Warning: This teaser includes a spoiler from tonight’s episode!
Empire was created by two out writers (Lee Daniels and Danny Strong) and boasts showrunner Ilene Chaiken, so it’s no wonder this show is both super soapy and super queer. Tonight’s episode, “Dangerous Bonds,” shows that young pop star Tiana (Serayah) is interested not only in men like Hakeem (Bryshere Y. Gray), but also in women like India (played by Elizabeth Whitson). AzMarie is also in the clip, as she’s one of Hakeem’s best friends.
At TCA last month, I spoke with Danny Strong about the lesbian storylines on the show.
“Well you know the world of Empire is a world that absolutely tackles homophobia,” he said. “It’s one of the key concepts of the show,” Danny said. “So exploring that in non-male i.e. female, i.e. lesbian relationships, that’s part of the world of Empire.”
Danny also noted that having “iconic lesbian as our showrunner” helped up the ante.
“Well we interviewed a bunch of people and it was hands down Ilene. I just said ‘her!’ I love her writing, I loved her, personally. And I thought The L Word was the perfect background to have doing our show because this show is a soap and you can’t easily contain it,” Danny said. “Yes, it’s a soap but it also deals with social issues.”
Empire airs Wednesday nights 9/8c on Fox.
