‘Empire’ Season 3 Greenlit by Fox; Cast Reacts to Shocking Death in Season 2 Finale

‘Empire’ season 3 is set to premiere on the small screen sometime in the summer or fall of 2016 after the popular series has been renewed by Fox. Meanwhile, season 2’s shocking finale prompted cries of surprise from the series’ cast members.

According to Release Date, Fox’s critically acclaimed musical drama series is renewed for a third season run although no official premiere date has been announced as of the present. Gary Newman, co-CEO and chairman of FOX TV Group, announced the good news during the network’s TCA presentation.

This comes to no surprise since it managed to pick up numerous accolades and nominations in the past two seasons with ratings growing for each episode aired. It won Taraji P. Henson a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress - Television Series Drama and won Terence Howard a NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actor in a Drama Series.

The series also garnered a host of nominations – one of them a Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Television Series - Drama - and was named a Top 10 Television Program of the Year by the American Film Institute.

Meanwhile, audiences are kept on the edge after season 2 rolled out its thrilling finale. Episode 18, entitled “Past is Prologue”, ended with a cliffhanger suggesting that one of the major characters has been killed off. According to Variety, showrunner Ilene Chaiken teased, “It sure as hell looks like someone died. The cliffhanger is someone dies.”

Cast members also expressed their shock at the unexpected cliffhanger. Howard said, “Who the hell wrote this and how can I figure out where they’re going next? I loved it because I didn’t know where we were going and as an actor, that’s what you want. You like it when the director doesn’t give you the last 10 pages of the script because then you can’t do an impersonation of yourself and you can’t act like God predicting the future.”

Co-stars reiterated Howard’s statement saying that they have all been kept in the dark as well. Henson said, “I knew what was happening. I still don’t know who lives. They don’t tell us anything, so I’m still waiting to see who fell off the balcony myself.”

Jussie Smollette said, “It’s quite the cliffhanger, so it’s going to be an exciting season three. I honestly don’t know what’s going to happen, I don’t know who really went over that cliff. I know nothing, so it’s exciting.”

The finale found the characters Anika Calhoun (Grace Gealey) and Rhonda Lyon (Kaitlin Doubleday) coming face-to-face in a deadly encounter. When Andre Lyon (Tria Byers) joins the scene, his face is engulfed in terror as he watches someone fall to their death.

‘Empire’ is a show based in New York and is centered around Empire Entertainment, a hip hop and music entertainment company as well as the drama surrounding the founder’s family as they fight to take control of the enterprise.