‘Empire’ Season 4 Spoilers: Lucious Deals with Aftermath of Explosive Season 3 Finale as Life Hangs in Balance; Follows Unresolved Issues in Lyon Family

‘Empire’ season 4 is set to follow Lucious as he deals with the aftermath of his near-death experience in the explosive season 3 finale while his life hangs in the balance. The series will also follow unresolved issues within the Lyon family.

During an interview with Deadline, executive producer Ilene Chaiken revealed that the upcoming season of Fox’s musical drama television series will be a “reset” when it opens in the fall. Season 3’s finale, titled "Toll & Trouble, Pt. 2," showed Lucious (Terrence Howard) almost dying from a massive bomb blast and waking up from a coma three months later seemingly devoid of any memories.

When asked about Lucious’ apparent memory loss, Chaiken replied, “I don’t want to go too deep into this because of course this is story for us in Season 4 and I’m not going to give any of it away. But suffice to say that Lucious in Season 4 is going to be dealing with the aftermath of this event, the damage to his mind and his body. Whether or not his memory is permanently or just temporally impaired is certainly one of the questions we’d begin the new season with.”

She continued, “Who is Lucious now? What is he dealing with? How has it affected him? How has it changed him? And how has does effect every member of his family depending what the answers to those questions are. That is a big part of our story in Season 4 and that is a real reset.”

According to the recap of season 3’s episode 18 posted on The Hollywood Reporter, the finale ended on an explosive note when a bomb planted by Andre (Trai Byers) in his father’s car detonated. Lucious was left gravely injured while Cookie survived the blast. Lucious and Cookie’s son had a change of heart and eventually warned his parents to get out of the car but it was too late.

Meanwhile, Demi Moore was also introduced into the series as Lucious’ therapist. Chaiken revealed that Moore’s character will play a pivotal role in the events of season 4. She explained, “She’s unconventional, but having taken on challenging situations like this before, she’s also a psychologist. She’s going to be in that triangular relationship with Lucious and Cookie, it’s a whole new dynamic.” Chaiken added that this character will be a threat to Cookie.

‘Empire’ season 4 was renewed on Fox on January 2017.