‘Empire’ season 2, episode 9 spoilers: Cookie and Candace deal with Carol’s

Carol hasn’t forgotten about Jermel, the cousin whose head ended up in a box during this season’s first episode.

Tonight is an all-new episode of “Empire” on Fox and we can not wait to see what will happen. But while Cookie’s in the bathroom, Candace hisses that she’s keeping her mouth shut about what Carol did while Cookie was in prison. After all of Carol’s normal drugged-up hotspots are a bust, Cookie turns to her old prison pal Pepper, played by Rosie O’Donnell, for assistance in the search. Her sister has to go to rehab and get clean if she wants to stay with Cookie.

Pepper leads Cookie and Candace to Carol – who’s literally hanging out on a couch perched up against the wall of a delivery dock. Candace agreed to keep Carol’s children until she got herself together. What did Carol do while Cookie was in jail? How soon will we find out what it is?

“Sinned Against” continues the stunt-casting trend that has become such a distraction in Empire’s second season, but one of the episode’s guest stars comes across more like synergy than a stunt.

The song that Jamal and Skye end up making is pure magic. Jussie Smollett (Jamal) says in a promo video, “Skye Summers is the “it” girl”. Carol chooses to go with Cookie to NY, while Candace looks after her kids. Skye and Jamal will perform a new song called “Powerful” about racial injustice in America.

Watch a preview of Empire Season 2, Episode 9, “Sinned Against”. (Maybe Jamal isn’t so gay afterall).

And then, they kiss. While Freda had a good start, the youngest Lyon delivered towards the end and also made a stand – announcing that he’s dropping his father’s name and will just go by his first name. “Isn’t personal agency all about being able to act on something in the moment and owning yourself and not having to explain it or justify it?” Andre then tells Lucious he has an idea on how to raise the captial to acquire SwiftStream: They can forfeit their future royalities to Lucious’ old music to make some cash, but that would mean getting the sign off from Cookie, who is listed as a publisher as well. Boom! You know that had to make Lucious livid. Instead, Dre convinces Lucious to sell off pieces of the Empire. In fact, he tells them that the deal is off because that’s not how it was planned to go down. Psycho Anika shows up and throws her weight around as she finally shows her cards that she truly believes Hakeem is in love with her.

She’s jealous that Jamal hasn’t conformed and he sings what and how he feels about everything. Anika showed up uninvited to another one of Hakeem’s parties and got in Laura’s face, revealing the extent of her, um, research in the process. Later Hakeem confronted her and pretty much told Anika to back off. Do you think Hakeem did the right thing by refusing Lucious’ offer?

“You’ll never be a Lyon”, he sneers. Guess he forgot that he had publicly denounced his last name.

As Cookie and Hakeem are meeting about the Cookout, Laz brings her a cup of tea, and apologizes to Hakeem for not bringing him a beverage. Meanwhile, Laz begins to realize that there’s more to the relationship he shares with Cookie. After briefly meeting Laz and expressing his disapproval, Lucious looks into Laz’s background and discovers his involvement with the gang responsible for kidnapping Hakeem.

Most GIF-worthy moment: Lucious’ jealousy gets the best of him when seeing Cookie and Laz make out. I’m like, ‘Yes. Yes.’ And they didn’t tell me what part I was going to play, so I had no idea.

Lingering Questions: So what exactly is baking in that bakery?

“Thank you for seeing me”, says Skye, mid-performance. Will we see Pepper again?