Is ‘Empire’ New Tonight? Fox Delays Season 4 Episode 7 Before Thanksgiving

With Thanksgiving just a day away, Fox will not be airing a new episode of “Empire” on Wednesday night. Viewers who tune into the series at its scheduled time hoping to watch Season 4, episode 7, will be greeted by a rerun.

It’s not much of a surprise that Fox would opt out of airing, “The Lady Doth Protest” a day before a major holiday. This time of year many people are busy traveling, cooking or stuck in line at the grocery store trying to buy last minute items. Airing a new episode while people are otherwise occupied would most likely negatively affect ratings.

Instead of running a new episode, the network will air a rerun of the Season 4 premiere, “Noble Memory.” The episode follows Lucious’ (Terrence Howard) struggle to remember who he is after losing his memory from a car explosion in the previous season.

The last time viewers saw the Lyon family in episode 6, they seemed to be at their lowest point. After Hakeem (Bryshere Gray) kept his family in the dark about his relationship with Diana Dubois (Phylicia Rashad), the truth was revealed during his custody battle, and he lost both his daughter, Bella, and the trust of his family.

When he learned Diana was the reason why Bella was taken away from him in Season 3 to get revenge against Cookie (Taraji P. Henson), Hakeem made a deal with her to regain custody of his daughter. However, once Anika (Grace Byers) was released from jail, she wanted her daughter back, which caused the custody battle.

As a part of his deal with Diana, Hakeem would take Bella to visit her and would speak poorly of his family, which Diana secretly recorded and allowed Anika to use in the custody battle. Hakeem’s words convinced the judge that he shouldn’t have custody of Bella and allowed Anika to take her.

When “Empire” Season 4, episode 7 does air, the Lyon clan will be hard at work trying to figure out how they will get their family member back. From the looks of the promo, Lucious, whose memory has started to return, has cooked up a plan all on his own, and has an offer that Anika may not be able to refuse.

“Empire” Season 4 is expected to return to Fox Wednesday, Nov. 29 at 8 p.m. EDT.​