In a recent interview with EW, Empire showrunner Ilene Chaiken revealed some details about Wednesday’s shocking season finale.
On Lucious’ misdiagnosis…
“Yep, from the very beginning. I think in my very first meeting when I was sitting with Francie [Calfo] and Lee at Imagine and Danny was in New York so we were Skyping with Danny. He was on a huuuuge screen at the front of the room. The first time I ever met Danny Strong he was kind of God-like on this enormous screen. We talked about any number of things. Of course we talked about the ALS and what’s going to happen because Terrence is the star of the show. And Danny said, “Well I always thought it would be a misdiagnosis.” And I said, “Really?” And he said, “Yeah.” In the room, we talked about whether or not that was the best story solution and in the end we thought, “Yeah let’s just go for it!” We researched it extensively to make sure it was credible. But it’s actually quite supportable with research.”
On whether the writers had always planned to give the Empire to Jamal…
“That was not quite so planned. But what Lee and Danny put forward in that same group of meetings was we look at him like a Michael Corleone character. We want to see him rise to the occasion, surprise everyone by being the most cunning, the most gangster at the end of the day. Then, all of the rest of that story was broken in the room and we worked it out throughout the season. All the writers on our staff have various connections to the world of hip-hop and told me all the great and mythological stories of hip-hop. Pretty early on, we landed on the idea of Jamal has to hang somebody over a balcony.”
On Lucious’ “Gametime bitches’ line to end the episode…
“I can’t say I’m surprised at this point. I don’t know if you know this, but that was an improv by Terrence. That was not the line we wrote. Terrence improv’d that. I saw it and I said, “That’s it! That’s the button on the season end.” I just loved it. It worked on me so I’m glad it worked on the audience.”
