Empire (2015)

This is how soaps are done today: with swagger, vigor and soul. Join in or get out of the way.

The characters remain Empire’s greatest strength, as well as the reason the show can get away with so much soapy ridiculousness.

Whatever it was that made Empire the sensation of the 2014-15 season hasn't gone away for the new season.

The three episodes FOX sent to critics are impressively well-balanced, not to mention coherent by Empire "standards."

Empire is cynical and sincere, kidding and not kidding, dumb and smart, and to watch it is to be constantly amazed by what it gets away with.

In the new season, the characters’ personal politics continue to be satisfyingly complex.

In its second season, Empire’s stilettos are sharper, its gloss is glossier and its enjoyably soapy turns are even larger than life, if that’s possible.

With the wattage of star-power turned so far up in the first episode alone (read: a lot of cameos we can’t tell you about) the struggle for control of Empire can fuel the plot further, but it’s Cookie’s steady stream of hilarious one-liners and the show’s character transformations--if they happen at all--that could add nuance and depth to the show.

For all the switchback plotting, the sudden revelations that bring some earlier plot or plotline to naught, the show never feels too obviously manipulative or out of control. This is in part because of the restrained way it's shot and acted.

If Daniels, Strong, and showrunner Ilene Chaiken are feeling pressure to maintain the show’s massive-hit status, it doesn’t show in the enjoyably scattered yet propulsive season premiere.

The first season of the wildly popular Fox dramarama was soapy in all the right ways, but, like the best soaps, teetered between being, like, the greatest and a big mess. This season walks the same precarious path.

[Empire is] still addicting and with a number of hot guest stars.

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 hijinks and, of course, Cookie.

Simultaneously refined and deliciously pulpy, Fox's mega-hit Empire roars back to life in its second year, with all the brand-specific viciousness and gasp-earning twists fans have come to expect from the Lyons.

The second season of the sensation that conquered television--and proved the commercial power of diversity—opens with a premiere popping with knowing provocation and outrageousness.... The next two episodes are less raucous--and less inspired.

Where the second season ultimately improves on the first is mainly in its sense of scope, of extending the already vibrant existing world of the series.

Even the bits that backfire--like the ridiculous stunt casting of Chris Rock as a supposedly menacing prison drug lord00rarely diminish the glee with which we ride along on each hairpin curve. [28 Sep - 11 Oct 2015, p.16]

That quest to crown a new king at Lyon’s Empire Music gave the show a goal to drive toward, something that’s lacking through the first three episodes of season two now that Lucious’ condition turned out to be a misdiagnosis.

Empire’s one and only problem remains the ethical hollowness of its characters--even the “good” ones are prone to cruelty. Co-creators Lee Daniels and Danny Strong and their crew either can’t locate or do not wish to introduce an underlying moral tone to this story. That’s part of what makes it so rich and watchable, but it also leaves viewers used and abused.

Admittedly, it does make for a fairly enjoyable if rather nutty stew, albeit one that requires ignoring things like, say, the plunging neckline of the ambitious prosecutor seeking to advance her career by using Lucious as her political springboard.