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Five Thoughts on Lucifer‘s “My Brother’s Keeper”

By | February 6th, 2018
Posted in Television | % Comments

After last week’s funny romp through the new Lucifer/Pierce dynamic, this episode takes quite a bit of an emotional turn and is much more dramatic. All in all the added drama, the level of stuff “mattering” made this a packed episode that had a lot to enjoy. This episode also played characters off ones that haven’t interacted yet either a ton or at all. Let’s dive in!

1. Ella’s family drama and Maze’s loyalty

The majority of this episode revolves around meeting Ella’s oldest brother and him being caught up in a murder investigation. Her brother, Jay, winds up witnessing the murder of a diamond seller and then goes on the run himself. Ella hires Maze to help track him down while Chloe and Lucifer also stage their own investigation. Playing Maze and Ella off each other is a really fun pairing, as we know Ella is super attached to her family (and all of them are minor criminals, which spoiler we learn Jay is also) and Maze is reevaluating who she can trust and who her family really is. Ella’s blind loyalty to Jay is contrasted with Maze and Lucifer basically being like everyone will betray you. It also, very on the nose, contrasts Luci’s issues with Amenadiel the whole episode.

Anyway, the Maze/Ella relationship is one I would love to see more of. Especially if the show is going to destroy Maze and Linda’s friendship because of Amenadiel. It’s nice to see these two characters who have had very little to do all season get some action. Especially if this leads to Ella exploring some of the weird supernatural stuff she has going on.

2. Linda and Charlotte’s shared trauma

A much shorter subplot than most weeks, since it was one of two, we also see Charlotte come to Linda looking for therapy. Linda outright rejects her since Charlotte (as the Mother of all Creation) last season almost killed her. I wouldn’t want to treat a woman who was possessed by a goddess and lit me on fire either. Nonetheless, it’s another interesting dichotomy and one that makes sense. I have been struggling to figure out why Charlotte’s character was still necessary after the one-off episode of her trying to get her life back together after being in hell, but this relationship could justify that. What better way to grow Linda’s character and help her continue to cope with all the supernatural oddities she’s been introduced to over the course of the last two seasons. And if it gets her to interact with someone other than the men on the show it’ll be worth it. Again, Charlotte and Linda are two characters the show has shat on this season, along with pretty much everyone but Lucifer and Pierce, and I want to see more of this development.

3. Pierce and Amenadiel duke it out

So let’s get this out of the way first: that fight scene SUCKED. Horrible choreography. Weird slo-mo things. Too much talking in between. Tom Welling may have once been Superman, but you can’t tell here. And maybe I’m misremembering Smallville cause I’m sure the fights on that show were insufferable too.

But anyway with that out of the way, the reason for the fight, now that’s good stuff. Turns out Amenadiel being God’s favorite son means that he was the angel who branded Cain. It’s a fun play on the biblical account as Abel is described as God’s favorite, makes better sacrifices, etc. No wonder when Lucifer goes to Amenadiel to ask him to help Pierce he doesn’t want to. He thinks Pierce/Cain is the most despicable person ever. Watching Pierce pop off a gun in public was awesome (how are there going to be no consequences?) More than that though, Cain calling Amenadiel on his bullshit, on his trying to kill Lucifer and send him back to hell in season 1 was gold. I’m glad someone is calling him finally on his shit. And while the actually fight lacked finesse, the pathos was there, and it seems like it’s going to lead to some cool stuff which we’ll get to.

4. Lucifer isn’t insufferable

This may just be me, but I have found Lucifer insufferable all season. I love Tom Ellis, I love the character, but they’ve mostly played Luci up for laughs and I’m a little tired of it. Lucifer isn’t always just comic relief he should be serious some and make some intelligent, less impulsive decisions. While he struggles early on in the episode in the set-up to the Amenadiel/Pierce conflict, he gets better. He is super accusatory towards Ella’s brother, but he warms up and him and Chloe’s heart to heart at the end was good. They’ve reached a good place of admiration at this point. But of course, his suspicion paid off, and when he confronts Jay at the end it feels earned. Him saying he’ll hurt him if he hurts Ella again was awesome, and there was a slight glint of red in Luci’s eyes which seems cool if he’s getting his powers back naturally.

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All in all, I’ve been feeling like Lucifer has lost his ability to be a good detective. He seems more nuisance than help to Chloe at this point and it’s been hard to justify his continued partnership, I think partially because of all the comedy. But this episode made a strong case for him too.

5. “I guess I’ll be in your way.”

Speaking of serious Lucifer, I am so down with this last scene. Lucifer telling Amenadiel he made a vow to Pierce and was going to spite God and help him, and Amenadiel telling him he’s going to stop him was good. It sets up Amenadiel as the antagonist just like season one, and is going to give him something to do. I have been saying for weeks that Amenadiel is the worst character on the show as he really has no place on the show anymore, but if he becomes the primary antagonist of the season I’m all here. Especially now with how much more reluctance there’ll be for him and Lucifer to fight since they’ve had so much time to cultivate their relationship on Earth. I will admit I didn’t see this coming, but I think it’ll be good for the show, give Amenadiel’s character a job again, and set up some fun drama with everyone getting pulled in Linda, Maze and all.

That’s it for this week. All in all I liked the majority of this episode, as I do most of the ones leaning into the supernatural, and I’m looking forward to seeing where we’re going when the show comes back in 3 weeks. Do your thoughts differ from mine? Sound off in the comments below!


//TAGS | Lucifer

Kevin Gregory

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