Cookie Lyon on Empire, Annalise Keating on How to Get Away with Murder, and Olivia Pope on Scandal have marked an evolution, each a complicated protagonist with equal amounts of admirable and unlikeable traits. Cookie (Taraji P. Henson)—whose over-the-top antics and power player costuming owe much to the styling of Alexis, Dominique, and a dash of Joan Crawford—is a devoted wife and mother who did time in prison in order to protect her husband Lucious.
