I think after three episodes, I can safely say that Lucifer is now my favorite new show of 2016. Honestly, with each new episode, I’m getting drawn in more and more. Tom Ellis’ leading character is seriously one of the funniest and most charming comic book characters on TV right now and the supporting cast only helps bring out the best in him. With this episode, titled “The Would-Be Prince of Darkness,” we saw a young football star, Ty Huntley (Redaric Williams), who was also known for being a virgin, caught up in the death of a beautiful young actress. It was a much better case than last weeks, and the ongoing character arcs of both Lucifer and Detective Chloe Dancer (Lauren German) are beginning to really become more interesting; Chloe’s in particular. This is the show I wait for every week. While I love Arrow and The Flash, Lucifer is such a refreshing new take on comic book adaptation industry that I just can’t not be excited for it each week. This show delivers so many laughs while keeping up the mystery of the weekly case. It’s so damned good.
Warning: SPOILERS will follow!
The Fake
The humor from this episode really stemmed from the subplot of a Luci-phony being out there and causing damage to the Lucifer name. It’s so funny to see Lucifer getting annoyed by someone who’s out there sullying his reputation that he’s been working so hard to maintain. The ironic thing about this whole subplot is that Lucifer gets blamed and sullied by everyone, for everything bad that happens, by the majority of Christians. It’s great to see a version of the under-lord who actually wants people to think highly of him and doesn’t want some “two pump chump” out there ruining a reputation that he’s no doubt working extremely hard to maintain. I think this part of the episode was really refreshing, and helped break up the drama and mystery of the main case by adding a smaller and lighter mystery in between. This all came to a head at the end when Lucifer uses the fixer Ronnie Hillman (Jodi Lyn O’Keefe), one of the weekly cases suspects, to track down this imposter using his name so that he may have a word with him. While this subplot turned out to not go anywhere, as Lucifer ended up giving the kid who used his name to “get chicks” a warning, but it doesn’t really feel like a waste of time given how fun it was to watch unfold. It also gave Lucifer material to vent about during the therapy sessions with Dr. Linda Martin (Rachel Harris). She makes a pretty poignant deduction that Lucifer actually does care what people think of him, and that he doesn’t really like when people get the wrong impression of him. This also comes to play in the weekly case as Dr. Martin also points out that Lucifer “[doesn’t] just enjoy punishing the bad guys… I think you’re starting to like seeking justice for the good ones.” That’s very un-devil-like if you ask me.
The Cops
Chloe began this episode the way one should expect after how last week’s episode (Stay, Lucifer. Good Devil) ended. She is Googling how Lucifer does his “magic”, as Trixie put it, and is very slowly putting together the pieces she will need to finally make the connection, that what he’s been telling her all along, is actually true. I’d be surprised after this episode if she doesn’t put it together soon. This leads Chloe to not trust Lucifer for the first half of the episode, but after questioning Ty’s agent and manager Joe Haran (Richard T Jones), Chloe witnesses first hand (again) Lucifer’s powers of persuasion at work. Joe admits things that Chloe’s detective mind should know that he wouldn’t have giving them under normal circumstances. Chloe eventually realizes after this scene that there’s no point in trying to make Lucifer stop getting involved in the case, so instead she convinces her ex-husband Dan (Kevin Alejandro) to use Lucifer in a string to catch Ronnie. This is actually the first time that Dan and Lucifer have worked together, and I’ll just say it doesn’t go too well; but in the end Lucifer gets the job done. They’re setting up a pretty fun rivalry between Dan and Lucifer that may or may not involve some jealously in the future. While there’s no sign of any feelings from Chloe towards Lucifer other than suspicion, I’m still not sure where the two lead characters relationship will go. Having not read the comics, and seeing how skeptical Chloe is over Lucifer’s powers after all the things she’s already seen that he can do, I feel like when Chloe finally accepts that he is who he says he is… she’ll freak out a bit.
