Empire Recap/Review; Season 2 Episode 6

Spectrum’s weekly reviews of Fox’s ‘Empire’. Season 2, Episode 6; ‘A High Hope for a Low Heaven’.

Lauryn Azu|November 11, 2015

Obviously there will be spoilers ahead, you’ve been warned!

After the previous week’s hiatus, Empire fans were eager to see what happens to Hakeem after his sudden kidnapping at the end of episode 5. However, Hakeem escapes from his kidnappers just as quickly as he is snatched up. As he limps away bloody and bruised, he goes to seek out Anika and the two have a gross and sweaty makeout session in the middle of the sidewalk. After Cookie and Lucious reunite to locate their son, it turns out that Hakeem was only kidnapped for 5 hours. However, he receives a brutal blow to the skull with the butt of a gun, leaving him to deal with a head-splitting migraine and PTSD-like hallucinations that affect his performances during the episode. Later on, Mirage A Trois protégé Laura has to bring Hakeem back to reality during a televised appearance in front of millions. Is chemistry brewing between these two?

Meanwhile at Empire Records, Andre yearns to make major reforms within Gutter Life Records, a label notorious for its hardcore rap artists and underground sound. He wants to drop the reckless Frida Gatz, and encourage J-Poppa’s Christian themes in his music. Andre conducts interviews with all of Gutter Life’s artists, and J-Poppa makes quite the impression because of his Bible centered-lyrics. Will the two team up and sweep Empire Records with religious fervor? At the very beginning of ‘A High Hope for a Low Heaven’, Becky and J-Poppa are seen together intimately. We hope that Becky and J-Poppa’s relationship will be taken further, as Becky is an audience favorite who desperately needs further character development.

Simultaneously, Jamal, the prodigy child, demands to be remarketed because he feels that Empire’s marketing staff are branding him as ‘the gay artist’, which is narrowing his opportunity. He is also still salty about his awkward break-up with Michael, singing “Fidelity — everybody ain’t made for it!” which is ironic because Lucious is playing the piano with him. In this episode, Jamal brings in a mogul named Jameson, an old rival of Lucious’, in order to assist with his rebranding. Karma proves to be alive and well for Lucious this season, as the man he fired over 20 years ago for being gay reappears to assist his gay son .

Finally, Cookie and her dealings with Hakeem’s kidnapping have steered her into a heap of trouble. She and Hakeem go to meet up with the thugs who had terrorized him. Cookie tries to negotiate with them about the whole incident because they still demand ransom money, though Hakeem had already escaped. Hakeem, in his deranged state of mind, pulls out a loaded gun and ruins the whole deal! The thugs all have strange longhorn tattoos on their upper backs, but Cookie fails to notice. In the final scenes of episode 6, we see that when Cookie and her boyfriend, Laz, are getting hot and heavy, he has the same tattoo as the thugs who kidnapped Hakeem! Is he in cahoots with the thugs and duping Cookie?

Empire episode 6 of Season 2, ‘A High Hope for a Low Heaven’, gets a ⅗ rating for rushing Hakeem’s kidnapping plotline, but Becky and J-Poppa’s love scene was a nice bonus.
Stay tuned next week for more Spectrum reviews of Fox’s Empire!