Lucious Lyon (Terrence Howard) and family are returning on Fox to entertain the viewers with a new season of "Empire", which will be aired at 9 pm on Wednesday, 23 September.
The premiere episode of season 2, titled "The Devils Are Here", can be live streamed here. It will begin with a brief introduction on where each of the characters stand after the hip hop mogul's arrest.
The show creators, Lee Daniels and Danny Strong, have already teased an intense sequence with more in-depth details on each of the cast members. While Jamal Lyon (Jussie Smollett) will be seen as a more business-oriented person, his brothers Andre (Trai Byers) and Hakeem (Bryshere Y Gray) will battle for control over the business.
The official synopsis of episode 1 reads: "Still in federal lockup, Lucious is trying to run Empire from inside, while a headline-grabbing state prosecutor hangs her political ambitions on bringing him down - no matter what it takes. Meanwhile, Cookie stages a star-studded #FreeLucious concert in his support, while scheming with Andre, Hakeem, Anika and the business savvy Mimi Whiteman (guest star Marisa Tomei) to finalise the hostile takeover of the company."
Here are some of the early reviews on "The Devils Are Here" that have briefly descibed as to what to expect in the premiere episode of "Empire" season 2:
There is certainly cause for some wariness that an already bursting-at-the-seams drama has become stretched even more haggis-tight, but the three episodes made available to critics remain above the guilty-pleasure fray, with catchy new songs, wacky diamond-encrusted, fur-lined high jinks and, of course, Cookie.
This round of "Empire" is a more fully formed world. Which translates into the familiarity of the hip-hop drama allowing the imprisoned Lucious Lyon, the corporate-raiding Cookie and the strong supporting cast bench to become more complex characters – especially as we learn more about who they were before they became who we know. With the pillars in place that made the show a success the first time round, this new season chews into topics including the prison industrial complex, poverty and the politics of the justice system, among others.
Through the first three episodes of season 2, the Lee Daniels co-created series has thrown away any notion that it's going to succeed on a scale that measures good and bad on "traditional" merits. The show still suffers from some of the gripes of season one – like the fact that its swap of a New York setting for a Chicago shooting location is the least convincing on television, and it's visual palette is one of the blandest in the game – but a lot of those gripes fade away with the pure fun and intrigue provided by the likes of Lucious, Cookie and everyone that stands between them.
