Wednesday, May 31, 2017

Lucifer, Season 2, Episode 18: The Good, The Bad and the Crispy



Thanks to various odd shenanigans happening with the episodes of Lucifer this is now the season finale

We have Charlotte who has just been inconveniently stabbed and is no leaking lethal white light absolutely everywhere. She runs to medical attention – or Dr. Linda, who is duly a little annoyed by the celestial family demanding things of her which are way beyond her expertise, but Charlotte isn’t playing nice. No matter how comically inept she is, she is still the lethal, all powerful goddess and is equally beyond caring about the welfare of humans. Thoroughly intimidated, Linda applies. duct tape. She’s right, it’s amazing stuff

Of course the real cure for this would be going to back to Heaven – so it’s to Amenadiel and Lucifer trying to put the sword together now they’ve found the key. The trouble is that Amenadiel has had a completely different change of heart now he realises that he’s the favourite son.

Amenadiel’s completely neglected storyline this season has been his fall from grace, his losing faith in God and his siding with his mother because his father has so disappointed him, taken his power et al. Basically Amenadiel started ignoring his orders and supporting his mother because he thought god had forsaken him – with extra bitterness because Lucifer was the favourite son

But now Amenadiel is proven as the favourite son. He’s the special one. This rekindles Amenadiel’s faith in god while, at the same time being disappointed with himself – because clearly his powers being taken was because god was testing him (all revealed through him taking up Dan’s suggestion of going to Improv. Badly). This means Amenadiel has completely leaped back to Team God – and God doesn’t want his mother back in heaven. As the loyal warrior, Amenadiel is now faithfully following God’s will and not letting Lucifer reunite the sword (we also get to see the brothers play keep-away).

I think there’s been a really missed opportunity to develop Amenadiel this season which has not only sidelined one of the most prominent POC on this show, but has also failed to fully lay the foundations of this. Hey, it would have been nice to see him at Linda’s as well – afterall, if the supernatural getting therapy is the schtick of this show, they could have run with it. We could then have seen Amenadiel’s bitterness with god, his loyalty, even his need to have someone to follow, his experience of always having orders and not knowing what to do without a parental figure to guide him (hence why he so quickly became faithful follower of Charlotte). We could have seen his own fall from grace and laying the foundation for how he has now changed with his faith restored.

This does leave to the awesome line of Lucifer asking Chloe about her experience with “emotionally fragile men” which has Chloe’s awesome come back of “You’re self aware today”. Points to Chloe. They are heading to a crime scene though – and it’s Chett’s body which has been incinerated by Charlotte’s holy fire and dumped by professional “cleaners”

Lucifer realises who is responsible and is very very worried. He’s worried because, as I predicted, he realises his mother’s power returning means she’s going to burst soon and kill a whole lot of people and, at the same time – Chloe is good, annoyingly good at what she does and covering this up is not going to be easy.


Chloe realises that Lucifer is keeping something from her and confronts him about keeping secrets from her. She thought they were doing better and he trusted her – and they need to move forwards, which means more trust.

And Amenadiel has gone missing with his key, so he has to recruit Maze. Who is playing with Trixie – and oh deaer gods, it is the most adorable thing ever. And, again, missed opportunity – why didn’t we see more of Maze making human friends (Chloe and Linda) and growing and actually liking humans to the point that she actually is willing to play with the all powerful Trixie (seriously, if in future seasons we learn that Trixie is actually god in disguise? I’d believe it). Missed opportunity! And with the series’ other prominent POC. There’s so much growth here other than angry woman with knives which would have made all the awesome emotion of this episode all the more powerful.

So, unable to claim she doesn’t care about humans with the human child right there, she finds Amenadiel who wants to explain his whole change of heart to Maze. She has a taser and not a lot of patience.

He does get to explain to Lucifer and how he can’t support his plan to kill God. Lucifer never planned to kill god – he planned to shove Charlotte home and then lock the door and let them fight it out. It says a lot about their relationship that Amenadiel thinks this I worse. I have seen couples like this. Lucifer warns Amenadiel about how mummy dearest is very close to bursting in a rain of heavenly fire killing everyone.

They try to offer an alternative to Charlotte – going back to hell. Going back to rule hell. Sounds good? No. Charlotte is not a fan of this plan and shows off her returning power by throwing the angelic brothers across the room. Since Amenadiel has hidden the key she demands they hand it over – and if they don’t, she’s going to hurt people.

