Empire is coming to an unceremonious end after changing the TV landscape

Los Angeles Times

Thanks to the coronavirus shutdown, the Fox drama won't be able to even answer the season-long question of “Who shot Lucious Lyon?” when it concludes tonight after six seasons. “At one point I had it shoehorned in there but it made me groan — I’m sure it would have made the fans groan,” says showrunner Brett Mahoney, who is still hoping for a proper finale, in an interview with Variety. “I wanted to make it as much of a finale as possible, but I wanted it to be satisfying.” As the Los Angeles Times' Tre'vell Anderson notes, "when Empire premiered in January 2015, the Taraji P. Henson- and Terrence Howard-led drama made waves. With its King Lear-inspired story line set in the world of hip-hop, the Fox series had massive social media buzz and high ratings to match, scoring at least nine straight weeks of ratings growth: the type of debut networks and creators dream of." Anderson adds: "With its mix of high drama — of the camp variety — flashy musical numbers and sociopolitically inspired story lines, the show was the fastest-growing new drama on television since Fox’s medical hit House 10 years prior. And it helped that everyone from Patti LaBelle and Mariah Carey to Don Lemon and André Leon Talley made cameos." Empire was even groundbreaking for being sold internationally, a rarity for a show with a black cast. “We were bold in our storytelling,” says Henson. “We came through kicking down doors. There was no topic that we would not take on, head-on, and they had the damn right cast to do it! That’s what helped shift the paradigm of writing (in the industry) and things that are getting greenlit now — and the fact that a black cast did it and it was successful globally.” When Mahoney suggested that Empire will find a creative way to get the proper finale to fans if shooting it becomes impossible, likely through releasing the script or a Zoom table read, Henson responded: “No, we want to shoot that baby. (Fans) want to see Cookie in her fur, honey. They don’t want to watch me read that looking crazy. We need to give people what they deserve because they have been loyal fans, and it just wouldn’t be right.”