Chimes at Midnight Recap: Empire

In the 6th episode of Season 3, the Empire was hacked, sending Lucious Lyon into an angry frenzy, but it still didn’t prevent him from getting his hair done. One result of the intrusion was Cookie’s poignant breakup with Angelo, only to later realize that she was in love.

The first sign of the hacking was when Tiana’s yet unreleased single began showing up on everyone’s cell phone. It got worse fast, with tons of internal emails being released and demands for payment to stop the deluge.

Please help me! I won’t stab you in the back this time.

Tiana’s track was getting trashed by the critics and Xavier was desperate to control the fallout. He begged Becky to help him and promised that he would get her reinstated to Tiana’s team and give her credit. Hesitant at first, Becky gave him the benefit of the doubt. But Xavier had his fingers crossed behind his back and Becky watched angrily as Cookie publicly gave Xavier the full credit for her move that saved the day.

Cheer up, Becky! Thirsty’s got your back.

Thirsty told Becky not to worry about it. He knows how to deal with creeps like Xavier. We seriously can’t wait to see Xavier get his just desserts. Make it good, Thirsty.

Go away, Angelo, I’m no good for you.

“Cookie’s Cookies” was an even worse public revelation than Tiana’s track! Cookie sent Angelo a bare-chested selfie and that ended up on the monitor where a crowd of people, including her sons, got an eyeful. An embarrassed Hakeem shielded his eyes. “What the hell y’all looking at,” Cookie hollered after Lucious smashed the screen with a chair. “They’re perky,” she sniffed and later tried to blame Lucious for that leak. Lucious said he didn’t care what she and “Ray J” did, but he thought Cookie was a little too old to be indulging in that particular type of flirtation.

Cookie nobly broke up with Angelo rather than be the cause of his losing the race for mayor. Angelo was already firing people from his staff who had anything bad to say about her. Cookie watched Angelo handle the reporters on TV by taking his own shirt off in solidarity with all women whose privacy had been invaded. “I love you, Angelo,” she blurted out, bewildered at the unexpected revelation even if it was only to herself at that moment.

I’m not sloppy, fellas.

A lot of people were looked at for the hack: Vaughn, Shyne, Tariq, but the blame eventually fell on Gram. He admitted that he could have engineered it if he wanted but insisted he would not be so sloppy as to leave evidence behind. Lucious and Andre just laughed at him because evidence of guilt was all found on Gram’s computer. Shyne and his posse were there to teach Gram a proper lesson.

Back at Empire, meantime, Tariq and the FBI were in the building, involved in finding out the source of the hack. Tariq was really looking for evidence of Lucious’ involvement in Frank Gather’s murder. (Remember that Shyne is the one that gave Tariq that tip in the last episode). He found a little something something– an email by Andre requesting two payments 2 days after Frank Gather’s died. All he has to do is find out what the initials stand for.

Jamal lost all his tracks as a result of the hacking. He was already shaky from trying to stay off medication to avoid addiction, but this sent him into a serious tailspin. At home, he began to drink. He called D-Major and said he was going to take a pill, asking him to come over. Later he passed out cold and D-Major had to call Phillip for help. A cold shower brought Jamal to.

We’re gonna be all powerful, babe.

The Big Shocker came at the end when Andre brought Nessa to Chateau Andre to show her how much he trusted her. A lot, for sure. Nessa watched as Andre met with Vaughn to pay up for the internal hack. Yup, Andre was the mastermind. He knew his father would never suspect him and would make him president of Empire XStream. Now, he tells Nessa, the two of them will make an all powerful team that even Rhonda will approve of. But, will Nessa go along with Andre? So far she would probably attribute any signs of instability on his part to the loss of Rhonda, but sooner or later, she will discover that he’s just a naturally unstable dude.