‘Empire’ Season 6, Episode 3 ‘You Broke Love’ Review: Deals & Reconciliations

Things are reaching its inevitable boiling point this week on FOX’s Empire. After last week’s powerful episode, tonight’s chapter on the lives of the Lyons takes a breather and is seemingly afraid to anchor itself steadily. Titled “You Broke Love,” Empire 6×03 surprisingly came and went as the final season’s weakest episode thus far. The usual Lyon family drama is present, but I think adding the conflicting elements of faith and pressing issues on abortion made it a tad bit convoluted.

“You Broke Love” follows Lucious (Terrence Howard) as he gains the upper hand against Damon Cross (Wood Harris), setting his eyes on clearing his name. But it does come with a major dilemma—Damon holds Cookie (Taraji P. Henson) at gunpoint, using her as bait. Meanwhile, we’ve got Andre (Trai Byers) dealing with another Kingsley (A.Z. Kelsey) apparition as he winds down from last week’s stressful events. On the Empire and Bossy Media front, Tiana (Serayah McNeill) gets flak on social media after her Instagram Live video gives her followers the impression that she is pro-life. Becky (Gabourey Sibide), on the other hand, still struggles with Lala (and we thought she finally found her voice?!). To make things worse, Becky’s sister Donna (Joy Brunson) crashes her workday to pester her about trivial family matters.

Here’s everything that went down on tonight’s episode of Empire.

Before all the events tonight, “You Broke Love” opens with the Bre-Z’s return as Freda Gatz, still enjoying life rappin’ and hustlin’. It’s not until we see her take a drug deal and reveal her pistol that we cut back to that shot of Lucious gunned down by the same gun. Since Freda still has a grudge on Lucious, could she be the culprit behind the final downfall of the Lyon King?

Damon Goes Batshit Crazy and Takes Cookie Hostage

Empire wrapped up last week teasing a bloody confrontation between Damon and Cookie. Tonight, things are in full swing. After seeing the security footage of Cookie taking pictures of Damon’s email, he has cookie bound to a chair while he prances around like a poor imitation of Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker. He’s using her to force Lucious to return the laptop that contains files on all of Damon’s shady dealings. He calls Lucious to tell her about Cookie being taken hostage, but Lucious couldn’t give a rat’s ass. Seeing how Lucious is over Cookie, he lets Damon off by saying he’s not interested and that he can do whatever he wants with Cookie (oh, and Lucious’ dreds are gone now and we’re back to the same clean-cut Lucious of Empire).

Frustrated, Damon goes on a heated rampage, throwing random stuff all over the Lyons’ kitchen and furiously waving the gun in front of Cookie. This also when we find out that Cookie still has feelings for Lucious (but at this point, it’s no surprise). And then, Damon gets a genius idea—what if I go after Cookie’s grandchildren? So he phones his guy to get the location of each of them while Cookie pleads for their lives. The whole sequence is dramatic, but it looked a bit too much. Damon even cooked himself a meal while waiting for his guy to give him a 20 on the Lyon grandkids. When Cookie tries to escape, Damon shoots her. Luckily, the bullet only grazes her leg.

Chuck Hodes/FOX

Lucious, on the other hand, is dead set on proving his innocence using the information in Damon’s laptop. He plans to turn it over to a press contact but has a change of heart when he remembers the time when Jamal was born and Cookie had him promise that he will always be there for their family. Back at the Lyon mansion, Cookie begs Damon to kill her instead of her grandkids. But like a knight in shining armor, Lucious saves the day by calling Damon up ready to have an exchange.

As Lucious and Damon cross paths in a busy intersection for the exchange, Lucious does a last-minute foul play as he throws the laptop on the street while grabbing Cookie and making a run for it. And nothing smells sweet victory other the sight of Damon crying over his laptop as a bus runs it over and Lucious hails a cab to safety.

And just like that, folks, the month-long Cookie-Lucious standoff is resolved. Now, if that ain’t half-assed writing, huh?

