Anika Calhoun: Boo-Boo Kitty

[Dee]

Until Anika is revealed as the culprit who pushed Rhonda, all your points about her being an attempted murderer are moot.

As far as her attraction to Lucious, he is/was a powerful man and that level of wealth combined with status and power is an aphrodisiac to most people. And for an ambitious individual such as Anika, it might as well have been catnip.

She stayed with Lucious despite his past infidelities because she believed he would be monogamous once they were married. That idyllic bubble was burst when she realized that no matter what promises Lucious made her were all for nothing since he'd proven he couldn't/wouldn't stay away from Cookie.

As far as her bio family, there's been no hints that there's anything wrong with them nor that she has problems with them. Her problem is she refuses to accept the part she played in losing the family she was all set to marry into, hence her current schemes to get back in their good graces.

Edited December 14, 2015 by Dee

[Milz]

I still don't get losing her shit like she has because of her education, talents, and family.

 

Her education, talent and family background is why she's losing it. She has everything that's supposed to make someone successful. It did....and it didn't.

 

After leaving Empire, she should have been the one who could rebound and get a job. But she didn't.

 

Some people at the end of their rope, tie a knot and hang on and try to climb back up. Some people don't. And I  think that has more do to with personality than it does with the amount of formal education or money one has.

 

I think Lee Daniels' message is that it doesn't matter if you have a degree from the Ivy League or a GED, what is that you have the inner fire/desire to work for and to keep what you want. And if you have to start over, stoke that inner fire and rebuild.

Edited December 15, 2015 by Milz

[Neurochick]

That's why I said, and this my perspective, that I could understand her a bit more if she were a person who grew up without a good family or no family at all and finally felt like she had that with the Lyons, thought she was on her way to becoming a "true" Lyon and lost it. That's a person that I could see desperate enough to behave the way she has.

 

 

Because she wants to be a part of THAT family.  She wants what she wants, doesn't mean it's rational, doesn't mean anything's wrong with her family; she wants to be a LYON.  Period.

 

And this show doesn't take place in Texas (thank God) it's in New York, so I don't think it's murder.  It is attempted murder if they can prove she did it, because she almost killed Rhonda (sorry it's a peeve of mine when people think of only the baby/fetus and the mother is simply an afterthought.)

 

Her education, talent and family background is why she's losing it. She has everything that's supposed to make someone successful. It did....and it didn't.

 

 

That's it.  On paper, Anika is the whole package, she's intelligent, cultured and refined, yet Lucious chose Cookie, someone Anika probably sees as a "hood rat" (a lot of people I know see her as that too).  

Edited December 15, 2015 by Neurochick

[represent]

That's it.  On paper, Anika is the whole package, she's intelligent, cultured and refined, yet Lucious chose Cookie, someone Anika probably sees as a "hood rat" (a lot of people I know see her as that too).

 

And this is my issue with the whole Cookie, Luscious, Anika dynamic.  Luscious is a hood rat and even worse he's a murderer, something Cookie is not. She hasn't murdered anyone in cold blood, has she? Luscious was just lucky enough to have never been caught to serve any significant amount of jail time.  In viewing season one I just love how everyone giving Cookie the side eye and thumbing their noses at her meanwhile her hood rat money is what helped start that company (eye roll).

 

I don't care how many suits he wears, I still see him the same as Cookie, he comes from the same "pedigree" and when it suits him he actually tries to act like he's better than her too. I can't stand him for that, and that alone.  He's a hood rat just like her.

 

And Anika please, I can't take her seriously because she chose the "likes" of Luscious yet looks down on Cookie, and to me there's no difference between the two. If you're really going to act like your better than, then make choices that show that, she's full of it.

 

Yeah, feel threatened because she was his first and the mother of his three boys, but sure as hell don't act like your boo is better than Cookie, because he's not.

 

Because she wants to be a part of THAT family.  She wants what she wants, doesn't mean it's rational, doesn't mean anything's wrong with her family; she wants to be a LYON.  Period.

 

 

Yeah, I know it's not rational.  And again, it will never make sense to me why a woman like her would want to be part of a family like this. Period.

Edited December 15, 2015 by represent

[Milz]

If you're really going to act like your better than, then make choices that show that, she's full of it.

 

 

 

And that's Anika's problem: she thinks she's better than Cookie, but she's not and I think deep-down inside she knows the only difference between Cookie and her is a college education and an upper middle class upbringing---hence the insecurity.

[represent]

 

 

And that's Anika's problem: she thinks she's better than Cookie, but she's not and I think deep-down inside she knows the only difference between Cookie and her is a college education and an upper middle class upbringing---hence the insecurity.

 

Thank you, this is ultimately how I see her.

 

Because from the outside looking in she did get some of the best life had to offer and I'm including decent, loving, in tune parents growing up. So what's missing? I'm sorry I don't get it. I'm not saying even with all that she wouldn't have some insecurities or be devastated by the break up, but I'm just thinking she would be able to refrain from going completely insane and resorting to violence. 

 

So what I really want to know is where does all that insecurity come from, the kind of insecurity that would bringing her to turn so violent.  Because for me everyone is NOT capable of behaving the same way if they were in her situation.

 

And just to honest here, I'm coming from a place of being tired of the same old story of the woman loses her shit over a man and completely destroys her life. Yeah, they need to leave this tired angle to daytime soaps indefinitely. I mean come on. This show is supposed to be in the big leagues, cut it out.

Edited December 15, 2015 by represent

[Dee]

Anika's issue wasn't with Lucious sleeping with Cookie.

 

It's that after all of Lucious earnest entreaties to wanting to marry her & everything she invested in their relationship, including forgiving his previous indiscretions *and* his initial dalliance with Cookie, Lucious proved to Anika beyond a shadow of a doubt, by sleeping with Cookie again, that he couldn't be trusted.

 

Cookie, being the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back, was inconsequential. 

 

Anika's current problem is that she's not a bio Lyon or Lyon in-law.....yet. If she'd been fully integrated into the Lyon inner circle, before she went all scorched earth on everyone, she'd have a lot more options than she does now; because as we've seen repeatedly, the Lyons will forgive a lot (lying, cheating, stealing, backstabbing, murder) as long as you're family.

 

Once the Lyons realize she's pregnant with a Lyon heir, they will rally around her, whether they like it or not.

Edited December 15, 2015 by Dee

[Neurochick]

Anika is upset because THEY KICKED HER TO THE CURB.  She invested time, perhaps years in Empire, in Lucious.  When Cookie came back that all went to shit.  It's not about losing your shit over a man; look how many people get fired from a job, come back and shoot up the place; many of those people were not violent or crazy, they invested time in something and were blown off, treated like a piece of trash.  

[Dee]

Anika kicked her own self to the curb.

Nobody, least of all Cookie, forced her to leave Empire or the Lyon family.

She willingly abdicated her position and has found herself on the outside looking in.