‘Empire’ recap: Jamal reconnects with a love-blind Cookie

Love is in the air and in this episode, aptly titled "True Love Never," Cookie's finally getting some nookie (again). She’s been laid up with Laz for almost a week, typing away on her laptop and tossing her tresses in between his bed sheets. Somehow, she still hasn’t seen the Longhorn brand on his back.

At the Empire studio, the same old storyline we’ve seen in past episodes pops up: “Artist struggles. Lucious inspires. Artist performs well.” This time it’s with Freda Gatz instead of Jamal.

But Jamal himself is having some issues. While his father is occupied, he texts Mama Lyon for her expertise. Through the wonderful world of iMessage, she gives him the needed assistance to make the track sing.

Back at Laz’s, he hops into a car with a colleague. Through the course of the conversation, we find out that Cookie’s lover is the chief orchestrator behind Hakeem’s kidnapping. Though his goons want to make another play for money, he instructs them to hold off until he can get them (more) money from promoting Cookie’s new Lyon Dynasty concert, Cookie’s Cookout.

Remember the track Lucious tried to offer to Hakeem, but then offered to Freda? The pair of them now have a duet that Lucious thinks is award worthy. He takes it to an industry heavyweight who’s been known to pinpoint hits. The guy thinks the duet is cute, but not quite there. Apparently Lucious needs to “dig deeper.”

At Cookie’s announcement of her new event to her staff, Hakeem’s girl group Mirage à Trois -- not Menage a Trois as I previously thought -- performs. But lead singer Valentina (and Hakeem’s boo) gets upstaged by one of the other girls whose personality fits that of a lead singer. Valentina basically gets Beyonce-d (as seen in “Dreamgirls”).

But Hakeem wants his girlfriend to thrive. He gets Tiana -- who’s been viritually MIA -- to give her a lesson in sex appeal. But she’s just not cutting it.

Mimi is back for a board meeting at Empire. The stocks aren’t doing well and her investment seems to be faltering. Andre suggest the creation of an Empire streaming network to solve their issues, but his four to six month implementation plan is too long. Mimi suggests -- and by suggesting, she orders -- them to broker a merger with an already established streaming service.

At the meeting to discuss the partnership, Lucious and the owner get into the ring, physically. With gloves on, the two trade verbal and actual punches. When accused of having shallow lyrics, Lucious knocks his potential business partner on his knees. Mimi and Lucious go to visit the injured guy who is now in the hospital as a result of the fight. After upping his morphine dosage to disorient him, a deal is made to make the merger happen.

Though Andre should’ve been a part of all of this, he’s been sent to get his government contact to remove a legal battle Freda is facing. This contact, pre-baptism, used to do favors for Andre in exchange for sex. But since God came into his life, that’s now a no no. After talking to his pastor, he’s inspired not to fornicate, but rather blackmail his contact with a video of them two.

In other brother news, you can’t keep a cub from his mother. Jamal and Cookie meet up in secret to reconnect. She loves where he’s come with the song she helped him with, but it’s missing some bass. Conveniently, Lyon Dynasty is around the corner. She convinces him to drop in to put the final touches on the track. But before they know it, it’s morning and Hakeem walks into the Dynasty. Luckily Jamal is able to escape without being caught.

Oh, and Jamal’s new mentor, Jameson, got him the opportunity to perform in front of the same industry exec Lucious consulted earlier in the episode. Like the great father Lucious is, he’s visibly jealous. At the performance, Jamal performs the new track, “Heavy,” to much praise. Though Lucious takes credit for the song, he can sense Cookie’s undeniable touch.

In the planning for Cookie’s Cookout, Laz convinces her to meet with the goons who kidnapped Hakeem as they are the gatekeepers to the Harlem locations she wants to use. In the meeting, which Hakeem interrupts, the head goon in charge is the guy Laz was chatting up earlier. Laz plays double agent to broker a deal for the group to be security at the event. Though Cookie is oblivious, Hakeem is wary about Laz.

The youngest Lyon is also still trying to tap into Valentina’s hidden star power. In true Diddy fashion, he forces her to perform in a busy plaza with the challenge of stopping people in their tracks. She belts out “Yo Vivre,” a tantalizing Spanish rendition of “I Will Survive.” At the group’s next rehearsal, she harnesses that energy to put her background singer back in her place.

The episode ends with Lucious finally figuring out what was missing in his duet track, “Boom Boom Boom Boom,” with Freda. Drawing anger from his childhood -- motivated, as we see through flashbacks, by his mom’s obsession with Russian roulette -- Lucious delivers a DMX-like performance. It’s complemented by the rotating chamber and trigger sounds of the very gun his mother used. It’s now a hit, and Lucious knows it.

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