“Empire” is flashing back Wednesday night, as we get even more pieces to the puzzle playing out in Season 5’s highly-teased flash-forward: Who is in that casket?
While TheWrap doesn’t have an answer to that question — yet — we do have an exclusive sneak peek at Wednesday’s installment of the Lyon family saga, which shows Cookie (Taraji P. Henson) and Lucious (Terrence Howard) struggling with their decisions for Lyon Family Management in the present day — and a flashback to when they were really hurting after just losing Empire, following Eddie’s death.
Lucious makes the mistake of alluding to Cookie being the reason the record company fell through their fingers, and she is not having it. She storms out and that’s when we see her first encounter with Damon Cross (Wood Harris), the shady money manager who has been up to no good in the present day.
Fans will remember a flash-forward showed Lucious, while mourning at the mysterious funeral, looking at some cozy pics of Cross and Cookie. And now we might know why, seeing as Cross is already trying to put the moves on Cookie from the moment they first meet at a hotel bar.
Here’s the official description for Wednesday’s episode, titled “Master of What Is Mine Own”:
The cost of running Lyon Family Management starts to put pressure on Cookie and Lucious’ relationship. When Kingsley pulls a power move of his own that has major financial repercussions for Lucious, Cookie thinks back to their early struggles. Kai (guest star Toby Onwumere) becomes upset when Jamal announces their engagement on live TV and Tiana hits a crossroad with Hakeem, who refuses to set aside his beef with Blake. Meanwhile, Candace becomes vindictive after feeling betrayed by Cookie and Giselle uncovers a key to her future.
Watch the clip above.
“Empire” airs Wednesdays at 8/7c on Fox.