Empire S 5 E 18 type TV Show network Fox The season 5 finale of Empire is finally upon us. Last week’s episode left me on the floor (much like Andre), and I’ve been counting down the days to when all of these storylines will either be tied up or left flailing in the wind. Life, death, and love are all on the line, so I’m eager to jump right into the juicy stuff. Andre is unconscious on a hospital gurney as his parents frantically crowd the doctors. The Meredith Grey in me desperately wants to sequester them to the waiting room. Initially, Andre doesn’t have a pulse and isn’t responding to the defibrillator. The doctor’s look ready to give up, but Cookie and Lucious pressure them to try one more time. They give Andre’s body another jolt and his pulse jumps into a rhythm. He’s alive, but a transplant is still his only hope of survival. As we know from the exclusive clip shared Tuesday morning, Cookie is pissed at Lucious for agreeing to help Andre take his own life. She’s convinced she could have talked him out of it if Lucious had told her what was going on. Cookie’s sisters Carol and Candace play angel and devil on her shoulders, respectively. Carol can see why Lucious thought he was doing the right thing, but Candace points out how selfish and irresponsible Lucious is. The excuse for Jamal’s absence comes by way of an emotional, one-sided phone conversation between him and Cookie. There’s a storm raging at his honeymoon locale, and he can’t catch a flight. Teri is by Andre’s bedside as he blinks awake. She’s overjoyed that he’s alive, but upset that he didn’t tell her what he was dealing with. He distracts her by asking about the pregnancy that his mother blurted out before he blacked out. She tells him they’re having a boy, and he seems genuinely excited. Kingsley has arrived at the hospital to show his support, but Hakeem reminds him that he isn’t family and tells him to leave. On his way out, Kingsley runs into his father. Luckily, Lucious is happy to see him. Since Cookie isn’t allowing him near her eldest son right now, Lucious’ eldest son persuades him to leave the hospital and get some fresh air. While on their walk, Kingsley and Lucious pass by a music stand. Lucious is cool with the owner who lets the music mogul go through the bins of LPs and spin tracks on his player. Kingsley remembers playing Lucious’ music over and over looking for some sign that his father knew he was alive. He’s hurt when he finds out one of his favorite songs was inspired by the birth of Lucious’ firstborn, and he’s referring to Andre. Lucious doesn’t mean it maliciously, but even I felt that sting. Back at Empire headquarters, Becky and Gisele are brainstorming ways to make the relaunch of the streaming service Empire Extreme (which will take place after the Trust tour’s final show) a success. This is crucial not only for fan retention following the Trust tour, but also because Becky has been offered a job at Def Jam, and she’ll be forced to take it if Empire doesn’t get its s–t together. They decide that the best incentive to encourage fans to subscribe to the service is to essentially pull a Beyonce: they’ll release a compilation of live tour performances as well as behind-the-scenes videos, all exclusive to the service. More goodies will be released each month to encourage retention. The promise of a new child has encouraged Andre to seize the moment. He spontaneously proposes to Teri with a “quartz” ring he asked Hakeem to buy from the Hospital gift shop (not a move I would have expected from a couple rich kids, but we’re living in the moment!). Teri resists. She’s still holding on to hope that Andre will get better, but he wants to ensure that she and their child have legal rights to being taken care of no matter what. She relents but makes him swear that they’ll have a huge church wedding when he’s better. He makes a promise he likely won’t keep, and they have a small marriage ceremony in the hospital room with their immediate families (including Lucious). Kingsley visits his mom at the rehab center. Her doctors have cleared her to go home, but her son is worried she’ll relapse just like every time before. He lets it slip that he went to the hospital for Andre, and Tracy goes into a frenzy. She says Kingsley is pathetic for “shucking and jiving for the devil’s (Lucious’) approval” (a little cringey coming from a white woman, but go off). She slaps him and tells him that she should have taken the money Lucious offered her to abort him when she had the chance. Ouch. Cookie’s sisters find her asleep at Andre’s bedside and send her home to freshen up and get some rest. Once she’s home, Cookie draws a bath but ends up collapsed in tears on the bathroom floor. Also at home, Lucious is trying to get some work done in the Lyon’s den (sorry, couldn’t resist) when Kingsley walks in. His emotions are clearly running high and he needs to speak with his father. Lucious tries to brush him off so he can focus, but Kingsley pulls a gun out of his jacket pocket to amplify his sense of urgency. Lucious calls him on his bluff, so Kingsley points the gun at his father’s face to prove he’s serious. He needs to know if what Tracy said about Lucious wanting to abort him is true. He