Harry's Movie Check : Empire (2015)

Harry's Movie Review

Empire is a family drama about the head of a music empire whose three sons and ex-wife all want his throne. I expected a glossy soap, and parts of it are exactly that, but the series is sharper than its premise suggests. My opinion is simple: this is a very good show, and I rated it 9 out of 10. The music does real work here instead of sitting in the background as decoration. The story has enough tension to keep me watching past the point where I had planned to stop.

Terrence Howard is the reason to start the show and the reason to stay with it. He plays the father as a man who still thinks of himself as the boss even when the room has moved on, and you can read that ambition in how he waits before he answers. Taraji P. Henson gives the ex-wife a sharpness that never turns into caricature. The sons are written as competing agendas more than as siblings, and the younger actors make each one distinct enough that I never had to stop and check who was who.

Danny Strong keeps the camera close and the cuts quick, which suits a show about people who never stop performing. The pacing is uneven in places, and some episodes lean on cliffhangers that feel more like a commercial break than a story turn. That is the honest limitation. When the plot machinery gets loud, the character work gets quieter, and I wanted more of the quiet parts.

What stayed with me is the question of who the family can trust when every relationship is also a business deal. I did not expect the show to make me think about loyalty as a currency, but it did. It does not wrap things up with a speech, and I appreciated that. I finished the episodes thinking about the music and the power struggle, and I am curious enough to start the next season.