Lucious is sleeping in his office and driving rehearsals late just to avoid being at home with his mother, who he insists is dangerous (and I think she is too...I mean last episode she said she's sorry she was too weak to kill him when she had the chance!!). Meanwhile, she's at the house telling Juanita she doesn't know how to season her food and that she thought she fired her!! She's also gaining Dre's sympathy to the point that he planned on sneaking her out of the house to go to the ASAs, but Lucious was a step ahead and had Thirsty lock both of them up in the safe room during the ASAs.
And Lucious isn't the only one avoiding people. Anika goes to Empire to speak to Rhonda, who tells her she has less than a minute to talk. So Anika says she was wondering why she hadn't seen Rhonda at yoga and why Rhonda isn't returning her texts. Rhonda says she's been busy dressing everyone for the ASAs, but then Rhonda gets straight to it! She begins asking Anika about her Louboutin flats, saying she was curious because they looked like good day to night shoes. Then she straights up asks Anika if she wore it the day she came to see Rhonda's nursery, and if she wore it into the night, you know being presumably good day to night shoes. But of course, this is also the same night Rhonda was pushed down the stairs. So when Anika is like I don't know if I wore them that night, and the line of questioning changes to did Rhonda see Anika that night...they both know what Rhonda is really saying. She's saying, are you going to admit you pushed me down the stairs! But of course the scene cuts away with no answer from Anika or resolution.
One of the people Rhonda has been busy dressing is Carol, who was going to be Cookie's plus one to the ASAs (that falls through for reasons discussed in a moment, and Lucious ends up asking Cookie to be his date to the ASAs...which comes with a beautiful bracelet and slight reminiscing). While showing Cookie the dress Rhonda picked for her, which Cookie didn't like, Carol tells Cookie she ran into Tyriq and they were going to dinner. Cookie's first response is to point out he's a cop, and of course Carol jumps in and says he's not anymore. And later, when Lucious tells Cookie Thirsty looked into Tyriq and he hasn't been a cop for ten years but the files after that are sealed, Cookie's first instinct is he's the Fed then! Lucious doesn't see why the Feds would still be after him, but Cookie is convinced. So she goes to Leviticus to talk to Tyriq herself, knowing Carol would be late. She straights up tells him she knows he's the Fed and that he better not try to squeeze her sister to get to her and her family. He asks what she has to hide, and goes on to comment on how she stole all of Carol's boyfriends (including Lucious) and how Lucious killed her cousin Bunkie (saying it as if he may have thought she didn't know). But Cookie holds it together and tells him to enjoy dinner at HER and Lucious' restaurant.
The next day Carol confronts Cookie, telling her Tyriq told her she went to see him before she arrived. The two go back and forth with Carol telling Cookie Candice was right about Cookie not caring about Carol and just helping her to maker herself feel better. She also brings up Cookie stealing her boyfriends, including Lucious. To which Cookie tells her she really thinks she should have what she has. And after confirmation that Carol had a drink and is no longer sober, Cookie sticks to her promise to kick Carol out if she lost her sobriety and yells for her to leave and to get her stuff out of her apartment too! Now while I was like, noooo, now she's really going to let it all out to the Feds, it turns out this would come back on the family in a much different way! More on that later.
A brief moment on Hakeem and Laura. A conversation where Laura is telling Hakeem about what she envisions for the wedding and magazines wanting to cover it, somehow turns into Hakeem telling her of no fault of their own her career is just not popping off how they expected. I was almost as shocked as Laura. She was like, and we can let US Weekly have a wedding exclusive and then maybe they'll highlight some of my music, and Hakeem was like...babe, babe...let's just accept that your career didn't pop off like we expected after a few dope records and opening for Tiana on tour! I felt kinda bad for her. LOL. She seemed to accept it, saying her dream right now is just to marry him (after of course saying he doesn't believe in her anymore). But then, at the ASA red carpet, despite being affectionate towards her in the pictures being snapped, one photographer finally just asked to get some pics of just Hakeem (even asking her to step back further than she already did)! SHEESH!!
