'Empire' Season 1, Episode 10 Recap

The two-hour Empire season finale is just one week away. Over the past 10 weeks, show fanatics have watched Cookie walk away from a 17-year prison bid, Jamal become a father, Lucious get diagnosed with a fatal illness, Hakeem share his junior with the world and Andre try to kill himself before getting committed to a psychiatric facility. And those are just the things that happened in between the drama. But before Empire's producers and script writers could bring the show to the end of its first season, it looks like they decided to bring things to a serious level by addressing a few subjects that are rarely talked about or are have a misconception in the black community.

The episode starts with Cookie, Jamal, Hakeem and Rhonda visiting Andre after his mental breakdown at Empire's headquarters. Of course, Lucious doesn't appear during family time because he can't stand to admit his son has a mental illness. With the IPO signing just 24 hours away, the Lyon crew meets Andre to encourage him and let him know that Empire wouldn't be going public without him.

But as each family member is taking their turn in acting as Andre's personal cheerleader, the psychiatrist jumps in to let the family know that Andre is bipolar. Cookie chimes in to say, "What is this bipolar disorder... that's white people problems." But because Cookie was locked up -- doing time that her husband should have been -- she wasn't around to see her oldest son's first mental breakdown during his junior year of college.

It all happened during a summer that Andre was supposed to be away at school. Mary J. Blige, who makes a guest appearance in this episode, was singing a track with Lucious during a formal event. Dre randomly comes home with gifts that range from scarves to diamonds. His excuse is simple: "It's Christmas in July." Rhonda knew what was wrong and called a doctor, who then tried to tell Lucious about his son's condition. But according to Lucious, "My son ain't got no mental illness."

With everything going on, Andre won't speak to anyone except his music therapist, played by Jennifer Hudson. He also chooses not to be around to sign his father's IPO. But that's not the only problem the Lyon family runs into while trying to make their company officially go public.

For weeks, fans have wondered if Olivia, Raven-Symone's character, was ever coming back for her daughter. Well, this episode leaves no more questions for viewers because little Olivia (think The Cosby Show) finally comes back. Skipping over all the unnecessary drama, Olivia and her ~~pimp~~ ex-boyfriend show up to pick up Lola. As Olivia tries to explain the situation to Jamal, the ex-boyfriend Reg pulls a gun on Jamal and says he's the reason Olivia got pregnant and left him.

But like several of the characters that pop up on the show, Reg is clearly delusional. As a very tense and heart-pounding moment lets loose in the Lyon home, Lucious comes clean about Olivia and Lola to save his son. "I put a baby in her," he admits. Jaws in the room -- and on Twitter -- drop when Mufasa made this confession because no one saw that coming. When you think about it, should anyone be that shocked?

Even with all of the drama, that doesn't stop Lucious from professing his love to Cookie and asking her to spend the rest of her life with him, again. He only says this now that Anika is out of the picture. He claims he wants all of his family together again before he dies, but Cookie says she sees right through that act. "You ruin everything you touch. Look at what you did to my sons... you just don't want to die alone," she states.

Now for the random facts of the night. Did anyone else notice that Empire has its own brand of water? Or notice Lucious' dopest line of the night: "You know how God made man in His image; I'm making Hakeem in my image. God didn't need no help, and neither do I." This was all referring to Camila, played by Naomi Campbell. And finally, Malcolm apologizes for being disloyal to his commander-in-chief because he's ready to dip into the Cooke jar.

Get ready for the finale.

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