When Empire returns on Wednesday, it will have been nearly four entire months since we've seen a new episode. FOUR WHOLE MONTHS, PEOPLE! So you're forgiven if you're a little fuzzy on where we left the dysfunctional-as-hell Lyon family.
Thankfully, E! News recruited a very knowledgeable person to refresh your memory on what happened in the Empire midseason finale: Jussie Smollett, a.k.a Jamal Lyon himself.
We sat down with the actor at New York City's Dream Hotel to get a little refresher course on where the show left off, plus a few teasers about where we're headed in the action-packed second half of the season.
First things first, though—this is what happened in the last few episodes: "Jamal has kissed a girl and he liked it, now Lucious thinks that he's straight but he's not, they're up against each other for an award, and Rhonda's ass gets pushed down the stairs and lands on her stomach," Smollett says.
And yes, we'll see the repercussions of all of those events in the first few episodes back.
"It's not an award. It's so much deeper than that," he explains of Jamal and Lucious's beef, adding, "They finally have just come to a place where they somehow understand each other and they respect each other mutually, and now this comes into play which all it does is bring up the residue of these issues they've had all throughout these years."
As for Camilla and Mimi's takeover, Smollett says that it could bring the family closer together. "In a way the Lyons needed for this to happen…some outside force to come in and show them, 'Look how silly you are; look how stupid you are that you're fighting each other so hard that your fights with each other is what allowed someone to get into your circle and then tear down the Empire.'"
Find out why it's not necessarily Hakeem's fault that the takeover happened and more teases about the new episodes in the video above.
Empire airs Wednesdays at 9 p.m. on Fox.