Empire

Previously on Empire...

Wait till I launch Empire XStream.

Y'all gonna wish y'all made this deal.

- I want you to destroy Gram. - Battle me.

I designed my own little streaming apps.

I'm-a have you bloody and trending worldwide.

You don't want to be mixing those with alcohol, man.

That song she did at Laviticus is already getting crazy heat.

- And that song's not what she wants. - I agree with him.

Did he tell you that he put in a bid to run for mayor?

You think he's gonna do that with a convicted felon on his arm?

Imagine what you could do with your own imprint.

Man, you better go get your girl back.

All right, all right, hold your horses!

I'm coming.

So sorry I'm late.

- Tiana's having a little breakdown. - Hey.

- I'm sorry. - This is for you.

Oh. Thank you.

- Come here. - Thinking of me on your big day?

Yes. You know some traditions can't be disrupted.

- Move, I got to get dressed. - Hey.

Let me help you get dressed. Come here.

No, I can do it.

Here, wait.

Wait, one sec, one sec, babe, one sec.

- It's okay. - Wait.

Oh, no, that can wait.

What's under this?

- Yeah. - No, no, no.

- All right, look. - What's up?

I don't want our first time to be

when you're getting ready to run for mayor.

You're distracted.

See? Saved by the bell.

Stay right there. I'll be back.

- Baby, I'm gonna have to go. - Okay!

- You sent me an e-mail? - I sure did.

- Open it up. - Oh, a photo of...

- of all of you. - Yes.

Just a little reminder that you have my vote, Mr. Mayor.

- Well, all right. - Mm-hmm. Mm-mm.

Go do mayor stuff. Bye-bye.

Bye.

Ugh! What? Stop it!

Shut up, Tiana!

Derek, I'm sorry. It's still... it's too busy.

I don't know. We need to strip that down or something.

Strip all of it away. It's too busy.

Oh, you buggin', man.

This is a banger.

Yeah, all right. Let's just wait for some fresh ears till my mom gets here.

You okay?

Yeah, I'm fine.

I'm just, I'm off my pain meds.

What?

Philip freaked me out about all the artists

that get addicted to opiates. He's right.

Yeah, well, that Philip dude is a little extra.

I don't know.

The hell?

Shh, shh, shh, shh.

You sound like a wounded wildebeest in here.

- Man, whatever. - She's a Lyon.

She knows when somebody's singing off-key.

I got something she'll love.

How's that, Daddy's baby?

Yeah, whatever.

Are you coming in here to thank me for helping your ass with Shine?

'Cause you know you still owe me for that, right?

Oh, relax.

As soon as Shine gets back from Vegas,

he's gonna sit down with you, for you to be the head of his A&R.

He's been told.

Really?

Really.

Thanks.

- What the hell is this? - What?

Pop, Thirsty, this is Brian Piznarski.

Piz is one of the top cyber-security experts in the city.

He's working with our in-house I.T. guys.

So, is it Piz or Piss?

It's Piz, Pop.

Okay. What's happening?

All we know so far is someone's hacked into Empire's e-mail server

and pushed an MP3 file into the network's cell phones and tablets.

One of Tiana's demos.

So they must have gotten into the music servers.

Well, they tried, but the firewall's rock solid.

The song's been passed around as an e-mail attachment, but only internally.

W-wait. So, Empire XStream,

the subscriber information, that's all secure?

Andre said that was a top priority.

No, it's life or death.

If XStream subscriber data is comprised,

that means we've blown through $50 million.

Put that down.

Okay, Mr. Cyber Expert,

who did this?

Well, that's gonna take some time, Pop.

We need to give him a list of possible suspects.

The way I see it is, there's Tariq, there's Shine,

and then there's everybody else.

Yeah, I mean, Shine is a definite suspect,

but this is way too complicated for his ass.

And I don't like to put nothing past the FBI,

'cause they love to play dirty.

- Yeah. - But this is too messy for Tariq.

So, who else?

What about your boy Vaughn?

He and Birdman tried to buy our streaming services.

You turned him down.

Get Vaughn's ass in here.

On it.

Look, in the meantime, I need you to figure out

what the problem is and fix it

so we can get back to using our e-mails.

My head is about to burn the hell off.

- Come on. - Yes, sir.

We're good together, me and you, Nessa.

Yeah. For sure.

You know, me and you got something you and Dre never gonna have.

We got music.

Rakon, play it from the bridge.

- Here it is. - Come on.

- Hey, guys. - What do you want?

I want to talk to you, brother to brother.

Nessa, will you give us a minute, please?

- Yeah. - Ain't nothing to talk about.

You stole her out from under me.

Now she got to choose.

Nessa...

I had no idea you were into Nessa, Hakeem.

- Neither did she. - Listen. My big brother has a few issues

- I don't know if he told you about. - Hakeem, listen.

Whatever this is has nothing to do with me, okay?

Now, I'm going to get Shine from the airport.

You drive safe, baby.

You better fall back, boy.

Mm.

Oh, my God.

Lucious.

I got Mr. Vaughn Cooper for you.

What up, L?

What's going on, fellas?

What we doing?

Have a seat, bro.

What's this look on y'all faces, man? I don't like it.

What's happening?

You know, where you and me come from,

if a man has an issue with another man,

he handles that man-to-man.

We don't hide behind a computer screen like a bunch of bitches, you know?

First of all, who are you talking to?

And where you going with this?

We know you hacked Empire's e-mail.

Hacked their e-mail?

Do I look like I be hacking e-mails?

You believe that?

I invited you and Birdman to my house as friends,

to offer you an opportunity to be a part of Empire XStream.

Y'all tried to buy me out.

When I said no, maybe you felt a certain kind of way.

Maybe you wanted to hit me back or something.

I was working with Live Nation.

I saw Empire XStream was about to hit the bottom of the sea;

you was about to catch a brick.

We tried to help you out.

You were working for Live Nation?

Yeah, I was working with Live Nation. I got fired.

All right, all right, all right.

Hey, uh, sorry to interrupt.

If you've gotten any e-mails, don't open them.

What are you talking about? Our e-mails are still down.

No, the servers just came back online.

Somebody's doing this remotely.

Hold on, I just got ten... 20...

I just got 50 new e-mails.

I'm-I'm getting flooded with them, too, Pop.

They're releasing every e-mail ever sent to or from Empire.

Delete them now!

No. It's got me locked out.

Now it's a message.

They want a million dollars