When Fox’s music biz soap opera, Empire returns for its sixth and final season (kicking off this Tuesday, September 24th, 9/8c) the opener features cancer survivor, Andre Lyon (Trai Byers) in charge of the Lyon dynasty – with his dad, Luscious completely MIA.

But when addressing the company staff on some changes within the structure of the organization and his plans, he is stunned when none other than Tracy (Amanda Detmer), that’s previously referred to and known as “White Tracy’” (due to her crack addiction), shows up with a soapy bombshell during the meeting.

The mother of Andre’s deceased half-brother, Jeff Kingsley saunters in and announces, “I’m Empire’s newest co-owner!”   And with that, season six begins its arc with a battle for control that will be front and center.

Tracy wants payback and has an ax to grind.  In the season 5 finale, she told the Lyon clan that her decision to donate her son’s heart to save Andre would come with strings attached, but did anyone expect she would go this far?  Yup!  Watch the teaser below for Tuesday’s night’s first episode of the  final season.

Meanwhile, the season six key art featuring series stars: Taraji P Henson (Cookie) and Terrence Howard  (Luscious) in the same position as the famous scene in the motion picture Titanic has with it the saying “Rule to the end”.   Who will be left standing when the series comes to its exciting and emotional conclusion?

Now let us know, what do you think of the Tracy twist? Share your thoughts via the comment section.

Plenty of news coming out of the Fox TCA panels and executive session.  Most notable was drama surrounding the sixth and final season of the sudsy Empire.

According to Fox CEO Charlie Collier when talk of potential spin-offs of the series came up: “We’re in the Lee Daniels and Danny Strong business — if there is more story to tell we want to hear it.”  Collier, referencing the series creators.

Photo: JPI

Collier also noted that a big send-off is planned for the series as its heads to its final episodes.  In addition, the CEO officially revealed after all the speculation that Jussie Smollett (Ex-Jamal Lyon), would not be returning to Empire for its final season.

Charlie noted, “There’s no plan for Jussie to return.”  Smollett got in trouble with the law in Chicago back in January, over an alleged hate crime, the actor claimed was perpetrated on him, when later he was charged for setting the whole thing up himself, and later those charges later dropped,   But Jussie’s problems with the Windy City are continuing hot and heavy this week.

Finally, soap opera favorite, Vivica A. Fox (Generations, DAYS) has been upped to series regular in her role as Candace.  As Empire viewers know, Candace is the older sister to Cookie Lyon, played by Taraji P. Henson.

So, would you like to see an Empire spin-off?  Happy or sad that Jussie Smollett is not coming back to the series before it says goodbye/ Looking forward to more Vivica? Comment below.

The co-creator of Fox’s sudsy Empire, Lee Daniels, confirmed yesterday that actor/singer Jussie Smollett will not return to the series for its final season, after the renewal pick-up of the show’s sixth and final season was announced, where it left Smollett’s fate with the series a big ambiguous.

How the final blow of any possibility of Smollett’s return came to light was when Daniels was responding to a Variety report in which multiple production sources said that writing staff was breaking ideas for the final season with the expectation that Smollett would appear in the back half of the 18 planned episodes. However, Daniels strongly expressed upon that item that: “Jussie will NOT be returning to Empire.”

Smollett was written out of the final episodes of the show’s fifth season in the aftermath and backlash stemming from that he faked a hate crime against himself earlier this year in Chicago.

In addition on Wednesday, the city of Chicago (TMZ had already beat them to it) released 911 calls where a friend of Smollett’s called for help following his alleged attack.  A man (later identified as Smollett’s manager, Frank Gatson) said he “works with an artist” told the  operator that the victim did not want to file a report with authorities, but he was going to ‘make’ him.”

The caller added that the victim said the attackers put a noose around his neck expressing: “What’s really weird ma’m, just ‘cus I’m scared and I don’t know what it is, they put a noose around his neck.  They didn’t do anything with it, but put it around his neck. That’s pretty f—d up to me — sorry for saying it like that.”

A second 911 call was apparently made 15 minutes later after the police had not yet responded to the first call, where the caller said about Smollett, “He was jumped on the street and we’re just trying to report it.”

So, what do you think of the news that Smollett is definitely out of the final season of Empire? What do you think of the 911 call? Share your thoughts via the comment section below.