The Breaks >>> Empire

[The Amerikkkan Idol]

I'd rather have to deal with the strong possibility of two men making out....then watch that horrible show called The Breaks

Got a bedwench as the lead who's uninteresting....white guy who is the defender of hiphop....Method Man who was barely in it made you realize he should be in it more....Wood Harris was good as usual....not sure when they gon stop trying to make wack ass Mack Wilds a thing,musically or in tv or film.

Good luck to the show though...I'm only lashing out because I remember this show wasting my time like a manuka when I gave it a chance

Can't forget the wack nikka who still raps too advanced for the time period

To be fair, the White dude died a few weeks ago. They had broek up anyway and she was letting the Black dude from Wood Harris' company hit it.

Method Man has been in it quite a bit the past few weeks

And the fine ass Black chick who's the lead is exactly the type of chick who would turn down a scholarship to Harvard to be in the music industry. Who you want a hoodrat?

And Ahm is dope for a TV rapper. He's wayyy better than Hakeem's wack ass

I never liked halle berry

*falls over laughing* I think the actress playing her character knows a lit-tile more about her character than someone who reads "Cookie is not from the wrong side of the tracks" and comprehends that as "Cookie is from the hood." Cookie is not from the hood no matter how hard you try to spin it - and even if she was (which she's not), she's not a street kid by any possible means. The showrunner said she's not. The actress says she's not. Give it a rest already.

Furthermore, Cookie did not know jack shyt about Lucious until she met him as a teenager walking home from school. And even that doesn't mean she lived in the neighborhood - she could've easily been walking from a subway or a bus stop. Sheesh.

This convo is pointless - and therefore, it is finished. #blocked

You don't have to be a street kid to be from the hood.

There's plenty of sheltered kids in the hood, which is what Cookie's story looks like to me.

Her father barely made ends meet being a plumber, but was determined to keep his girls on the right track, so he sacrificed to send them to Catholic school and it was walking home from school that she met Lucious and her life started to spiral. I mean, if she was in the suburbs, she would've never met Lucious and her sister probably wouldn't have become the crackhead that she did. She wouldn't know "Tarik the Freak" or Frank Gathers, either.

Also, the fact that she went to Catholic school doesn't mean she couldn't be hood. I mean, Biggie Smalls went to Catholic school FFS.

 

[Wacky D]

Also, the fact that she went to Catholic school doesn't mean she couldn't be hood. I mean, Biggie Smalls went to Catholic school FFS.

jim jones too

 

[Maxine Shaw]

You don't have to be a street kid to be from the hood.

Agreed. But Cookie's not from the hood.

There's plenty of sheltered kids in the hood, which is what Cookie's story looks like to me.

Agreed. But Cookie's not from the hood.

Her father barely made ends meet being a plumber

[citation needed]

I mean, if she was in the suburbs, she would've never met Lucious

Then why did she not meet Lucious until she was 16? (That's a rhetorical question.)

and her sister probably wouldn't have become the crackhead that she did.

Carol became a crackhead b/c Cookie put her in the game after she married Lucious.

She wouldn't know "Tarik the Freak" or Frank Gathers, either.

Whom she met after she married Lucious.

Also, the fact that she went to Catholic school doesn't mean she couldn't be hood.

Agreed. But Cookie's not from the hood.

I mean, Biggie Smalls went to Catholic school FFS.

True. IIRC, there are private schools in the hood. I wonder if that's more of a northern thing. Southern private schools are almost exclusively in neighborhoods where we don't even live.

If anything, blame this sudden childhood shift on terrible writing. I remember Cookie shytting on her sister repeatedly saying that Candace grew up in the same hood that Cookie did. It was ALWAYS assumed that Cookie was a hood kid. That was season two. Now in season three, the opposite is true. (Then again, Lucious also grew up in both south Philly and west Philly, so...enh.)

*edit* I actually like your setup. I'm going to go w/that line of thought - Cookie being a sheltered hood kid - and ignore the rest until further notice. We can go as far as to say that Taraji and the showrunner misspoke or chose the wrong wording. However, I still say that even if Cookie is from the hood, her sheltered Daddy's girl background still makes her a fraud.