needs to know if Cookie’s children will always come before him. Lucious tries to assure Kingsley that he would never do such a thing; a boy needs his father. He dares him to shoot him between the eyes so that his heart can go to his son. Kingsley agrees that a boy needs his father, so he instead turns the gun on himself and the blood splatters across an image of Hakeem and Jamal mid-performance on the TV screen behind him. Lucious rides to the hospital with Kingsley in an ambulance, but there’s nothing to be done. He’s gone. When Cookie finds him washing blood off of his hands in the kitchen (because she didn’t hear the gunshot because of the running bath water? Or is their home just that big? ), her questions about what happened quickly turn to accusations about what Lucious could have done. He only has one answer for her: “We have a heart for Andre.” They arrive back at the hospital at nearly the same time as Tracy, who’s hysterical at the news of her son’s death. She lunges at Lucious, accusing him of killing her son, but he insists it was her lies that made Kingsley want to take his own life. Cookie sends Lucious away and tries to reason with Tracy herself. She appeals to the fact that Lucious has lied to and hurt them both, but they had nothing to do with her son’s death. She needs her to understand that their children are innocent and that only Tracy’s son can help her son right now. Tracy is initially unmoved by Cookie’s speech, but when she finds her praying at Andre’s bedside later, she changes her mind. With a shaky nod of the head, Tracy agrees to let Andre have Kingsley’s heart (Lucious says he signed consent forms, but it seems that Tracy truly had the final say), but she says it won’t be free. While Andre is in surgery, Cookie, Lucious, Teri, and Hakeem sit restlessly in the waiting room. Cookie demands to know whether Lucious killed Kingsley; she needs to know if she just lied to Tracy about how her son died. Lucious quickly shuts down the idea that he could murder his own son, but Cookie isn’t inclined to believe him, considering that’s what she believes he almost did to Andre. Andre has explained to her that what Lucious was trying to do for him is a form of love, but she can’t accept that.<doc-sep>The now finished fifth season of the Fox series has seen a ton of drama, on and off screen SPOILER ALERT: This article contains details of tonight’s Empire Season 5 finale. “The idea of moving forward without him is a true challenge, and no decisions have been made as of yet of how we move forward,” Empire showrunner Brett Mahoney admits of the contentious Jussie Smollett’s exit from the Fox series at the end of the just-concluded fifth season. “We’ll work that out when reconvene the room and we come up with the creative,” the executive producer adds of the upcoming Season 6 of Fox’s hip hop drama. Although Smollett was written out of the final two episodes of the Lee Daniels- and Danny Strong-created series following his legal troubles in Chicago, tonight’s Mahoney co-written “The Roughest Day” didn’t miss a beat in turning out to be the whirlwind ending we’ve come to expect from an Empire finale. Related Story Fox Tops Wall Street Forecasts In First Quarterly Report As Stand-Alone Company From the near-death of Andre Lyon (Trai Byers) due to his failing heart and the revelation to the Lyon clan’s presumed oldest son that his lady love Teri (Meta Golding) is pregnant with a boy, the 18-episode season was as full-tilt boogie at the end as it was in the beginning. Clearly still one of the leaner and meaner of Fox’s most valued crowd jewels, tonight’s Empire also unveiled who it is in that casket. With the Grim Reaper hovering close by in more ways than one, the death by suicide of Lucious’ true oldest son, the illegitimate and ambitious Kingsley (A.Z. Kelsey), saw Andre get a new heart, a new offspring, a new wife and a new lease on life as the feds closed in on the Terrence Howard’s Lyon patriarch. This latest battle with authorities had the blast radius of pulling back the curtain on Cookie (Taraji P. Henson) and Lucious’ tempestuous relationship and what looks like a fatal severance between the once ride-or-die duo. Mahoney spoke with me about the end of the season, the challenge of the Smollett situation and what he has planned for Season 6. DEADLINE: At the very end of the finale, Lucious is literally taking off on the run from the law, but Taraji’s Cookie says she’s not coming with him. So, where does that take us next? MAHONEY: I think that is the open question for both Cookie and Lucious, isn’t it? Of course for Lucious, it was a drop-kick in the stomach that Cookie wasn’t going with him and that she was establishing that she needed to be on her own for a while. I think when we come back, it’ll be the question of what does it look like with the two of them separate? What does it look like for Cookie trying to establish herself outside of her relationship with Lucious and outside of Empire? DEADLINE: Interesting that you put it like that, because with all the soapy cliffhangers and revelations than an Empire season finale usually has, this particular finale felt much more emotional … MAHONEY: That was quite intentional because in