EMPIRE IS BACK!

I'm definitely not the only one who is excited about the return of Empire. It continued from where it left off last year and as you can already imagine, it was engaging from start to finish. Hopefully they keep up this momentum in the coming episodes.

The Grim Reaper is no stranger to Empire, but the loss at the center of Wednesday's mid season premiere was unlike any of the other sudden, shocking, over-the-top deaths that came before it. After getting pushed down the stairs at the end of the winter finale, Rhonda (Kaitlin Doubleday) lost her unborn baby with Andre (Trai Byers).

"It hardens her," Doubleday says. "At first, [Andre] thinks somebody pushes her and she doesn’t believe it, and then she thinks somebody pushed her and he doesn’t believe it."

Andre's struggle with mental illness, which was first uncovered in season one, will resurface as a result of this unforeseen tragedy. "It’s like, 'Do you think somebody pushed me because you're having these visions? Is that your mental illness? Are you taking your medication?' There's a lot of drama for them dealing with this horrible thing that's happened to them," Doubleday says. "There's some dramatic, scrappy stuff that Rhonda does at the end. There are some strange surprising alliances that come." There is so much to come so keep watching!