Will Shine Kill Andre On 'Empire'? Season 3 Returns With Guns Blazing

After a multi-week, MLB post-season and presidential debates-inspired hiatus, Empire returns to FOX on Wednesday, Nov. 9. And with it, naturally, comes a threat to a main character's life. When fans last left the Lyons, Hakeem was crushing on Nessa, loyal protégé of manager Shine. But she seems to have her eye on the very recently widowed Andre, and he looks like he could be feeling it too. The real problem, aside from a brotherly love triangle, is that Shine is dangerously protective of Nessa, to the point of assaulting anyone who even looks at her. So will Shine kill Andre on Empire?

It definitely appears as though Andre is in trouble, according to the new episode's promo. After resisting his chemistry with Nessa, Andre finally decided to go for it with a little help from a dead wife hallucination threesome (it's complicated, but ghost Rhonda wants Andre to be getting laid). In the preview for Season 3's fifth episode, entitled "One Before Another," viewers learn that Hakeem finds out about Andre and Nessa.

"Man, you better go piss on that and get your girl back," Lucious, um, delicately encourages his son. So it's possible that, in his rage and determination to break up Nessa and Andre, Hakeem tells Shine about them with the hopes that he'll scare Andre off. Of course, that won't help Hakeem when his time comes to win over Nessa, but thinking ahead isn't really the youngest Lyon son's forte.

In the final moments of the episode preview, Shine burst into Andre's apartment with a gun trained on him while Andre is cooking a casual shirtless meal (as you do). The preview ends with the sound of a gunshot, but whether or not the gun actually goes off in the episode remains to be seen.

It's hard to imagine Andre's character getting killed off so soon after Rhonda's death. The show is still riding that plot point pretty hard, even incorporating Kaitlin Doubleday into episodes in the form of Rhonda flashbacks or straight up hallucinations. Plus, the immediate Lyon family unit always seems to find ways of defying death. Lucious narrowly avoided an ALS diagnosis and survived prison. Jamal survived a bullet at close range. It seems like it's Andre's turn to challenge death now. On the other hand, the fact that he and Lucious collectively beat up Shine in Lucious's office in an effort to force him to sign a contract probably isn't sitting well with Shine either. So maybe there is reason to be worried.