this episode, literally, we wanted to play up what it felt like and what it meant for a life to actually be in mortal jeopardy. We also wanted to really experience what that loss would be like. It’s also for Cookie to come to a place where she could walk away from Lucious and walk away from Empire — what would it take to get there? So, yes, we were just playing completely into the emotion in this episode. DEADLINE: Of course, there was the payoff of finally finding out that is was Lucious’ illegitimate son Kingsley (A.Z. Kelsey) in that casket we’ve glimpsed this season, when it sure looked like it was going to be Andre (Trai Byers) at more than one point. MAHONEY: I’ll tell you, we did not know right off the start who was going to be in that coffin. I mean, we definitely knew we wanted it to be a Lyon, because in the Empire world and in the Lyon world, they live in such high stakes, and we thought it was time to have the Lyons actually have a brush with mortality. But, after all the great stuff that we did with Andre this season, you know, by the end, none of us really wanted to put him in that coffin. DEADLINE: Well, I thought that the reveal was a long plan. So when did you guys decide? MAHONEY: (laughs) Not quite up until the end. It’s funny, I’m just was trying to remember when exactly we decided that it would be Kingsley. I think it was as the show went into the back-nine when we finally made the final decision and we narrowed it down to Kingsley. DEADLINE: So Kingsley is gone, having shot himself, and his heart has been put inside Andre. But what about his mother, played by Amanda Detmer? Will she still be part of the story going into next year? MAHONEY: I think that Tracy is still very much a part of the story because when she decides to give her son’s heart to save Andre, she tells Cookie it’s not going to be easy and it’s not going to be free. DEADLINE: Are we going to see any new characters introduced for Season 6, and maybe a particular guest star or two? MAHONEY: I don’t know about guest stars, but I definitely have some ideas for some new characters that are sort of like organic to what we’ve done. DEADLINE: Is part of that going to be part of the newly established Bossy Records? MAHONEY: I think definitely we’ll see some new people in relation to Bossy Records. DEADLINE: Speaking of who will be part of the story in Season 6, one person who won’t be, at least off the bat, is Jussie Smollett, as Fox made somewhat clear last month. I know the two of you are close, but what is your perspective as a showrunner on how that seemingly partial exit played out after the twists and turns of the past few months? MAHONEY: (pause) Well, it’s a challenge, of course, because Jussie is such an important part of this ensemble. The idea of moving forward without him is a true challenge, and no decisions have been made as of yet of how we move forward. We’ll work that out when reconvene the room and we come up with the creative. It’s difficult to see Jussie go through this because he is just an integral part of the Empire family, and then with everything that’s going on, it’s also just the challenge of getting the show done. DEADLINE: There were two references to the Jamal character that Jussie plays in this episode even though Jussie had written out of the season’s final two episodes. I wanted to get a sense, if you feel like sharing, what it’s been like for you the past several weeks, being inside this hurricane? MAHONEY: I think it’s just me and everyone involved in the show … you know, you’ve got to get the work done and get through it. But then you’re also dealing with real life, that these are real humans and that real people that are being impacted by these things. It’s a trying situation, no doubt. DEADLINE: The end of Season 5 of Empire saw Terrence’s Lucious escape his own trying legal situation and get away before the U.S. Attorney and the feds got him. Will he be back by the beginning of Season 6 or will there be another time jump? MAHONEY: Honestly, we haven’t worked all those things out, and I haven’t met with my writers in terms of convening and deciding how to move forward in Season 6, yet. Right now, I just want to make sure whatever we do in Season 6 is exciting. I’m back thinking character-driven and just exciting.<doc-sep>EMPIRE: Terrence Howard in the "The Roughest Day" Season Five finale episode of EMPIRE airing Wednesday, May 8 (8:00-9:00 PM ET/PT) on FOX. ©2019 Fox Media LLC CR: Chuck Hodes/FOX. EMPIRE: Terrence Howard in the "The Roughest Day" Season Five finale episode of EMPIRE airing Wednesday, May 8 (8:00-9:00 PM ET/PT) on FOX. ©2019 Fox Media LLC CR: Chuck Hodes/FOX. Empire type TV Show network Fox The Empire lost an heir — but maybe not the one we expected. In the season 5 premiere, Empire unveiled a flash-forward structure that featured Lucious standing over a mysterious coffin. When EW interviewed showrunner Brett Mahoney, he called the future death “impactful.” Well, after a season of teases, the season 5 finale just revealed that the newest Lyon, Kingsley (A.Z. Kelsey), was the unlucky victim. Just introduced this season, Lucious’ illegitimate son tried to find his way into the family, but his mother and abandonment issues pushed him too far, eventually killing himself and leaving his heart to go to an ailing Andre (Trai Byers). The reveal that Kingsley was in the coffin comes as the futures of the other Lyon sons looked more dire, considering Andre was previously seen flatlining in a flash-forward and Jamal actor Jussie Smollett has been embroiled in controversy, and upon renewing the series, Fox said there are “no plans” for him to return. To discuss the season finale, EW chatted with Mahoney about Kingsley’s death, splitting up Lucious (Terrence Howard) and Cookie (Taraji P. Henson), and Jussie Smollett’s future on the show. ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: In the end, why Kingsley? BRETT MAHONEY: This season, with the whole idea of the coffin, we wanted some aspect of mortality to touch the Lyons. They live such a high stakes life that it just seemed like life and death should touch upon them. So we knew that we wanted it to be a Lyon, but then as we proceeded, so many of the Lyon characters had such rich stories that we had to look at who would we could lose that would affect our storytelling going forward the least, and it seemed like that would be Kingsley. It was still sad to lose Kingsley, but that was the decision that was made in the end and he was put in the coffin. Talking to you earlier in the season, you said that you hadn’t yet determined who would die, so how deep in the process was it when you settled on him? As we moved forward, we narrowed it down, but I think we made the final decision that it was Kingsley before we started into the back nine episodes. We didn’t really get to sit with Kingsley’s death as the episode jumped right to dealing with Andre, so what impact will Kingsley’s memory and actions have moving forward? Andre will surely be thankful, but Cookie and Hakeem should probably feel some guilt for how they treated him. I hope that it will resonate. It’s not just his death but what he offered in his death. He actually offered Andre life in the end, so I think he will always live on with the Lyons. And the loss of him will impact Lucious and the family moving forward. Do you think the hype of who died got bigger than you expected? People see a coffin and immediately jump to the biggest conclusions, such as losing an original character. We definitely hoped that it would be something people would talk about and speculate about who was in the coffin. In that way, it was successful. I don’t know if we could have predicted that people would have cared as much as they did. I guess that was a little bit of a surprise. There were episodes where I felt like big things were happening and people were like, “But who’s in the coffin?” So it did take on a life of its own, but I’m not mad at that. In the season 4 finale, you married Lucious and Cookie. Now, in the season 5 finale, you split up Lucious and Cookie. After bringing them together, why did this feel like the appropriate move? This season was a test of their relationship, a test of ride-or-die. People tend to look at relationships through rose-tinted glasses, and this season was just a matter of, “Yes, they love each other, but what happens when they’re together, and these people who have gone through so much, could their relationship actually be problematic and something you have to fight for?” So we were just trying to show how difficult it is. Yes, they love each other, but is that enough? And that’s an ongoing question; that question isn’t answered in our finale. Even though they separate there, even Cookie says it, it’s not that they don’t love each other, it’s can they be together? So then you don’t think the damage is irreparable? Cookie seems to want to permanently set ablaze to the relationship when she says that she slept with Damon. That’s exactly why she does it. I think what’s interesting is if they do come back together, they will be coming back together with their eyes wide open and knowing how difficult it will be. So I don’t think the door is closed, it’s just a matter if they can come back to it — and if they do come back to it, they’ll come back to it in a more mature way. What can you say about where Lucious is going and what he plans on doing? What he tells us is that he’s going to disappear for awhile so he can find out what exactly Damon and the federal prosecutor have against him. But, I think that he may leave and discover some new things about himself before he comes back. Andre has been through more than anyone on this show, and now, he’s lost a brother, but gained a heart, wife, and, soon, a child. So what should we expect for him moving forward? He was on a journey with where he was with his faith and his belief in God and what he thought he could have in his life, and what I think he learned through this season was that beyond Rhonda, beyond losing his kid, there may be hope for him in the future. He was at a place where he didn’t think that he could have good things in his life, and now he realizes that it is a possibility. Toby Onwumere and Jussie Smollett Credit: Chuck Hodes/FOX When your season 6 renewal was announced, Fox said there were “no plans” for Jussie to come back, but are you leaving door the open for him to eventually return? I