Four years ago, the world met Grace Gealey, as Anika Calhoun, during the “Empire” series premiere. She was the villainous soon-to-be wife of series lead, Lucious Lyon (Terrence Howard). Because of her role, going against Cookie (Taraji P. Henson), Anika took a lot of hate.
Finally, “Empire” killed Anika off, at the end of last season (2018), when her real life husband’s character, Andre (Trai Byers) took her out. But, that opened the door for this “Tales” episode. The Irv Gotti-produced series does episodes based on songs every week.
Tonight’s “Tales” episode marks the 25th anniversary of the classic, iconic, Mary J. Blige single, “My Life.” This episode, paired with the song as the backdrop makes Grace Byers a protagonist for the first time since the world got to know her. “Tales,” tonight, told the story of Edie Crane.
Edie, growing up with her mother, Clarice (Debbi Morgan), dealt with a lot of struggles. Due to these struggles, she turned to drugs and alcohol as her vices. Her ailing mother tells Edie the true story of her childhood, including how she is actually her aunt and her mother died in a fire started by her white father, causing Edie to go off and curse her mother out.
Sadly, when Edie decides to apologize, leaving a sweet voicemail for Clarice, she returns home from work to discover that her mother died. On top of that, she gets laid off from her job, as her friend, Ashley (Chasity Saunders) tries to have her back, as she got a promotion. This turns Edie back to the streets, where she reunites with Zeke (Rick Ross), who sells her some drugs, as she moved into a storage unit.
There is an “Empire” reunion, tonight, as Edie’s sponsor, Chris (Morocco Omari), played Lucious’ brother, and he had a brief fling with Anika. Tonight, it was strictly business, as Edie went off on Chris, who spurned her, before later admitting his wrongs to her. All along, Edie had her friend, Caroline (Ingrid Rogers), who she learns is actually her half sister, who presents her with an inheritance, as the episode ends.