 

[Wacky D]

True. IIRC, there are private schools in the hood. I wonder if that's more of a northern thing. Southern private schools are almost exclusively in neighborhoods where we don't even live.

If anything, blame this sudden childhood shift on terrible writing. I remember Cookie shytting on her sister repeatedly saying that Candace grew up in the same hood that Cookie did. It was ALWAYS assumed that Cookie was a hood kid. That was season two. Now in season three, the opposite is true. (Then again, Lucious also grew up in both south Philly and west Philly, so...enh.)

*edit* I actually like your setup. I'm going to go w/that line of thought - Cookie being a sheltered hood kid - and ignore the rest until further notice. We can go as far as to say that Taraji and the showrunner misspoke or chose the wrong wording. However, I still say that even if Cookie is from the hood, her sheltered Daddy's girl background still makes her a fraud.

you argued me down for days about this.

now as soon as somebody else comes along and says the same thing, now you want to agree with them.

 

[Eternally Jaded]

you argued me down for days about this.

now as soon as somebody else comes along and says the same thing, now you want to agree with them.

I didn't understand how she didn't think that it was possible to have two very different upbringings in the same lower end neighborhood.

Getting picked up by your dad in his work van isn't something people with money tend to do. Nothing i saw from the flashbacks made it seem like two different worlds coming together.

It was more like people on two different paths(same setting, different aims) getting mixed up together, and as per usual, one dragging the other down. But making good in the end.

But she then clarified that she's southern, and maybe down there thats middle class....

As a tri-state dude, its not to me but ehhh.

 

[The Amerikkkan Idol]

However, I still say that even if Cookie is from the hood, her sheltered Daddy's girl background still makes her a fraud.

Now, that I can kinda see.

I will say that it's very possible that prison changed her. Maybe being around a lot of killers drug dealers and other chicks in the joint made her more hardcore like that, because in the flashbacks, they make her out to be a very sweet girl at first.

 

[MalikX]

Directly from Taraji:



Why they did that to Cookie's character, I have no idea. It added nothing to her back story and makes all her "I'm from the hood" posturing fake as hell. My mom has the exact same background - middle class prep kid married to a street thug - and it didn't make her (or me) street in the slightest. If that's the case, Anika's hood, too.

(And if I can indulge my girl crush on a Sunday, put five points in Grace's corner for having an island accent.)

Cookie's from the hood. What show are you watching? She just had better parents than the typical parents kids in the hood have. Her dad was a plumber working hard to make ends meet and making sure his daughters got a good education at a good catholic school. That was the whole reason behind his making sure she went to Howard University....so she could make it out of the ghetto. What Taraji probably meant about the character was that Cookie had a sheltered upbringing and had parents that were more strict and more involved in her life whereas Luscious grew up homeless basically, the son of a drugged out addict. But they were both in the hood.

 

[Maxine Shaw]

I will say that it's very possible that prison changed her. Maybe being around a lot of killers drug dealers and other chicks in the joint made her more hardcore like that

Danbury is a federal prison. Martha Stewart, Lauryn Hill and Teresa Giudice (Real Housewives) served their time there. Again, that's wretched writing, b/c we saw the prison from season two and it DEFINITELY wasn't a freaking federal prison. But she's said twice in this season that she served at FCI Danbury. Moral of the story: Empire has horrible writers, which is why the ratings are plummeting and shows like Underground, Queen Sugar and Greenleaf (shut up) are the new shows to watch.

What I really hate in the flashbacks is the way Lucious is depicted. Dude just has no concern for Cookie's well-being at all. Disregarding the fact that he's lied to her since "My name is Lucious Lyon" (another stupid plot device) Lucious encourages Cookie to skip class and break curfew and he mauled another boy for the sin of being Cookie's boyfriend (like he didn't have the right to be). And I know this is a nitpick, but when he drove away from Cookie's house w/o making sure she made it inside, I knew he wasn't shyt. (Overthinking this, I know.)