#risebysin

Sorry to Say That No One Won On The American Sound Awards on Empire Season 2 Episode 17 “Rise By Sin.”

"Rise by Sin" (SPOILER ALERT) This installment went out with a bang and it’s not even the finale.As teased in promos for this week’s episode, a Lyon would be shot down. Even with the warning, the final moment came as a shock when Jamal was shot by Freda Gatz at the ASA Awards and left in critical condition. Rewind to the beginning of the episode and Lucious was rehearsing for his ASAs performance. Over the course of the season, competitive drama has been heating up between Lucious and Jamal, as the father and son are going head-to-head at the big award show.Meanwhile, while Jamal was in the studio, he and the closeted gay producer D-Major, who he hooked up with last week and were getting close again, until Lucious walked in, causing D-Major to pretend like Jamal was the one who made a pass at him. Seeing the situation prompted Lucious back into his homophobic rage and he reacted worse than ever before going as far to tell his son, “The day you die from AIDS, I’m going to celebrate.”Fast forward back to the ASAs where the Lyon family was walking the red carpet before the big show. Freda, who was also walking the carpet, got tipped off by a very drunk and intrusive Carol who said that Lucious had close ties with her father who was killed at the beginning of the season. Freda put the pieces together and realized that Lucious killed her father so she grabbed a gun from a security guard and pulled the trigger, though she was aiming for Lucious, Jamal stepped in front of his dad and took the bullet for him.  What happens next is about the consequences. Clearly, Jamal has been shot. It’s serious. It’s life-threatening. It happened because of everything that we’ve seen in the course of the season and all of the things that Lucious and Cookie have done, and the way they’ve lived their lives. It’s all coming back at them now.  

Hakeem feels the pressure of his underwhelming fiancé, Laura, as he struggles to find a place for her both in his family and his career. Cookie finally reveals to Jamal the truth behind what happened to Freda's father, prompting Jamal to warn Freda of his family's ulterior motives. Meanwhile, despite his frustration with the family, Jamal makes a sacrifice for Lucious from which it will be hard to recover in the all-new "Rise by Sin" episode of EMPIRE airing Wednesday, May 11th (9:00-10:00 PM ET/PT) on FOX.