'Empire' Finale Spoilers, Plot Recap: Lucious Lyon Cheats Death But Ends Up in Jail

In its two-hour season finale on Wednesday at 9/8c on Fox, "Empire" saw Lucious Lyon (Terrence Howard) starting out on top and ending up in jail. The two episodes were aptly titled "Die But Once" and "Who I Am."

The action involving Jamal (Jussie Smollett) taking over the reins of Empire from his father dominated the proceedings and drove much of the plot. It started with Lyon feeling good about his tribute concert and his company's initial public offering, or IPO.

However unknown to him, Cookie (Taraji P. Henson) slept with Malcolm (Derek Luke) and made a wish for Lyon to die so she could work with her sons.

Then in a miraculous turn of events, Lyon learnt that he did not actually have the degenerative ALS disease and was not dying after all.

But things went downhill as Beretti (Judd Nelson) presented an injunction against the concert and Hakeem (Bryshere Y. Gray) insulted his own father Lyon on stage while singing with Snoop Dogg. Angered, Lyon punched his son.

Soon afterwards, Lyon learnt that Cookie was with Malcolm and he cut her out of the company's IPO and even barred her from the concert.

Andre (Trai Byers) then discovered Michelle (Jennifer Hudson) singing in a church and, feeling emboldened, decided to quit the company as he did not want to work for his brother Jamal.

Lyon meanwhile told Jamal that he would only get the company if he got Beretti to give the music rights to him. This Jamal did by dangling Beretti out a window. Lyon subsequently discovered that Hakeem was sleeping with Anika (Grace Gealey).

Lyon then got Andre to come back to the company by hiring his lover Michelle. That night when he was sedated to deal with a bout of tremors, Cookie arrived and tried to smother him. However, it didn't work, and the next day Lyon handed over the Lyon Foundation to Andre, apologized to Hakeem and provided control of the Empire to Jamal. Following this, he revealed to Cookie that he knew about her murder attempt.

As Cookie was thrown out, the FBI approached her to testify against Lyon for the murder of her cousin, but she refused.

Soon afterwards Rhonda (Kaitlin Doubleday) decided to leave Andre as he had cheated on her. But when Vernon (Malik Yoba) and Andre got into a fight, Rhonda came to Andre's defense and killed Vernon by bashing his head.

After the IPO and the tribute concert, Lyon was arrested for the murder of Cookie's cousin. He then believed that Cookie had sold him out to the FBI and swore revenge, but it was then revealed that Vernon was the culprit.