Also on the red carpet is Jamal, who answers the question on whether he has a special someone by essentially saying he's happily single, while looking over at D-major on the red carpet with a woman named Chanel. But Jamal knew D-major would be there with Chanel. Let's rewind. So making more musical magic with Freda, this time in front of D-major, Jamal finds himself being told that he should move on from having his mother being his producer and let...you guessed it... D-major produce his next album. What a convenient idea for D-major to suggest!! SMH! So Jamal ends up in the studio working on a song with D-major, where they end up having a discussion about Jamal knowing being with Chanel on the red carpet will mean nothing to D-major. And when D-major hears someone coming in when he and Jamal were getting "close," he shoved Jamal and made a big scene as if Jamal was coming on to him. And when it turned out to be Lucious, he goes so far as to tell Lucious his son was coming on to him and storm out. But it turns out Lucious has been knowing D-major was on the DL, and turns it into an opportunity to demean his son by saying it's no secret D-major likes to take rich boys and make them his lil you know what. And then he and Jamal get into it on a level they never have before. After Lucious goes in on Jamal still not being over him putting him in the trash can 20 years ago, Jamal goes in on the fact that Lucious' mother brings him to tears 40 years after what she did to him. Which led to Lucious grabbing Jamal by the neck and setting up to punch him. And the worse was when he said he'll be celebrating when Jamal dies from AIDS!
Now when Jamal runs into Cookie upset from the ordeal, and he tries to explain what happened, Cookie gets caught up on another part of the story before Jamal can even get into what he and Lucious said to each other. While Jamal thought she was focusing on D-major wanting to produce his next album, it turned out she was actually focusing on him saying he was making music with Freda. She ended up revealing to him that she got out early by snitching on Frank Gatz, which is how he ended up in prison with Lucious. And then she confirmed that Lucious had Frank killed. And she told him that's why he has to let Freda go, because Frank would have killed them all like it was nothing, and the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. And boy was she right!!
So at the ASAs, while everyone was wrapping up with the red carpet and the press, Carol shows up drunk and/or high yelling out for Cookie. Cookie hugs her, grabs her by her weave, and tells her to get out. On the way out though, Carol runs into Freda, and when Freda asks her if she's okay and if she needs her to get her an uber, Carol says she needs Freda to get her into the ASAs. And when Freda said she had some press things to finish up, Carol goes off on Freda asking her if she thinks she's better than her, calling her a hood rat, and saying she's only on the label because Lucious feels guilty for what he did to Freda's daddy!!!!!!!!!! Freda then has these flashbacks to when she first met Lucious in the prison when she was rapping to her dad, to when her dad told her to stay away from Lucious, and to earlier that night when Jamal told her they need to talk about her needing to leave Empire!! Then she runs, grabs a gun off of a police officer, and runs up on the Lyons to shoot Lucious. But Jamal steps in front of her to stop her from shooting, but she shoots and ends up shooting Jamal!!!! She's arrested and he's taken to the hospital!!! He's rushed into surgery, and the family hasn't gotten any news. And of course Cookie is upset and blames Lucious, until a bit later when she softens a little after he says his mother should have drowned him and Cookie tells him he was born into a bad situation.
Now, when Thirsty woke up and saw the news that Jamal was shot by Freda, he got Dre and his grandmother out of the safe room and took them to the hospital to join the others. (Side note: neither Lucious nor Jamal won song of the year, perhaps because they split the vote as Hakeem suggested). Now at some point in the night, while Cookie and Lucious are talking, and the others are grabbing coffee and snacks, Lucious' mother walks out the hospital and is accosted by the paparazzi. They ask her what she knows about Jamal and whether she's a family member. She eventually says she is a family member, and after they ask her how she's related to them...the scene cuts off!!!
O...and now Tyriq has Anika at the FBI headquarters, where he tells who seems to be his superior he will be able to persuade Lucious' ex-wife and future baby mother of his son to give them the information they need on Lucious. I wonder if she will cut a deal realizing Rhonda may be on to her pushing her down those stairs!!!