The whole "Empire" TV series cast won't be seen sharing scenes together until maybe next year.
With the first season of the Fox musical drama ending its ultra successful first season, many fans are expecting a grand return. A lot of things went on in the two-season finale and definitely, the characters will have to answer for those.
It is not just the events in the last episodes that will haunt the main characters, even the deaths that took place earlier. Terrence Howard's Lucious Lyon has been arrested for the murder of his own friend Bunky and for "Empire" season 2, that will surely become one of the main storylines.
As for Cookie Lyon (Taraji P. Henson), her journey to the top of the hierarchy will not be that smooth because of a hit he ordered for Teddy McNally who she thought was threatening her.
According to showrunner Ilene Chaiken, Cookie is not yet safe. Lucious may have been removed as CEO of Empire Enterprises but Cookie will not escape that one careless mistake.
"Well, we are doing a second season. So anything could happen, and no story is finished," Chaiken said in interview with TV Line shortly after the last "Empire" TV series episode.
"There are story points in Season 1 that we thought we had finished, and then later on, as we were breaking further story, we'd say, 'Well, wait a minute. Doesn't this arc relate to that, or couldn't it?' We've learned that, as in life, our actions come back to haunt us."
Another murder that will haunt other main "Empire" TV series characters is the one involving Vernon (Malik Yoba) who was accidentally killed by Rhonda (Kaitlin Doubleday) while defending her husband Andrei Lyon (Trai Byers).
Chaiken said they will approach Vernon's death like Bunky's.
"I can answer that in the context of the Bunky murder: Lee and Danny had made a pilot and somebody got murdered," she said in an interview with Entertainment Weekly.
"Nobody knew if that would be followed through and we made a season worth of story out of it and I don't think it's even over yet. I don't know what we'll do with that storyline in season two because we haven't even begun but I do know that as there will clearly be a story about Lucious in prison and getting out of prison and whether he does and whether he beats the rap, the fact that the star witness is dead is an opportunity."
Aside from Howard and Henson, other holdovers in "Empire" TV series cast for second season are Trai Byers, Jussie Smollett and Bryshere Gray.
