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Drinking games based on TV and films thrive on absurdity combined with repetitiveness. The amusement comes from realizing how often what you’re watching reverts to seemingly bizarre exchanges or storytelling elements over the course of an episode/film, and, of course, drinking in excess because of it. And Empire (2015) has this in spades. You could keep a party going simply by forcing drinks on people every time Jamal is pigeonholed as a gay artist, and you could put a grown man in the hospital if they had to drink every time Cookie bursts into a room with a bone to pick. The characters act in predictably unpredictable ways that could fuel a dangerous amount of screenside drinking.

Each character has their own series of tendencies and emphasized traits that manifest themselves in consistent but odd occurrences. Hakeem’s intense desire for the validation that his parents consistently withhold from him shows in his wild and irrational acts of frustration, such as peeing on the floor of a restaurant or pulling a gun on his former kidnappers. For the gentler Jamal, this means trying to patch up the unending and seemingly irreconcilable differences between his combative parents. In Andre’s case, you’d be unable to drive if you had to drink every time he masked his deep depression under a layer of considered professionalism in a boardroom, with lovers or among family. Lucious’ voracious ambition is voiced by his consistent statements about the enormity and centrality of his ‘Empire’ in the world of hip hop. Cookie’s aforementioned random appearances paint her as a probing and sly manipulator.

There are also individual and cast-wide catchphrases that reliably come up at least once an episode, such as ending a sentence with “...my black ass.” To keep the pre-episode recap interesting, you could certainly take a drink for every episode they track back to in order to set the current chaotic, criss-crossing scene (the furthest I’ve taken note of is four).

When you focus on the frequency of these obscurely specific events you notice bizarre trends that lead to interesting questions. Is any character’s relationship to Jamal based on anything other than his sexuality? Because Empire has made Jamal’s unshakeable tag as a ‘gay artist’ so central to his character, it seems impossible for any interaction with him to happen with no reference to his sexuality. Is Cookie a wizard? Probably not, but considering her beyond uncanny ability to appear anywhere with no explanation as well as her emotional manipulation that borders on mind control, the question merits debate. In Empire, the outlandish, yet consistent behaviour of the characters provides ample opportunity for creative and indulgent drinking games, practically begging for the viewers to drink until they are as crazy as the characters.