Empire returns with new episodes on Fox tonight following its season 5 winter hiatus. Although the series hasn’t aired new episodes since December 2018, the show has been in the media due to star Jussie Smollett’s indictment. There are 9 episodes remaining in season 5.
The description for tonight’s episode 10, entitled “My Fault Is Past,” reads “With the control of Empire within reach again, the Lyons must pull out all the stops to prove Lucious and Becky’s innocence in the data mining scandal; Cookie struggles with Lucious’ past.
Entertainment Weekly interviewed Brett Mahoney, who gave some insight into what fans should expect with the Season 5 Winter Premiere. He said that at the start of episode 10, “We literally pick up in real time after the bomb that Kingsley dropped on the family. It’s Cookie (Taraji P. Henson) pulling Lucious aside and confronting him, and then them deciding how they need to proceed together. Cookie tells Lucious, if we have to take Kingsley down, that’s what we’re going to do to protect our family and the empire. She asks if Lucious is down for that and he says that he is.” Mahoney does tease, however, that Lucious will struggle with how to handle Kingsley and vice versa, saying “Kingsley needs to question everything he’s learned growing up, and now Lucious has to reach out to this man whose been made his enemy, when it’s actually someone who he could love and embrace.”
A sneak peek shows that Lucious and Kingsley have a confrontation during episode 10; Kinglsey has been set up as a major source of conflict for the Lyon family in the back half of this season. The sneak peek also indicates that the second half of the season will return to the cliffhanger flash forward of Andre in the hospital. During the clip, Gabourey Sidibe (who plays Becky) says she thinks Andre is “probably gonna die” because he flat-lined. Since there will be no more flash-forwards in the second half of the season, expect not to know Andre’s fate until the season finale.
As for Jussie Smollett’s character, Jamal, although Smollett was removed from filming the last two episodes of the season, his character will appear in the next 7 (which were shot before his indictment). Of Jamal and Kai’s storyline and where it left off before the hiatus, Mahoney said that “Whereas they had this idyllic life in London, now they’re here in New York and Jamal is back with his family and what does it mean for Jamal to be a Lyon? And is Jamal tired of apologizing for being a Lyon? And is it going to be up to Kai to either accept him or will they have to go their different ways? And for Kai, he’s going to get a real glimpse of what it actually means to be a Lyon, and he has to make a decision for himself if he wants to be associated with the family.”
According to IMDB , Michael Goi directed the winter premiere episode.
Watch new episodes of Empire season 5 on Fox, Wednesday nights at 8/7c.