The devil is back! After three seasons on Fox, Lucifer has made his new home on Netflix with a shorter ten-episode fourth season. We are over the hump here with episode six and we tiptoe around themes of balance and identity. Guess it’s good we’re sliding toward the end.
I tell you once again, because it’s been humorous to come up various bits for this first part, that all of this fourth season is already on Netflix. If you’re still reading this you’ve probably already finished. If you haven’t though you’re welcome to, go on without me, I’ll catch up in a few weeks. With that let’s dive in to the orgy.
1. Several months later
We pick up several months down the road as Maze walks in on a Lucifer/Eve orgy party after months on the job. Their whole relationship thing is going…well? I don’t know they’re having a lot of sex (with each other, with other people, with other people and each other) so I guess things seem pretty okay.
The jump was lowkey and not really announced, there was no placard reading “Three months later” or anything, and honestly that’s kind of good. If this show were still on Fox we’d have gotten four or five filler episodes between this episode and the last, and maybe this would’ve been the midseason finale. And I’m glad we didn’t. Linda gets way more pregnant, Lucifer and Chloe’s dynamic is still on the rocks and that’s built into the episode rather well, Eve and Maze both feel left out and get to follow that bit to vastly different conclusions. All is good (for me, not for the characters) with the jump and I’m glad we are trusted enough to speed things along and not spend time with pieces that would stretch the season-long arc too thin and make for less interesting television. We are over the hill and marching onward to the end.
2. Remiel
So this is interesting. We’re introduced this episode to another one of Lucifer and Amenadiel’s siblings: Remiel. This is one of the few distinct callbacks to “The Sandman” that we’ve had in this show, and it’s always fun when we have little comic book bits show up. Remiel is the name of one of the angels that Dream gifts hell to in the ‘Seasons of Mist’ arc, who then plays a big role in the “Lucifer” follow-up series. Only in the comic, Remiel is a male.
It seems weird that all the angels in God’s pantheon would be men, and it’s fun that the show decides to flip Remiel’s gender here. She’s come to Earth to find “a new celestial” what she believes is probably Lucifer’s progeny (cause orgies). God wants the baby in heaven, and she enlists Amenadiel’s help, and, well, he’s less than enthused since he’s the dad. The whole thing is a case study of human/divine interactions. It’s interesting watching this episode and being a few episodes into Good Omens as there’s a lot of similar interplay in both shows. Remiel is disdainful towards humans, they’re sinful, smelly and disgusting. And we are. But the imagined relationship then with the divine is one of contempt, of angels knowing they’re better, and just being assholes about it. Makes you think Lucifer was right to rebel if this is the cosmology humanity gets to look forward to.
3. Well placed pineapples
Alright so let’s talk about something less serious. The murder victim in this episode was an accountant who also happens to be a resident member of a nudist colony. Guess which devil is not afraid to show off his naked rear end to get an audience with the killer? Oh and Ella tags along, bucket list and all.
Once again, this never would’ve happened on Fox. And it’s just really funny to see how this show tries to straddle the line of sense and sensibility. So many well placed fruits and drinks and clothes and such. You see cheeks, but nothing more than that. It’s just really funny watching Ella and Lucifer conduct an investigation in the nude, especially as the whole thing isn’t played for sex appeal, unlike the whips and chains and more of the orgy scene. They’re just hanging out with normal folks who love to be naked, one of whom happens to be a sex trafficking murderer. So yeah…
Continued below4. Who are you?
If last week was about closure, this week is about balance, about identity, about asking and wondering “Who are you? Who told you that’s who you are? Who made you that way?” And that’s on all fronts. Dan is still asking it and goes further down the “I hate Lucifer train.” Ella is doing it as she keeps going on her atheist kick. Chloe’s doing it as she hates that Lucifer is being more, well, devilish. It’s not who she wants him to be and she wants him to be happy, but not like this. Eve wants Lucifer to be her devil, Lucifer wants to think that he’s changed, to think that he isn’t pretending he can be good. The whole exchange about him enjoying work is really nice.
This also takes the form of Maze and Linda coming back together a bit before the baby arrives. We get a little more into Maze’s past and learn more about her being one of the Lilim, one of the children of Lilith, Adam’s first wife. Her and Eve have a moment where Eve insults her mom, since she was her ex-husband’s first, and it kind of sends Maze into a tailspin of thinking how crappy Lilith was as a parent. It ends with her and Linda having a cute moment and makes me hope we get to see Lilith one day on this show. Maybe season five (which was announced as the final season recently)!
The Lucifer/Eve/Chloe stuff is the central part of the episode. Lucifer has been skipping therapy, he’s trying to keep his various selves together. And he can’t. Eve wants him to be one thing, the being that showed her life could be different, and Chloe wants him to be different, to be the person she’s showed that people can change. We’re stuck neath a rick and a hard place, and if you’ve read ahead, you know the answer is…
5. “You’re the devil”
Yeah I guess the featured image gave it away. After Julian, the bad-of-the-week kills one of the officers of the LAPD as he escapes, well Lucifer goes after him. The officer’s death is Lucifer’s fault, he found Julian and let him get away since Julian reminded him too much of himself. He feels awful, he’s humiliated, Dan tells him he’s not one of the good guys, and so he tries to get drunk and cry.
Eve isn’t going to let him. She wants him to be the devil. It’s just fascinating to me that she can both be a liberated Eve and also crave the devil be the devil. She’s not good for Lucifer, but if he’s just a force of nature then she’s just perfect. Lot of great tension, especially as we go from them in orgyville to them torturing a bad guy by episode’s end. There’s a fair amount of tonal dissonance between the beginning and end. Nonetheless, Lucifer embraces the devilishness, the seriousness, and Eve in tow does too. Where do we go from here?
That’s all for this week folks! Sound off in the comments below and come back next week as we move to being four away from the end of the season!