think we are still in the same place where we don’t have plans specifically at this moment. I mean, I haven’t gotten all of the writers together so we don’t really have our plans for next season. Obviously there are so many other factors, but, in your ideal world, would your hope be that Jussie reappears at some point before the show ends? It’s hard to imagine. I’m not sure yet; we will see as we start things next season how things play out. For these last two episodes, you had the convenient option to say that Jamal was on his honeymoon, but have you figured out how you will handle his absence come next season? It’s still in the process of being figured out. What else can you tease about season 6? It’s season 6, so I just think it needs to be bombastic and fun and crazy and very Empire. We’re open to turning it upside-down and seeing what falls out in terms of what new stuff, what new twists and turns we can come up with to make it exciting. Now moving into season 6, you’re closer to the end than the beginning, so have you started planning an endgame for the series? It’s unrealistic to not think about how it should end and how do you draw the empire to an epic conclusion.<doc-sep>
SPOILER ALERT: Do not read if you have not yet watched “The Roughest Day,” the fifth season finale of “Empire.” It’s been quite a year for “Empire.” The fifth season kicked off by teasing that before the end of the season someone important to Lucious Lyon (Terrence Howard) would die. Over the course of the 18 episodes, it was revealed that the music number-cruncher originally hell-bent on destroying the Lyons had a personal vendetta: He was actually Lucious’ first-born son. Additionally, Lucious and Cookie’s (Taraji P. Henson) relationship continued to be strained, resulting in her getting too close to Damon Cross (Wood Harris), who had a relationship with the law enforcement agents investigating the Lyons, and Andre (Trai Byers) fell in love with someone new, was diagnosed with cancer and was later told his heart was giving out due to the cancer treatment he underwent. By the end of the season finale, the body in the coffin Lucious was grieving over was revealed to be his son Kingsley (A.Z. Kelsey), who killed himself in front of his father after his mother told him she should have had an abortion rather than raised him; Andre got married in his hospital bed and received a heart transplant (from Kingsley); and Lucious was ready to flee the feds, but Cookie decided to put herself first and not go with him. Meanwhile, Jamal (Jussie Smollett) was off-screen throughout all the turmoil, having been written out of the last few episodes after Smollett claimed he was the victim of a racist, homophobic and racially motivated attack earlier this year, but was then accused of hiring the men who attacked him and indicted for filing false police statements. The criminal charges against Smollett have since been dropped (he has maintained his innocence throughout), and the city of Chicago filed a lawsuit against him. “We have such a terrific ensemble that when first you’re told you have to take one chess piece out, it’s ‘What the hell am I going to do?’ But then it opens up space and room to tell the other important stories that you want to tell. So there are pluses and minuses,” showrunner Brett Mahoney tells Variety. “There was definitely stuff I wanted to do with Jamal in [Episodes] 17 and 18 that I just had to express a different way, but it did open up the focus a little bit more on the Andre storyline.” Here, Mahoney talks with Variety about his decision to keep Jamal off-screen for such pivotal Lyon family moments and what Smollett’s status is for Season 6, as well as the evolution of Andre’s medical drama and why this was the time to separate Lucious and Cookie. How did it feel to write such an emotional finale for the Lyon family and not have Jamal be a part of it? Had the wedding episode hit in a different place, it would have been much, much, much more difficult. Right before we were headed into production of [Episode] 17 was when the decision was made to take the character out of the last two episodes, but luckily, it was almost a completion of the Jamal arc in [Episode] 16. There were elements I wanted to express in [Episodes] 17, 18, and I had to take those out, but it was lucky in the sense that it happened [then], so the wedding was a natural way to move on — to send him on his honeymoon. The stories in the news were unfolding before episodes such as the 16th were on-air, though, so did you go back and minimize his storyline in those or ease him out, so to speak? We had to tweak some stuff because of his availability, but not in a sense to limit him or cut him out. What were some of the pieces with Jamal you repurposed in the finale? Season 5 was a test of Cookie and Lucious’ relationship, their marriage, but at the same time it was an expression of the boys becoming men and growing up and establishing families of their own and loved ones outside of the Lyon family. So I had more of a physical expression of that for Jamal to be stepping up and stepping into his manhood for the finale, but instead it had to be just a line expressed between Thirsty and Lucious at the end.