The Fox music drama “Empire” has wrapped up its six season finale early, as production couldn’t deliver the proper series-ender as filming was halted due to the coronavirus.
We previously reported, production was shut down in the middle of filming episode 19 of the 20-episode final season. Now, series star Taraji. P Henson is speaking about about the abrupt ending, and how “this will haunt me.”
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Meanwhile, showrunner Brett Mahoney has made it clear he wants fans to get the ending they want…. somehow.
“[W]e will find some creative way, whether it’s just releasing the script or something, we’ll get it out there as to what it was intended,” Mahoney told Deadline about the original series ending. “But I don’t want to give it away now. I will tell you, though, the spirit that you see in this piece is similar to the spirit in which we intended to end the series.”
Henson told EW she is pushing for it to be made properly.
“These posts and DMs that I’m getting, they are heart-wrenching. As an artist, to not be able to finish something that you started, that hurts me. I feel incomplete. I don’t ever start something and don’t complete it. And so, for me, it’s deep; I have to finish, or this will haunt me for the rest of my life and career. As it would the audience. And I don’t think we should deprive such a loyal fan base of that ending. They deserve to be in their feelings. They deserve more than this abrupt ending. And I get it, where we are right now, we have to be responsible. But I think when the dust settles, at the end of the day, the audience deserves it. Because they pay my bills!,” Henson said.
Will the story continue as a Cookie spinoff? “I don’t actually know. I don’t have anything to do with any spinoff. But I would imagine [such a series] would be something people would be interested in. And I would imagine the studio and the network would want to explore that. But I don’t know where that is or what they’re doing,” Mahoney told TVLine.
Henson also noted her sadness over the show’s end during her chat with EW.
“It’s pretty sad. Because we’ve developed such an amazing family over the years, and it’s just sad that we didn’t get to say goodbye the proper way. We didn’t get to throw our wrap party, the things that you do when you come to the end of a successful series like this one. I got everyone lovely letterman sweaters for our senior year/graduation, and I wasn’t there to give them out with a hug — and that hurts.”
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