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It seems predestined that Lee Daniels, a filmmaker who revels in excess, would turn to the nighttime soap. Empire, his addictive, undisciplined, hyperactive hip-hop dynasty chronicle, reflects his artistic choices to a tee. It’s as gluttonous as The Butler, as rabid as The Paperboy and as subversive as Precious. Qualitatively, it also fits nicely alongside his feature work, which while a hell of a lot of fun -- and, crucially, impactful -- is exceedingly off-the-walls and melodramatic.
In Empire, hip-hop mogul Lucious Lyon (Terrence Howard) has been diagnosed with ALS, and he’s left to determine which of his three sons will inherit his record company. Initially, he favors Hakeem (Bryshere Gray), his youngest, a volatile, aggressive and cripplingly insecure rapper with a hell of a lot of talent. He pays little mind to his eldest, Andre (Trai Bryers), the one who didn’t turn to music and instead got his MBA to be his father’s right-hand man in all matters business. He rejects Jamal (Jussie Smollett), whose immense musical talent has a definite John Legend vibe, because of his homosexuality. Daniels and co-creator Danny Strong swiftly sketch out these relationships before the whole plan is upended: Cookie (Taraji P. Henson), the mother of Lucious' children who served nearly two decades of prison-time for him, re-enters the fold. And she's back to get what's hers.
At a tight 12 hours and with a clear conceit to work with, Empire’s first season avoids the soapy pitfalls that others, like Revenge and Nashville, rather quickly succumb to. Its attention span is ridiculously short. If a storyline isn’t working, or if Strong and Daniels need to push through something, there’s little concern for reliability in the storytelling. These three move fast, and it creates a pace that’s both exhilarating and frustrating. Alliances shift so quickly that it’s hard to invest in a single one of them, and yet, when the narrative kicks into high gear, there emerges an intoxicating speed at which the show bursts through barriers and unveils the latest secret. You never have to wait long for Empire to reclaim your attention.
Admittedly, it’s difficult to critique Empire without digging into its phenomenon-level status. The show is at its best in the way it confronts and conflates racial and sexual identities, actively working against stigma and making a legitimate breakthrough in terms of media representation. That Empire has as broad a reach as it does, and executes these ideas with such impressive nuance and commitment, is unavoidable in the assessment of its quality. Some images sting, like a flashback of Lucious literally throwing a young Jamal, donning heels and a scarf, in the trash; others are infectious. Few television moments have been as unabashedly jovial as Jamal belting out his father’s smash hit “You’re So Beautiful,” and re-wording the lyrics to fashion it as an energetic coming-out performance. You watch these moments, extracting emotions exactly as they intend and then some, and you remember just how many people are watching the damn thing: like you’re a part of a movement, it’s impossible not to get swept up in it.
Beyond that, when the show settles down on the murders and the snitching, Empire sketches out family dynamics with resonance and complexity. The dependence Jamal has on his mother traces back to his not feeling safe as a child, and the issues of abandonment and resentment he’s still yet to work out; the deep connection shared between the two throughout Empire is an endlessly lovely thing. Meanwhile, Hakeem, younger when Cookie went to prison, outright rejects her presence -- he’s affirmed his stance on her, even if he has the wrong perception. The show may draw out his mommy complex too literally -- he’s either sleeping with a decidedly-older Naomi Campbell, or eventually, and definitely less compellingly, his stepmom Anika (Grace Gealy) -- but Gray’s work in such scenes is subtle and tender enough where it works.
The whole ensemble, really, lifts Empire above what the material sometimes suggests. This is, in particular, the best thing Terrence Howard has done in quite some time. He’s really the unsung anchor of Empire, a grounding and central presence around which the shenanigans can cyclically revolve. Of course, I say he’s “unsung” because the bulk of the praise has gone to Taraji P. Henson. Across the dramatic television landscape of the moment, you’d be hard-pressed to find a performance that’s half as fun as Henson’s. This woman rattles off one-liners better than any cast member on Veep. Her rapid-fire delivery is exquisitely textured with bite and levity, and she has that rare ability to shift from deliriously funny to potently dramatic with the snap of a finger. She’s at her best in quieter scenes with Smollett, a breakout in his own right who cuts through Jamal’s severe earnestness with just enough grit.
Thanks to these actors, this family connects. There’s something to hold onto in Empire, which is especially important considering the show’s choppy pacing. In one episode, Cookie calls a hit on someone she mistakenly thinks is after her. At least in the first season, the event is not brought up again: no wrestling with its moral or logistical impact on, respectively, Cookie and the show, and certainly no subsequent mentions of it at any point. Similarly, Lucious’ homicidal act in the opening episode is brought up solely when convenient, and usually leads to a swift alliance shift, and then another, and then another. In the season finale, a seriously absurd murder takes place, and everyone winds up on different sides than before -- but in a way that’s inexplicable to the relationships and characters we’ve come to know.
The cast also helps to inject a little authenticity and beauty into an otherwise stale production. Daniels’ visual template favors obvious positioning, reinforcing ideas about power and control, but the camerawork is ruthlessly efficient, and the cinematography flatly unattractive. Characters race in and out of rooms, and from scene to scene, clunkily. The soapy score dials up and down according to levels of tension, except often it feels as if the creative team doesn’t quite know when to inject the “dun dun!” Too frequently, it's jarringly off. And though it’s a minor and perhaps unfair complaint, the show’s setting in New York feels off since it’s shot, quite clearly, in Chicago. The cities have different characters, and so we’re mostly stuck in a select few, gleaming office buildings. No green-screen Hamptons here, Revenge fans.
Empire can get a little too ridiculous for its own good, especially -- and unfortunately -- so in an incredibly overstuffed finale (seriously, Andre’s barely-a-character wife murdering Malik Yoba’s Vernon? Huh?). But Empire is good fun, and it gives a lot of good actors great stuff to play. Even controlling for the over-the-top, deliciously Dynasty-esque family dynamics, this is not a season of television for the ages. But it doesn’t really care to be -- and that's exactly what makes it so refreshing.
Grade: B