This is the mid-season finale of Lucifer and finally brings us all the answers of Sinnerman
I
guess?
I
mean sort of? Or maybe just throws it all away and brings out a much different
plot.
So,
Lucifer is all celebrating that the Sinnerman is in prison while Maze thinks if
the Sinnerman managed to steal Lucifer’s devil face and give him back his wings
then there’s no way that a prison cell will hold him. And if he’s after Lucifer
he could go after all the things that are important to him (basically, Chloe).
So it’s back to focusing on this man
So
back to the police station where Chloe accidentally tells Ella about Pierce’s
dead brother and Ella continues to obsess over him in a way which would be kind
of cute in a teenager and is vaguely creepy and deeply unprofessional in an
adult towards her boss. Boundaries Ella, boundaries.
They
question the Sinnerman - well Chloe does while Pierce and Lucifer argue about
who gets to question him. Sinnerman continues to be cryptic and Ella, who knows
nothing about police procedure, decides to interrupt them with the news his
phone is ringing - they answer it in front of him to show a woman is being held
hostage in a reservoir and about to drown. Clearly they assume Sinnerman
craftiness, an accomplice and all sorts and need to run the the rescue. Lucifer
decides the best way would be to take the Sinnerman’s suggestion and work with
him to be led to the victim
Everyone
else is kind of against letting the serial killer go and decides to use actual
police work which Lucifer, in his classic fashion, disapproves of, pouts and is
generally a spoiled child to get his way
Investigation
doesn’t go very well, though we do find out that Chloe is a big fan of roller
derby (which I understand is a sport where two teams of women try to kill each
other on roller skates) and run down a lot of fake leads, with Lucifer being a
nuisance the whole time. Until Lucifer insists on freeing the Sinnerman. Chloe
doesn’t necessarily agree with this - but she backs Lucifer because he’s her
partner. At least she does if he stops being all Loose cannon and Lucifery all
the time
So
one very very convoluted gaolbreak later which both works and involves more
taunting of Dan for funsies, and picking up Pierce. Because he’s not fooled but
he wants to join in the the freeing of the woman
The
gang goes ahead and exposes that she’s actually working with the Sinnerman and
not really kidnapped - she’s paying back a “deal” she made which ended up
killing someone which she wasn’t exactly a fan of (despite Roller Derby which
seems a real attempt to murder people brutally) and suitably intimidated her to
make her obey.
This,
however, gives Lucifer chance to be Lucifer - and he runs off with the
Sinnerman, kidnapping him and taking him to his home to question him
Which literally means just asking the same questions and getting the same non-answers as before. So he brings in Maze to do some torture - and she fails.
Ok… really? I mean, Maze was Hell’s chief torturer? And she fails? She even unleashes Nickelback on him. And the Sinnerman is left looking… not all that bad? All things considered? I think we need to analyse exactly how he can resist literally inhuman, unholy torture? Because this needs expanding.
Lucifer
wants to take over but Maze is against it because, despite being barely
untouched, she thinks he’s near death and Lucifer could kill him. And this is
epicly bad for an angel to kill a human, so epicly bad that Maze literally
expects plagues of locusts from daddy for doing this. She also thinks that
being “murder adjacent” is why Amenadiel lost his powers
What?
We talk about this NOW?! Really? Because I thought that how Amenadiel lost his
powers was a mystery? And how many times have we seen Lucifer nearly kill
people? How many times was he just stopped? How many times did he use super
strength to toss people around in moments that could easily have been fatal?
I’m not entirely convinced he hasn’t killed people - or didn’t that apply when
he was devil-faced?
There’s
a lot of questions here and I’m not thrilled that the answer seems to be
“retcon”.
Lucifer
decides that actually murdering is a great idea because it will annoy dad (his
reason for being because he’s a teenager) and he will get his devil face back.
Because an outraged god is totally going to give you exactly what you ask for?
Again, this doesn’t make sense at all
So insert - reason why I don’t like this episode much? We have a lot of not making sense here. There’s some retconning, some big questions going unanswered and this just keeps happening
Lucifer
can’t bring himself to kill the Sinnerman though since he’s injured and
helpless - which upsets the Sinnerman because he really really wants Lucifer to
murder him
Instead
he gets shot by Pierce when Chloe and Pierce arrive. They then spin a story
about him being killed trying to escape (in Lucifer’s country house… while
blind from recently gouging out his own eyes). So we have Chloe calling out
Lucifer for completely failing to have her back again, for violating her trust
AGAIN and generally having another argument that could be solved if Lucifer
would show his wings and tell her the truth AGAIN but he doesn’t for REASONS
adding to the problems with this episode
What
is also addressed by no-one is that Pierce just murdered a disabled Black man
completely unnecessarily and they all casually covered it up without even
blinking. Can we have some commentary on this? Because, Lucifer, this is
not bullshit that should just pass in a blink
They
all return to the police station for some moping and Lucifer examines
the picture of Sinnerman as a child - and has a sudden revelation when Pierce
shouts at Ella for her ongoing stalking…
So
he invites Pierce to his bar and tells him about the picture, showing the
Sinnerman as a child, theorising that Sinnerman WAS working with an accomplice
- but working FOR someone. And noting that the man in the photo had a notable
mark - of course that man would now be very old. Unless he was immortal
And he stabs Pierce
There’s
a long pause while Lucifer drinks and seems to go from confident to doubt to
worry and then relief/triumph when Pierce stands up and removes the knife.
Immortal it is then -specifically a cursed immortal covering his mark with a
tattoo. Pierce is Cain, the first murderer. Who joins Lucifer for a drink
And
I would say it’s a little bizarre that Lucifer recognised him from the shape of
a tattoo and an old picture but I guess in this case we could say it’s more
jogging his memory.
So
the Sinnerman is a puppet of Pierce, removing what little agency he had,
turning him into a tool that Pierce literally discarded when he was no longer
useful and then covered up the murder with the help of the LAPD. There’s no way
this could ever look good
And
it adds to the ongoing feel of this episode as ultra clumsy. The Sinnerman’s
motives make no sense, Cain’s motives are bizarre, Lucifer’s not much more
sensible, the Chloe/Lucifer conflict is drawn out and doesn’t make a great deal
of sense since we’re long past revelation and there seems to be a huge retcon
in the nature of angels going on. It’s clumsy and rushed and a really awkward
prequel to Cain’s appearance. And I kind of feel like the plot changed half
way? Like they were going with Sinnerman and then someone said “hey what about
Cain” and the writer’s room all replied “oh that’s awesome!” and they hastily
scrapped the Sinnerman storyline to try and make a massive leap onto this new
idea?
Throw
in some really bad racial tropes here and it’s not a good episode at all
We
also had Trixie, Dan and Charlotte… but it fell flat. I get that Trixie is
precocious but handing Charlotte the inspiration to seeing her own kids so
overtly is a bit on the nose. And her ultra-creepily acting as a wingman for
her dad to parent-trap Dan and Charlotte together? Nope. No thanks