Chuck Hodes/FOX

It kind of offers a good-enough save, though, as Cookie reveals she still has the photos of Damon’s corrupt transactions with prosecutor-turned-political-candidate Meghan Conway (Alicia Coppola) on hand. The next day, Cookie calls her over to reveal that they have her locked up in a tight grip. If she doesn’t drop all charges against Lucious, the media is going to have a field day with Meghan. Left with no other choice, Meghan caves to their demand, with Lucious reminding her, “we own you now.” Glass clink!

Andre vs. Kingsley: “Let’s See Who Can Out God You!”

Last week, Andre had a big fight with God, only to find no other choice but to rely on him when Teri (Meta Golding) and his son almost died during the operation. Now that the Empire heir is best buds with God now, he feels empowered—until another Kingsley hallucination pesters him throughout the day. Kingsley’s torments are dancing around Andre’s trauma and fear, and Andre’s psychiatrist knows that the meds won’t do the trick. So with newfound strength for the almighty, Andre overcomes his hallucination by fiercely praying Kingsley out of their lives.

Chuck Hodes/FOX

Um… okay. For some reason, this episode has a way to circle back from a stupid storyline by introducing a new scene that seemingly takes our attention away from all the bullshit that we just witnessed. Later, after Andre and Teri prayed over their son (and “cast out” the demon Kingsley), Lucious and Cookie visit them. Oh, and Andre finally has a name for his son—Walker Lyon, with “Walker” being Lucious’ former last name.

Becky Struggles Yet Again with Lala, Tiana Suffers From Social Media Backlash

It seems Bossy Media will never pick up anytime soon. Lala (Diamond White), their first signed artist, had a star-filled night last week when Club Leviticus’ new manager, Melody (Alexandra Gray), helped her put her powerful voice out. Sadly, Lala did have a one-night-only boost of confidence. Back at the recording studio, she still struggles with her whisper voice. Becky’s almost hopeless because even with Melody’s help, Lala doesn’t seem to have the know-how to use her voice correctly (Becky really should’ve dropped her ass the moment Lala failed to impress during her first interview). Becky’s day gets worse as Donna, her sister, and their cousin makes a surprise visit and acts all high and mighty over Becky’s decisions. It’s not until Becky, out of desperation, agrees to make Bossy Media a money-laundering channel for their cousin that Donna reveals she only wanted Becky’s approval ever since they were kids. And that’s basically it. That’s why she came.

All throughout this plotline, I only had one question, “what the hell was this sequence for?”

Meanwhile, Tiana’s fans roast her on social media after dropping her remarks about Andre and Teri’s baby on the way. Fans seemed to think that she was pro-life and viciously anti-choice. But a conversation with Treasure (Katlynn Simone) clarified Tiana’s stand—she used to be pro-abortion, but when her son Prince came at the wrong time, she couldn’t find it in herself to give him up. Treasure understood this but thought she had to one-up her. Treasure then posted a story of her own negating Tiana’s statements and saying that she’s “pro-women and pro-choice,” an indirect way of throwing shade. Seriously, what are these girls on? Can’t they ever resolve these trivial pissing contest?

That’s when Maya (Rhyon Nicole Brown) decides to intervene by putting them in their place. “Unlike the two of you, I recognize that abortion isn’t some black-and-white issue that can be resolved on Instagram,” Maya snaps. “So why don’t you both do the label a favor and stay in your lane? Stick to singing.” Boom, bitch.

‘Empire: You Broke Love’ Overall Verdict

The only thing that was broken in tonight’s episode of Empire was my interest. After two strong episodes, “You Broke Love” did a complete 180 on the momentum that was established and came up with a half-baked episode that only progressed the show’s narrative by a few steps. If not for Howard Deutch’s steady direction for the episode, the story written by Yolonda Lawrence and Marcus J. Guillory would have landed on its ass. Still, though, despite the good visuals and camerawork, this episode didn’t cut it for me tonight. Each plotline had the potential to be interesting, but the way it was fleshed out seemed very rushed and irrelevant. Oh well, here’s to hoping that next week’s episode would bounce back from this horrible pit.

Empire continues Tuesday, October 15th, with “Tell the Truth” at 9/8c on FOX.