Which brings us back to Chloe and Dan who have found the body of one of the cleaners that Charlotte used – burned to death just like Chett. Throwing in Lucifer’s odd behaviour and wondering who he would protect – and come up with Charlotte and move in to arrest her. Before being arrested Charlotte asks to call Lucifer – and lo we have a hostage situation. With the bonus of Chloe and Dan (who Charlotte kisses goodbye as her favourite human) not realising they’re the ones in danger

But while she’s happy to own Chett’s death, she’s confused by the Cleaner’s burning death – that wasn’t her. That was Chett’s brother who has come back to avenge Chett and shoot Charlotte.

Of course they aren’t the only human that Lucifer cares about Maze runs to find Linda – very badly injured. Charlotte has forced Lucifer’s plans out of her and left her bleeding to death. And here we have Maze’s emotions she cries and is in bits over the idea that Linda may die – she begs Amenadiel to help her (and when do we see Maze beg? Threaten, intimidate, yes – but beg? She doesn’t beg) so they can get Linda to a hospital before she bleeds to death. Amenadiel pulls his time stopping trick we’ve seen so many times

Yes, the angel has his powers back

This is helpful timing for the pier where Hector has just fired on Charlotte (and a bullet wound would like inflict holy fire death on everyone around). With the stopped time Lucifer has chance to drag her off the pier and confront her. And it’s emotional and hard and real. He has the flaming sword all primed – but he can’t let her go back to Heaven. She protests she wants to see her children – but he points out that her going back to heaven will mean  a war. There is no other way, it’s kind of what he’s been hoping for all season. And in a war, there are always casualties. She can go back and see her children – but in doing so she will also see them massacred.

Taking on Chloe’s theme of going forwards not back – he tells Charlotte she’ll be heading back by going to Heaven and instead opens up a portal to… nothing. A black void. A place where she can build a new world herself, without any influence from God (and I think this more than anything else utterly confirms that Charlotte is every bit as powerful as god).

She leaves her body (reminding us that Charlotte was once a terrible person at one time) and enters the void to create her new world. Charlotte isn’t dead – but has complete amnesia which will be awkward for her with Dan. But at least Chloe has decided Hector (Who was shot) was probably responsible for all the murders so she’s not going to be arrested. All the excitement is done

But we do have Lucifer visiting Linda in hospital (who is thankfully not dead) and in a moment of incredible growth, Lucifer is actually focused on her, recognises his own fault in dragging her into all this and nearly getting her killed

But Linda rejects that – she knew what she was getting into playing therapist to the most powerful, most dysfunctional family in the world. She knew what she was getting into.

Which leads Lucifer to a revelation – Chloe isn’t. Linda nearly died but knew what she was facing while Chloe is right in the middle of their drama and doesn’t know anything about them. Going back to the going forward thing he decides to tell her everything

And, oh, yes I was excited. Chloe was going to learn the truth! Tell all to Chloe!

Then someone hits Lucifer on the back of the head and knocks him out. Well damn – hey can Lucifer even be knocked out without Chloe being nearby to de-invulnerable him?

When he wakes up he’s half naked in a desert and looks like he’s been badly mauled. And he has wings. Which is why I’m going to guess this desert is in the past and this is a newly-fallen Lucifer – because Lucifer has cut his wings off, he doesn’t have wings any more.

Ok I’m really interested in this new twist but I also really realy really really wanted Chloe to be in on the big secret


And lo the season finale. I’ve always been a fan of Lucifer. Though I think 80% of this is the casting. Honestly Tom Ellis is a perfect Lucifer – his awesome performance turns what should be a really really really annoying and vile character and making him charming and hilarious and just awesome. I love how he works with Chloe, how she continually cuts through his bullshit. The issues I do have is that the peripherals of this season have not been developed as well as they could be. We introduced Charlotte, the Goddess and other than the odd episode of randomness and her desire to go home we really didn’t have much development of her. I’ve already commented on how Maze and Amenadiel really needed their development more explored, their opinions, their changes- that really could have used more development

The core, I love – but the side characters deserved some more love. Which also relates to the POC inclusion of this show. Technically we have prominent bisexual characters but we’ve already discussed the problematic nature of this mentioned-only-blink-and-you-miss-it-portrayal.

That aside, I’m really looking forward to this returning again – why do the good shows have such short seasons?