The Star and the Agent
I thought this was a pretty good weekly case. Sure, when they first talked with Joe about who may have wanted to set Ty up or who would want to murder the victim, I guessed immediately it was him. That being said, they threw in enough curve balls with Ty’s psycho ex-girlfriend’s car exploding and Ronnie’s involvement, that my suspicions weren’t steadfast. I thought Richard T Jones did a great job in his role as the Jerry Maguire-like sports agent, but I also didn’t get why after confessing to murder he just thought he could walk past Lucifer, Chloe and the cops standing between himself and the door. He was just like “Forget this, I’m outta here.” I found that a bit silly and unrealistic, even if Lucifer’s powers caused him to not realize that he confessed. I thought Redaric Williams’ performance was so-so, but he really didn’t have enough screen time for his mostly emotionless acting to really damage the episode. I did like the idea of his character and how this show tries to take not only L.A.-style themes and tie it all up into the weekly crime. The crimes we’ve seen so far in the show are all tired and done before, but the twists they put on them, like Ty being a celebrity athlete who’s also a virgin, makes the case feel fresher than something I would see on CSI. The ending where he gets back together with his stalker ex-girlfriend was kind of funny, and gave his character a happy ending… or I would expect so after how his story played out.
The Fixer and The Jumper
I got to say, I wasn’t impressed at all with Jodi Lyn O’Keefe this episode. While I personally haven’t seen her in anything since She’s All That, I didn’t feel like she was a good fit for her role. Honestly, I was so distracted by her impressive cheekbones and wondering if they were natural or not, I wasn’t really paying attention during her scenes. I just thought the type of character and the type of mood her character was supposed to set was missing entirely. She kind of reminded me of someone from the Underworld movies; the later ones that weren’t as good. Luckily, Ronnie wasn’t that big of a part in this episode and really only served as a quick suspect and a means to the end of the Lucibro subplot. Having never been to Los Angeles though, she could have been doing her part dead on and I wouldn’t know it. I think my favorite part of the episode was the very beginning. It took me a while to really nail it down as my favorite, because suicide is a serious subject, but the way the show runners made me seriously think Lucifer was talking a girl into killing herself has to be commended. I was totally tricked and kind of laughed uneasily when she was really only jumping into a pool. After last episode’s “gun fight” resolution and seeing that Lucifer can still go back to his darker ways of thinking, I honestly believed that maybe he was doing it for some misguided reason. It’s a very classic portrayal of what the religious might think happens when someone is standing up on a ledge debating jumping; the devil made them do it. This scene could have hit some people the completely wrong way, but I think the fact that they went for it and it worked to trick me, is enough to earn some praise.
This episode was much stronger than last weeks. The absence of Lucifer’s “demon form” was a bit interesting. We’ve seen it in the first two episodes, but I don’t think Tom Ellis needs it. The guy has an impressive “I want to torture you so hard” face. Another box to check in the missing category was Amenadiel. The giant winged angel was nowhere to be found this go around. That could mean that he’s still feeling used after last episode and ignoring Lucifer, or he’s actually having to take over “Hell Duty” while Luci is above ground. Maz played a small role this episode as well, but it was kind of the same as the last two episodes. She wants Lucifer to go back to his old evil self so she can have fun, but when he doesn’t she gets pissy. There are a lot of extremist groups out there petitioning FOX to cancel this show for “glorifying Satan,” but honestly this is one of the better shows on TV this spring. They should be happy that this show features a world where God’s existence is a fact and the Christian mythos is depicted. As someone who spent the first 16 years of his life Catholic, I am loving this show. Hell, I may even create a petition to keep it on the air. I’ll be pretty disappointed if the forces of evil win out and turn people against this show. I could be the only one enjoying it too. Who knows? Whether I’m on a one man crusade or not, keep coming back to TheGWW.com for a fair but pro-Lucifer review of each episode and let me know what you think of the show in the comments below!
Check out the promo for next week’s episode Manly Whatnots (1×04):
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