diff --git a/hy/cmdline.py b/hy/cmdline.py
index 031eb33..5950a59 100644
--- a/hy/cmdline.py
+++ b/hy/cmdline.py
@@ -228,7 +228,7 @@ def cmdline_handler(scriptname, argv):
     options = parser.parse_args(argv[1:])
 
     # reset sys.argv like Python
-    sys.argv = options.args
+    sys.argv = options.args or [""]
 
     if options.command:
         # User did "hy -c ..."