The Least Plausible Thing From Last Night's 'Empire': J Poppa Is Job

Fox’s Empire is the worst, best, most-watchable show on television. Each week we’re breaking down the most implausible thing that happened in the latest episode.

In true Empire fashion, a dizzying amount of scenarios were played out in last night’s impeccably-titled episode, “A High Hope for a Low Heaven.” Hakeem is suffering from PTSD; Jamal is trying to book a headlining show at Staples Center, but has been passed over because he’s gay; Lucious is touting a beat he made that Noreaga circa ‘05 would have emptied his bank account for; Andre is trying to “Christian Rock Hard” Gutter Records artist J Poppa so he can make the Lecrae the streets want.

This Week’s Most Implausible ‘Empire’ Thing Is….

I’m not so much thrown by the fact that Andre’s religious impulses have gotten in the way of his business savvy — one could argue that, by making a marginal act appeal to the Christian music audience, Andre may even be vindicated at the end. What threw me was when they got to talking about J Poppa’s name — the J is short for “Job”, his real name, and “Poppa” is an homage to his preacher grandfather.

Andre spits a line from Job — which again, is the book where God punishes his most faithful servant with a series of devastating events just because he wants to demonstrate how his power is inscrutable to man (p chill move God, p chill move Job’s parents) — that JP immediately picks up on. This inspires J Poppa to throw a Romans line into his party anthem that they play at that club with the light up runway bridge thing that sits at the mouth of Lucious’s weird throne. (Empire may actually be onto something here.)

But: Job. For real?

See you next week.