Chris Rock Joins Empire Season 2
Empire season one was riveting especially since there will be a new Lyon leading the pack and now were hearing Chris Rock Joins Empire Season 2.
When the first-year phenomenon went off the air in March, Empire Records CEO Lucious (Terrence Howard) was put behind bars and his middle son was put in charge. However, the battle for control of the company is just getting started.
CelebNMusic247.com got the tipoff on the new season from THR, who got the details on Friday at a Television Academy panel.
Jussie Smollett, who plays Jamal Lyon and the new leader of the Empire had this to say about the new season.
“He’s going to be a very passionate leader.”
“He’s going to lead with his heart and sometimes that’s going to get him in trouble.”
show runner Ilene Chaiken added:
“If season one was who will inherit the throne, season two is warring kingdoms.”
As always, in season 2 Cookie (Taraji P. Henson) will return fighting harder than ever with her more ruthless beginnings when the show returns.
Henson said:
“She’s getting back to what she did when she built the empire.”
“She’s been tucked away for 17 years. Now she’s been out for some time so you get to see the Cookie that actually built Empire back in the day, starting from nothing.”
Despite her character’s extremely close connection with Lucious, in season 2 Cookie will embrace going solo for as long as she can.
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Henson added:
“She think it’s good for her because women, we’re always the brains behind the operations anyways.”
“But at the core of who she is, she knows he won’t be in there long. He has money, he has lawyers, he has people. Her thing is: how much I can accomplish before he gets out?”
In addition to Cookie being more ruthless, her past will continue to creep up revealing “two new love interests.”
Meanwhile, the story will continue and evolve with Andre (Trai Byers) and Rhonda (Kaitlin Doubleday) after they learned they’re having a baby.
Byers weighed in, saying:
“Its lovely to watch the growth of that actually becoming a family,”
“It makes him more mature, it centers things for him a little bit more and whatever he does is for his family now.”
As for Andre’s newfound spirituality, Byers revealed:
“Andre is trying to become something different with his spirituality and with his baby on the way so I would say that would affect him in the way that he deals with the people in his family, even Jamal.”
“Ultimately, there’s a lot of rivalry but there’s a lot of love in this family.”
What can you expect in season two?
More stars like Alicia Keys, Lenny Kravitz and Chris Rock, the latter who “will be a person from the past. For maybe all,” said co-creator Danny Strong.
Moreover, season two, which kicks off on September 23 on Fox, but the new season will be split into two parts. The show will run a first 10 up until the holidays and then a second set of 8 the wraps up the 18 episode season.
Chaiken said the writers are making sure to not let the famous faces overshadowing the core group which tends to be the biggest challenge.
Chaiken said:
“The biggest challenge, I feel, is to stay true to the stories, to stay true to the characters.”
“To make sure that Empire continues to be about this family and these relationships and not to lose sight of that in the midst of all of the fabulous opportunities to bring great guest stars onto this show which we are going to do, but Empire is the Lyons.”
Thoughts?
