‘Empire’ Season 4 Spoilers: Forest Whitaker Joins Cast To Help Lucious

With a fall air date already set, fans are anxiously awaiting the premiere of “Empire” Season 4. Viewers will get to see some of their favorite characters return as well as a few new faces, one of them being Forest Whitaker, who has signed on to the Fox series for a recurring role.

The actor will play a character called Uncle Eddie who is an icon in the music industry that gave Lucious (Terrence Howard) his first break, according to TVLine. Back in the day, Uncle Eddie was the one who gave Lucious his first radio airplay and now he has returned to help out the fallen Lyon as he recovers from the car explosion in Las Vegas.

READ: “Empire” Season 4 And “Star” Season 2 May Have Crossover Episode

In the “Empire” Season 3 finale, Lucious seemed to become a whole new man. Not only did he confess his love for Cookie (Taraji P. Henson) and hinted that he was ready to spend his life with her, but he managed to make things right with his sons.

In Season 3, Andre (Trai Byers) was plotting to kill his father and finally created a foolproof plan to take his father out of the picture so he could run Empire. However, in the last episode of the season, Lucious admitted he was wrong for not handing Empire over to Andre and explained that he wanted his son to be in charge of the family business.

With Lucious willingly giving Andre Empire, the troubled son no longer saw a reason to kill his father. However, Shyne (Xzibit) still wanted Lucious out of the way and decided to follow through with his and Andre’s plan to blow up Lucious’s car.

Andre attempted to save Lucious from the explosion, but it was too late. All he could do was yell out to his father to get away from the car. Rather than running for cover, Lucious pushed Cookie out of harm’s way and was caught in the blast of the explosion. Although he survived, when Lucious finally woke up, he had no memory of who he was and did not recognize anyone from his family.

With Whitaker’s Uncle Eddie in the picture, the icon will play a role in his protégé’s recovery. From there, Cookie will be so impressed that she will ask for his help in producing a song for Empire’s 20th anniversary.

Whitaker, who is an Academy Award and Golden Globe winning actor, has starred in films like “The Last King of Scotland” and “Vantage Point” as well as in TV series like “The Shield” and “ER.”

The actor won’t be the only new face coming to “Empire.” The show will reportedly be part of a one-night crossover event with Lee Daniel’s other series “Star,” which will be heading into its second season.

READ: “Empire” Season 3 Ends With A Big Bang

Queen Latifah will appear on “Empire” as her “Star” character Carlotta Brown and Jussie Smollett will crossover as Jamal Lyon.

“Empire” Season 4 will premiere Wednesday, Sept. 27, at 8 p.m. EDT on Fox.