Fox’s hip-hop family drama Empire is receiving an untimely end. According to Deadline, next week’s Season 6 Episode 18 will serve as the season finale for now. There’s even a possibility the episode will become the show’s series finale. Originally, Season 6 of Lee Daniels and Danny Strong’s show was intended to unfold over the course of 20 episodes, but that plan was derailed because of filming complications due to coronavirus.

Both Daniels and Strong expressed their sadness over not being able to film the finale episode they had originally planned, but hope to give the series a proper conclusion in the future. “I’m heartbroken we aren’t getting to shoot the finale we wanted — at least not yet,” said Daniels. Strong added, “We had an ending for the series planned that we all loved, and hopefully someday we’ll be able to film it and give the series its proper conclusion.”

Starring Terrence Howard and Taraji P. Henson, Empire first debuted on Fox in 2015. The show follows the fictional hip-hop company Empire Entertainment. Season 6 was intended to be Empire’s last season. Its events were supposed to wrap the series up entirely, including an ongoing mystery that wouldn’t get resolved until Episode 20. But now, the creative team will have to conclude the series a different way, at least for now.

Empire’s Season 6 finale will air on April 21 at 9PM ET/PT on Fox.

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