There is so much going on in Hakeem Lyon's life in Fox's "Empire" Season 2 Episode 8, titled "My Bad Parts."
Laura Calleros (Jamila Velasquez) and Hakeem's (Bryshere Gray) relationship is blossoming. They were having an intimate moment at Hakeem's apartment but was cut short after Laura told him that she's still a virgin. Hakeem was surprised and that made her feel self-conscious. To make it up, he gave her a gold bracelet, stopping her from leaving. They planned on continuing where they left off but got interrupted by texts telling Hakeem about Freda.
According to Cleveland, Lucious (Terrence Howard) was hosting another blogger party at Club Leviticus and Becky (Gabourey Sidibe) was trying to discourage Lucious from something he's about to do. Lucious wrote a song for Hakeem titled "Shots Fired," and introduced his prodigy Freda Gatz (Bre-z) to perform the song.
Instead of executing the correct lyrics, Freda inserted new lyrics making it sound like an outright dis for Hakeem. Parts of her performance got uploaded in the blogosphere which Hakeem checked out after receiving the texts the following day. He then challenged Freda to a rap battle for the Lyon namesake.
Things got more intense when Anika Calhoun (Grace Gealey) went to Hakeem's apartment hoping to tell him she's carrying his child. Anika tried to be intimate with him but Hakeem told her that he's in love with Laura. She was taken aback by what he said and instead of telling him about her pregnancy, she left Hakeem's apartment without saying goodbye.
By the end of "Empire" Season 2, episode 8, Anika was said to have been overcome by emotions and took Hakeem's new ladylove Laura by disguising as a driver, as per Variety.
Meanwhile, Jamal Lyon (Jussie Smollett) was trying to land a sponsorship deal with Pepsi and was given a week to write a song. This made him turn to Cookie Lyon (Taraji Henson) for help but was afraid to let Lucious know. Laz Delgado (Adam Rodriguez) and Cookie were hovering over the Internet about Hakeem's rap challenge. Hakeem arrived and was greeted by Cookie's concerns and Laz's piece of mind about the challenge.
This ended up with Laz and Hakeem having a brawl with Cookie trying to separate the two. She slapped Laz for hitting Hakeem and told Hakeem to win the challenge. The episode ended with the Lyon family gathered together at a local club and an unexpected visitor arrived.
Lucious informed Cookie that her sister arrived who brought a disturbing news about their sister Carol Hardaway (Tasha Smith) and her children.
Find out how this week's events will unfold in next week's episode. "Empire" Season 2 is aired Wednesdays, 9:00PM on Fox.