One of the biggest challenges of creating a show in which the characters rise to musical superstardom is that the songs within the series have to sound like believable hits. Fortunately for Lee Daniels' follow-up to Empire, the songs within Star sound like they would crack the Top 40 — and the girl group at the center of the action might as well be called Destiny's Child 2.0. But before we can get to the music that fuels the show and the titular character's dreams, let's get into the nitty-gritty of the episode — one that includes plenty of heavy stuff before we hear any of the awesome music.

Our window into this world is Star (Jude Demorest), a girl with a dream and a terrible home life in the foster care system. After demanding release from the system, Star sets off to find her long-missing half-sister, Simone (Brittany O'Grady), who is living in a personal hell of her own. When Star finds Simone being molested by her foster father, she does what any good sister would do: she stabs him to death and tells Simone to never think of the incident again.

There's zero reason to reconsider the murder you just committed when you're about to be famous — which Star believes they will be, thanks to the songs written by her Instagram bestie, Alexandra (Ryan Destiny). Alexandra lives a privileged life in New York City with her big-deal musician father (Lenny Kravitz), but what she really wants is to write music that feeds her own soul. Star and Simone have just the voices to round out the girl group Alexandra wants to put together, so Star picks up the Manhattan princess and the trio set off to start a new life in Atlanta.

The Atlanta music scene seems like the perfect place to start their careers, but that's not the only reason why Star picks the Georgia city as her launchpad. Star's churchgoing godmother, Carlotta (Queen Latifah), runs a beauty shop in the city. Though she's not thrilled with Star's reckless pursuit of her musical dreams, she allows the three girls to stay with her.

While the series is seemingly set in the present day (the iPhones and Instagram references are a pretty big clue), Carlotta narrates the series in past tense. As we hear in her foreboding narration, Carlotta warned Star that fame was "a trip" — but Star, being as one-track minded as we know her to be, wouldn't listen. Hmm. What's Carlotta foreshadowing? And just as importantly, from where and when?

After a week with Carlotta, the group isn't getting anywhere — only scolded for improperly shampooing hair and rehearsing like crazy under Alexandra's strict schedule. The group is fantastic, as are Alexandra's songs — but performing them at an amateur night in one of Atlanta's more questionable bars isn't going to get them anywhere. Carlotta's daughter, Cotton (Amiyah Scott) recognizes their talent and encourages Star to come with her to a strip club, where she can talk to a music-industry big shot in the Champagne room.

Sketchy? Totally, especially considering Star is just shy of 18. However, Star's Champagne-room adventure also leads to the best number of the pilot. As Star sings for the talent manager, she envisions a Beyoncé-esque music video (complete with the club's strippers as her background dancers, naturally) for the track "I Bring Me." It's wonderful — only offset by the fact that it ends with a kiss between Star and the much, much older manager. Star's risk ultimately pays off: the manager, who we'll come to know as Jahil Rivera (Benjamin Bratt) invites Star and the girls to perform at NFL player Hunter Morgan's party later that week.

Cotton's night doesn't end quite as well. In a disturbing scene, Star finds her, a trans woman, being beaten up by the man she was hooking up with behind the strip club. Fortunately, the ever-scrappy Star knocks her attacker on the ground, knees him in the groin with her heel, and tells Cotton to fetch her money. When she returns home with a black eye, Carlotta warns her not to do what Carlotta knows she's doing at that club. It's obvious Cotton won't listen to her mother, which means this story is far from over.