If you watched the pilot of Fox’s new supernatural drama Lucifer, odds are that you’ve probably already fallen in love with Tom Ellis’s portrayal of the Prince of Darkness. He’s wickedly funny and devilishly handsome in all the best ways, with an accent that serves as the icing on the already delicious cake. More importantly, he’s also nearly impossible to figure out character-wise. Is he the evil being that he is reputed to be, or is he just misunderstood? It’s an intriguing mystery that is bound to keep viewers guessing as the series progresses.
Lucky for us, the second episode of Lucifer, titled “Lucifer. Stay. Good Devil,” helped shed some light on this enigma. As the episode opens, we see Lucifer confront a street preacher who turns out to be a charlatan. This infuriates Lucifer to the point where he reveals his true nature to the man–but why? Is he angry that people are being led astray or is he angry that this man is misrepresenting himself as an agent of God? On the surface, it looks like he’s intolerant of liars in general and this man simply rubs him the wrong way. However, I can’t help but think that there is more to it than that.
This episode also shows us that Lucifer’s time on earth, specifically his time with Detective Chloe Decker, is beginning to change him and affect how he reacts to things. Once again, we see Lucifer and Chloe join forces in this episode in order to solve a crime, this time centered around the death of the son of a movie star who was run off the road by the paparazzi. However, when Lucifer discovers that the paparazzo suspected of causing the crash, Nick, has ties to Chloe’s sordid past, Lucifer’s attention shifts from investigating the case to investigating Chloe herself. His objective is threefold: to figure out why she is the way that she is, why she’s immune to his powers and why he is so affected by her.
Everything comes to a head when Lucifer, accompanied by his demonic companion Maze, kidnaps Nick and his protégé, Josh (who was actually responsible for the murder), in order to deal out some of his old-fashioned punishment. He puts a gun at the feet of both men and waits to see which one will kill the other. Naturally, Josh picks up his gun first and, after declaring that the only way to be number one is to realize that there are no boundaries, pulls the trigger. However, nothing happens. At this point, Chloe arrives to stop whatever Lucifer is doing, but by then, Nick has picked up the other gun. He fires–and this time, the gun is loaded. But just as Nick pulls the trigger, Lucifer does something completely extraordinary: he prays to his angelic brother Amenadiel, who descends from Heaven and slows down time long enough for Lucifer to pluck the bullet out of the air and save the day.
The catalyst behind Lucifer’s change of heart in this scene is Chloe, whose frantic pleas appeal to something in Lucifer that takes him by surprise. Even Amenadiel comments that Lucifer’s time in Los Angeles is affecting him, to which Lucifer responds that he doesn’t care. In Lucifer’s own words, he finds it “positively thrilling.”
All in all, I wouldn’t say that Lucifer has solved the mystery that is Chloe Decker in this episode, but it’s clear that he’s willing to stick around until he finds out. In fact, both Lucifer and Chloe seem equally fascinated by each other, which is going to serve as the driving force behind the series from this point forward. It’s obvious now that the show is going to follow a procedural format like I suspected when I saw the pilot, so the survival of the series is going to hinge on the writers’ abilities to make the relationship between Lucifer and Chloe as compelling as possible.
I also hope that Amenadiel and other angels factor into the storyline more prominently in the future. I’m as intrigued by Lucifer and Amenadiel’s relationship as I am by Lucifer and Chloe’s, especially after this episode. Additionally, I wonder if Maze will begin to work behind Lucifer’s back in order to get Lucifer back to Hell, since she doesn’t seem to be very happy about the way that he is changing. Perhaps she and Amenadiel will work together toward this end….we’ll have to wait and see!
A new episode of Lucifer airs on Monday, February 8 at 9:00 pm ET/PT on Fox.