for our recap.
Cookie’s cookies
Angelo and Cookie are just adorable! He even brings her coffee, like Cookie said, on his big day. It’s nice that she’s saving their first time for another time because Angelo is very busy running for Mayor and all.
One thing Cookie does do is send Angelo a pic of “all of her.” That is definitely going to come back and bite her, especially in an episode about cyber hacking.
And we later end up seeing said selfie on the screen for all of Empire and its employees to see. Cookie took that like a champ, though. She didn’t even seem embarrassed.
As much as I enjoy Cookie and Angelo together, I can appreciate from an outsider’s standpoint her backing away from their new relationship. When she tells him they should stop seeing each other because she won’t forgive herself if he loses, I cried with her. It’s so sad! Why can’t Cookie have nice things?
Cookie watches Angelo on the news later and he totally defends her! When a reporter asks about women’s rights to privacy he takes his shirt off and speaks to the camera — or to Cookie — and says it’s all important to him, just like Cookie was/is.
Cookie laughs out loud and cheers Angelo on and says, “I love you, Angelo” OUT LOUD. She then looks around to make sure no one else heard. How adorable.
Who hacked Empire?
Tiana’s track is the one that initially gets played on everyone’s phone. I find it a bit odd that no one looks deeper into that.
Andre convinces Lucious to hire a top grade computer guy to help them get out of the situation, but it gets worse very quickly. The hacker(s?) ask for a million dollars every hour or all of Empire’s emails will be leaked.
The emails end up being shown to all the employees anyway and the hackers officially get into the system. Why is Lucious holding a bat? Is he planning on going all Negan on someone later?
When evidence is found in Tiana’s recording studio that leads to Gram, Lucious, Andre and Thirsty then meet at Gram’s place. Well, they’re conveniently waiting in his living room as he walks in.
Gram basically tells them that he could have pulled that off, but he didn’t do it. They supposedly found all the evidence on his computer. When Gram tries to run away, Shyne comes out with gloves on and tells Lucious he’ll bring him a souvenir later. Guess he didn’t need that bat after all.
Jamal and D-Major
These boys are getting closer and I’m definitely not liking it. D even seems to get a bit jealous when Jamal is talking to his counselor about things. Why doesn’t Jamal notice that?
D shows Jamal what he did to his new song and Jamal loves it. It does sound amazing. But as soon as we hear it, it’s deleted! The hacker deleted ALL traces of it. Jamal — the optimist — says it’s okay and that he never liked it anyway, so they can start from scratch. D-Major tells Jamal he needs to get back on his pain meds.
Later that night Jamal calls D-Major and leaves him a cryptic voicemail. He says he isn’t feeling well and he’s going to take another painkiller and he wants D to come over.
And come over he does…. to immediately jump in bed with him. But when D tries to wake Jamal up in the middle of the night, he doesn’t budge.
What I don’t understand is why he called Jamal’s counselor and leave him a voicemail saying, “Come here, I think Jamal OD’d”? Then he proceeds to yell for help! He should have called 911! Is it because he doesn’t want anyone to know he was with Jamal? That better not be it!
When the counselor comes, we find out that is exactly the reason he didn’t call 911. Thank goodness Jamal just blacked out and woke up once he was thrown in the shower.
Becky’s mistake
Don’t trust the white boy, Becky! But unfortunately, she did. When Empire was getting hit by the hacker, Xavier asked for Becky’s help to get Tiana’s name in the light again. And Becky did just that. Her condition was that if she helped him, he’d back her up and let Cookie know what she did to help.
Well, we can all guess what he didn’t do, right? Cookie makes him head of A&R! So instead of letting Becky fight Xavier — which I would have loved to see — Thirsty said he will teach her how to get payback the right way.
Music
We were only treated to one song this episode, but it was definitely a good one! I was already diggin’ it in the beginning of the episode when they were just working on it.
When Nessa and Hakeem performed the song live, it was hot! They have such great chemistry when they’re performing, but Nessa better not give in to Hakeem and stay with Andre. If not, there will be even more beef between bros.
Andre takes Nessa on a little date later and tells her he wants to show her something. He tells her to wait there and he walks downstairs to meet with Vaughn (French Montana) and pays him for hacking into Empire! Say whaaat?
So Andre was behind it all! He played dirty, but he learned from the best — Lucious. Because of all he just did, Andre is now the President of Empire Exstream. Well played, Andre. Well played.
Cookie’s rap sheet
Cookie to the crowd after seeing her naked selfie on screen: “What the hell y’all lookin’ at? They perky!”
Cookie to Shyne after he makes a jab about her selfie: “Be ambitious enough to put the fork down. Bitch.”