1. Queen Bee!
No soap opera is complete without an iron-clad queen bee who is always dipped, making dramatic entrances and dropping the best lines. Behold, Cookie!
2. Cat Fights!
With so much drama and so many strong female characters, it’s only a matter of time before two women start flipping furniture. Of course, we knew Cookie would be involved.
3. Surprise Pregnancies!
There’s a law when it comes to soaps: weddings and babies NEVER mean happily ever after. So when Anika shows up with Hakeem’s baby, we were just waiting for the music to go dun-dun-DUUUUUNNNN!
4. Mystery Murderers
It only took Empire one and half seasons before a mystery person (with black gloves no less) showed up to try and kill someone.
5. Kidnappings!
Since no main character ever really gets killed (bye Vernon!) in a soap, the next best thing is getting kidnapped — a lot. Sure enough, Hakeem got GOT this season before Cookie got her Jason Bourne on and rescued her baby.