Taraji P. Henson

The smash success of FOX’s Empire across only one season assured that the network would get the ball rolling early on its sophomore effort, and months ahead of their premiere, the Lyon family is already back in the spotlight. Mind your puns, and watch the Lyons enter the lions’ den, by the first Empire Season 2 poster. No lyin’.

FOX’s Empire proved an unexpected juggernaut across its first season, but did you know the Lee Daniels drama bucked every trend by its climbing ratings? Or that we almost had Wesley Snipes and Mo’Nique instead of Terrence Howard and Taraji P. Henson? These are just some of the trivial tracks flowing through the eleventh episode of ‘You Think You Know TV?,’ which drip-drops knowledge of FOX’s Empire!

Only weeks earlier FOX confirmed its Empire juggernaut would hold onto its Wednesday timeslot for Season 2, but now the Lee Daniels music drama is first out of the gate with a FOX premiere date. When will Cookie, Luscious and the Lyon family return to rebuild FOX’s Empire for Season 2?

Considering how big FOX’s Empire surprisingly expanded over the first season, the hip-hop drama’s Season 2 swell is anything but unexpected. FOX has officially confirmed that Empire Season 2 will expand its run of episodes from the first year, also adding a new musical voice to the soundtrack behind the scenes.

Taraji P. Henson is only the eighth black woman to host SNL in 40 years, which is only half the reason why her appearance on the show is awesome — in addition to her killer role as Cookie on Empire, Henson is a versatile actress who’s been impressing us for some time now. That versatility certainly came in handy as this week’s guest host, although the writers never really figured out how to use Henson’s strengths. Read on as we rank this week’s SNL sketches from great to not-so-great.

At some point in the SNL writer’s room, everyone must have realized that guest host Taraji P. Henson plays a monstrous character named Cookie on the smash hit Empire and, a few Cookie Monster jokes later, they were scrambling to call the producers of Sesame Street. Yes, SNL put Henson’s Cookie on the world’s most famous children’s program and the results are kind of spectacular.

In the cutthroat world of HBO’s Game of Thrones, life is hard and even the most innocent people find themselves victimized by the powers that be. So of course SNL would make the comparison between living in Westeros and living on the means streets of Los Angeles. Yes, it’s time to visit the eighth kingdom of this wildly popular fantasy series: South Centros.