Entertainment News - TV

THIS ISSUE: Empire, Survivor, The Americans, The Voice, Black-ish TOP MOMENT OF THE NIGHT Empire Has Mommy and Daddy Issues Fox BECAUSE: Happy birthday to Cookie, and happy birthday to us (but not Camilla who, as it turns out, is 100 percent dead). In between revealing more about Lucious' traumatic childhood, Empire finally gave us the fire-flames-emoji combination of Jamal and Freda Gatz on a new track where Freda just so happens to name-check her dad, Frank Gathers. Right -- that would be Frank Gathers, the man who got Lucious started selling drugs, the man who sent Cookie a severed head USPS-style, and the man who Lucious murdered at the top of season 2. To quote Becky: "This is bad. This is Keyshia Cole vs. Black Twitter bad." READ OUR RECAP Survivor CBS WHAT HAPPENED: Take it from Probst himself: "No matter how bad it seems, it doesn't mean you're out. And no matter how safe you feel, it doesn't mean you are." What he means is: These. People. Be. Trippin' . And in Wednesday's episode of Survivor, Aubry and Cydney are just wacky enough to use this season's nuttiness to their advantage. The division between the Brawn Boys (Jason and Scot, plus Tai) and the rest of the tribe is obvious, so it should be easy enough to vote any one of them out. But Cydney and Aubry see that Julia seems to be playing both sides, so they want her gone first. Debbie, however, is playing with her emotions, wanting to keep Julia and split the votes between the boys, a sure ticket to torch-ville if Julia is, indeed, riding the line. But in the end, it's Julia who gets on board: Since Julia wins immunity, Cydney and Aubry convince her to vote Debbie, and even though the Brawn Boys give an Emmy-worthy performance with their plethora of idols at Tribal Council, they're all safe, and Debbie is the one sent packing. WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING: This season -- these people -- they're all over the place! Aside from the Debbie blindside and Tai and Jason almost invoking their Super Idol, we haven't even mentioned the craziest part: Scot and Jason decided to invoke "psychological warfare" by hiding the ax and machete (spoiler alert: nobody really cared), and Tai even crossed to the dark side, secretly dumping water on the fire. When EW asked host Jeff Probst if he sees validity to this sabotage strategy, or if the men were just being sore loser babies, he pulled a Julia (whom he, by the way, is very impressed with ) and played two sides: "I'd say yes, it's a legit strategy. Trying to instill fear, chaos, hopelessness, or any emotion that takes someone out of their best self is a strategy. As for whether it's sore losers, I'm not sure it has to be one or the other. It can be both." READ OUR RECAP The Americans FX WHAT HAPPENED: No, the use of David Bowie's "Under Pressure" wasn't very subtle in Wednesday's episode of The Americans, but it was on point: the pressure is on -- to stay alive, to kill, to keep a secret, to tell the truth -- and the entire Jennings family is feeling it. Not to mention those trapped in their web, like poor Martha, who's popping Valium and chugging wine to deal with the fact that "Clark" keeps disappearing for days at a time and, oh, that small thing where Aderholt knows about the extra Xerox copies. Paige is also feeling a little nervous about her parents being killer spies, so they meet with Pastor Tim and his wife to show him all the good their murder-spying has done by way of a Jesuit priest from El Salvador whose congregation was saved from a right-wing death squad. But the one to really worry about is indeed Martha, who, it's revealed, really is under FBI surveillance... WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING: And there's not enough Pinot Noir in the world to get her through what's probably coming. We don't quite know what that is just yet, but it feels ominous. Vulture asks us to consider this: "The first and last times we see Martha in this episode, she is taking the Valium she was prescribed for a panic attack in the wake of her dinner with Aderholt. Also, a gun was introduced into Martha's apartment last season, and has been referenced several times since (including in this episode, when Stan is telling Aderholt about what he discovered in her apartment). Philip knows about both the pills and the gun, and given the increasing likelihood that Martha's cover is blown, or will be very soon, he has everything he needs to get rid of the problem in the same manner he got rid of his last Martha problem." That last "Martha problem" would be Gene, for whom Philip staged a convincing little suicide. As always, poor Martha... READ OUR RECAP The Voice NBC WHAT HAPPENED: They're slashing prices left and right over at The Voice, and it's a buy-one-get-rid-of-one-free kind of situation. That's right, season 10 has its Top 12, and all it took was dashing a dozen dreams live on Wednesday's Live Playoffs. America saved two singers per team, leaving the coaches just one save for their four remaining members, and ultimately taking each team down from six to three. We'll give the most, uh, surprising save to Coach Blake Shelton, who gave his save to Paxton Ingram. But the toughest choice was surely Xtina's, whose team was already a smorgasbord of winners at the full six. But them's the breaks, so since America saved cool mom Alisan Porter and cool dad Nick Hagelin, Christina saved Bryan Bautista...because that name alone deserves a record contract. WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING: For their parts, Pharrell saved Emily Keener and Adam saved Owen Danoff, but all anyone is talking about is the fact that Blake didn't use his save on fan favorite Joe Maye (though technically not fan-favorite enough to actually get America's vote). While trying not to be too harsh on Blake's actual save, Paxton, Bustle was just as blown away by Joe's dismissal, saying, "It's definitely better to reel in the charisma and add some refinement than to try and make someone have a personality. Joe has a great stage presence and a wonderful voice." Well, hey, with the way they throw around Steals and Saves on this show, we might just get to see Joe again. Until then, this is kind of Christina's thing to lose anyway. READ OUR RECAP One More Thing... Black-ish Enters Last Name-gate ABC JOHNSON & JOHNSON: Black-ish continues to address delicate subjects in between all the laughs as Wednesday's episode had a (mostly) healthy feminist debate focused on women changing their names when they get married. Or in Bow's case, not changing her name, from Johnson to...Johnson.