Let’s get right to it: Empire Xtreme is hacked and Tiana is taking over — the stream, that is. Somehow, every Lyon is virtually accosted by one of her songs over Empire Xtreme. Turns out, the Lyons’ private server is hacked (like Hillary Clinton) and soon the e-mails get hacked, too (like Hillary Clinton). The hacker asks for a ransom and gets access to every e-mail ever sent via the Empire server. The e-mails could possibly be released little by little until the hacker gets the ransom (like Hillary Clinton?).
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| Empire Fox Recap |
Before you ask, there is no character named James Comey, but there is a computer expert named “Piz.” At an emergency board meeting, Andre airs everyone’s prostitute-buying dirty laundry. Then all of Empire’s e-mails show up on the screens in the office — along with a nude selfie taken by Cookie and sent to her new man Angelo. Lucious gets so mad he throws a chair.
In addition to her song being part of the hack, Tiana gets dumped by Gram via Snapchat, which is such a millennial way to breakup. Hakeem still can’t get over that Nessa chose Andre, even though she had no idea Hakeem was into her. And Jamal tries to record, business as usual, but the hacker starts erasing his tracks. “Piz” the expert realizes it’s not just e-mails anymore — the hacker is in the entire system, including the Empire Xtreme subscriber base.
Cookie distances herself from Angelo, since he’s running for mayor and she doesn’t want him to lose the election due to her past indiscretions. “Piz” traces the hacker to Tiana’s studio and she tells them Gram once hacked into her phone. She tells them that Gram used to spew a lot of hate toward Empire, information she should’ve told them yesterday.
So Andre and Lucious confront the Snapchat dumper. Gram denies, denies, denies, and asks them why he would go to the trouble of hacking Empire. Lucious calls in his backup to give Gram a beat down.
To celebrate, Hakeem, and Nessa perform, and Cookie praises Xavier’s decision for Tiana to record “Starlight” — which was actually Becky’s decision, but Xavier took credit for it and there for sucks. Thirsty, however, promises Becky that he’ll help her with a plan for revenge against the sniveling weasel.
Jamal, who said he gave up pain pills, stays home and takes pain pills and plays moody piano. D-Major drops by and Jamal is acting a bit manic. Uh oh. But they hook up anyway. Later in bed, Jamal is unconscious and D-Major suspects that he OD’d. Jamal awakens in the shower.
Cookie watches Angelo stand up for her in a press conference, which is labeled a “Sexting Scandal” by the news report (reminiscent of Anthony Weiner). But like the stand up guy he is, Angelo strips down in solidarity with her and Cookie says to herself that he loves him.
Andre takes Nessa on the creepiest date imaginable in a creepy warehouse to confess his creepy crime: He paid Vaughn for the Empire hack! WHAT. It was all a ploy to get the Lucious to put Andre in charge. He then tells Nessa she’s the embodiment of music and says if they combine their strengths, they can be powerful together. Somewhere out there, Ghost Rhonda probably approves.