The long wait is over. Empire, the highest rated show on the FOX network, hit millions of viewers each episode in their debut season. During their first episode of season two they hit almost 17 million viewers according to the New York Times.

Last season, Empire focused on Terrence Howard aka Lucious Lyon putting his three sons against each other, with the reward being that one of the three would eventually run the company. The second season of Empire kicked off right where season one ended; when Lucious Lyon got arrested for murder and either Jussie Smollet or Jamal Lyon would have to temporarily run the company.

Many AHS students watched the season premier last Wednesday and had different opinions about the show.

“I think it was a great start to the season because it showed life without Lucious and how things would have ran. There are surprising pop ups in Cookies life that she thought would never come back and haunt her. It showed us why Cookie left jail so early and the season opened up with many answered questions that may have been confusing before,” senior Ayda Osman said.

Many students were also left surprised with the way the season premier kicked off.

“What surprised me the most was after Lucious was convicted and they were trying to bring him from prison for saying it was wrong for justice, and I thought it was wrong because he was convicted of something he did and that he killed a man. I was really surprised and they brought up homosexuality which was a little discomforting at first but I stepped back a little bit,” senior Yoyo Fekade said.

During the first episode, there was some guest stars such as Chris Rock and Marisa Tomei that surprised the viewers. Although some students enjoyed most parts of the show, some disliked some scenes.

“I didn’t like homosexuality being a big thing in the show but I’m not against it, I fully support it and I don’t judge or anything. But I felt they used so much of the viewers attention to point towards that when they should be trying to show that the family could still stay unified,” Fekede said.

Although many students had to do some catching up before the second season kicked off, many were already prepared and had watched every episode as they came out.

“I didn’t have any catching up to do thanks to my sister because she kept me pretty updated and forced me to watch it with her which made me a fan. At first, to be honest, I wasn’t a fan because I didn’t think it was going to be a good show but it caught my attention and I’m going to stay on top of it until I see some things that I really don’t like or disagree with,” Fekade said.

Many are already excited for the next episode because of how the first episode ended.

“The next episode is a must watch, since it looks like Lucious is out of jail and Anika, Hakeem, Andre and Cookie are trying to bring Jamal down for hostile takeover,” Osman said.

Annandale students that are fans of the show will be elated to hear that the new season will have 18 episode, compared to last season which only had 12.