Regular to Recurring? Is Empire Reducing Lucious Lyon’s Screen Time over Terrence Howard Antics in Season 2?

Lucious Lyon is the King of Empire, but even kings can be toppled. It looks like both Lucious and the actor that portrays him, Terrence Howard are having some major issues with the women in their lives. Cookie and Anika teamed up to put Lucious behind bars, but in real life Terrence’s divorce drama and prior allegations of domestic violence have landed him in hot water. Fox’s solution, thankfully, is not to completely cut him from the show, but instead scale back his screen time. This leaves many fans wondering just how long will Lucious stay behind bars and the does this mean more screen time for Cookie?

The answer to that question is no one is sure and yes, more Cookie! That answer is also bittersweet as Lucious is a major reason Empire is a success. He is the J.R. Ewing and Alistair Crane of the show. The show plans to not only cover the character’s diminished screen time with more of Cookie, but guest stars as well. A source close to the show tells Page Six “What they are doing is two-fold…They have him locked up so you won’t be seeing him in as many scenes. But they are bringing in so many, and I mean so many, guest stars and cameos that the average viewer won’t realize it because there is so much going on.”

The show is using some serious strategy. It was not too long ago when Columbus Short was embroiled in his own domestic violence controversy and subsequently dropped from Scandal. The ghosts of relationships past and present seem to be haunting Terrence with a vengeance as allegations of domestic abuse from his first ex-wife,Lori McCommas, and ex-girlfriend May Seng Yang, have come back to memory in recent weeks. Then there’s that secret divorce from his third wife, Mira Pak, which was announced earlier this month.

We hope everything works itself out. Empire is an amazing show. The chemistry between Taraji P. Henson and Terrence Howard is the fuel for the show’s success. Cutting half of that away could spell the demise of the ratings giant.