Wednesday, April 18, 2018

Lucifer, Season 3, Episode 20: The Angel of San Barnadino





Pierce and Chloe are getting all hot and heavy in the evidence room and their relationship is getting closer. But Chloe is still holding back, not introducing him to Trixie, not saying the love word and still being very very awkward whenever the subject of her relationship with him comes up.

We have a murder - which isn’t all that relevant to the main plot so I’m going to kind of skip past it because it’s kind of convoluted: rich black sheep former drug addict is dead. But one witness thinks she was saved by an angel. Lucifer mocks the whole idea and even Amenadiel agrees that it’s a weird, confused or bored angel that is remotely interested in the fate of single human. A saved human and a stolen angel figurine doesn’t really prove anything to them

Until the figurine appears in Lucifer’s flat. Confused and still not believing one of his brothers is about, he decides to consult Linda who suggests that  Lucifer is actually sleep angelling since he has unresolved issues with Chloe and Pierce being together

Of course Lucifer doesn’t believe this and is determined to prove it - so he becomes obsessed with solving the case, with violence and rule breaking if necessary, so he can then ask the murderer if an angel did appear and if so whether it was him or not.

Chloe notices his sudden obsession and kicks him out to go home and sleep and Lucifer chains himself up so there’s no chance of him angeling in his sleep. But he wakes unchained and with Amenadiel watching him (yes, I love the line that Amenadiel is as welcome as Coldplay tickets). Amenadiel has a newspaper showing that the angel has been active while Lucifer was asleep

Both of them promptly freak out and remind us that Angels are incredibly self-centred. Lucifer assumes his dad is messing with him, again. Amenadiel assumes god is punishing them for revealing the divine to Charlotte (he’s having second thoughts). Seriously both of them are self-involved but Lucifer is in his underwear so I’m on his side.

Lucifer is still looking for proof so we get more of the crime investigation but the main element here is Lucifer has decided to stop sleeping with drugs and partying and netflix binging and having sex (with women of course, only ever with women.) and more not wearing many clothes (and we can keep this up because that’s some quality eye candy).

This leads to lots and lots and lots of randomness from Lucifer and Chloe tries to make sense of his rambling as he flails around the case and basically tells Chloe everything (which she doesn’t believe). She takes issue with his suspicion of Pierce because no matter what Lucifer says, Pierce makes her happy. She comes close to saying that she loves him.

Lucifer charges off on a rampage, solving the crime and realising there was no angel and the killer took the missing figurine and destroyed it because he accidentally touched it. And he has a revelation - someone stoking his weakness to distract him (in the same way the killer tried to get the heroin addict back on drugs to keep him away from his family). Lucifer realises this whole fake angel has been designed to distract him

He hurries home to find the figurine that was planted on him so he can have Ella examine it to prove someone is messing with him: and Maze arrives. To be all nice and kind - and when he sees through that - to torment him and confess: yes she’s helping Pierce by distracting Lucifer by preying on his eternal daddy issues


And can I applaud for someone finally pointing out how utterly consuming his daddy issues are and what a weakness (and an annoyance - because Maze is super pissed) they are.

Realising he’s being distracted, Lucifer rushes to action

Pierce is luring Chloe into falling her her. He wants her to fall completely in love with her at which point the weird woo-woo around her will remove his mark and finally allow people to kill him. Apparently this is how Chloe’s magic works? She depowers the supernatural by caring about them?

Of course making her fall completely in love and then abandoning her and leaving her heart broken.

Except he can’t go through with it. Just as she is ready to say that she loves him, he stops her and runs out… leaving her… well, pretty hurt and heart broken to be honest. I’m not sure this has necessarily spared her feelings here.

Lucifer arrives just in time to see Chloe clearly hurting and goes on the war path

And ye gods it has been far far far too long since we saw the devil unleash some decent warpathing. He attacks Pierce who admits he couldn’t go through with it. But Lucifer doesn’t really care because he still hurt Chloe (very true) so he’s happy to unleash a savage beat down that is most richly deserved

Except they see that Caine’s mark has disappeared. Now this could be Chloe woo-woo, but I suspect this is redemption for not completely breaking her heart and just chipping it a little?

Side plot time: Charlotte has had a full evil relapse. Why? Because she’s convinced that she knows a couple of angels so it doesn’t mean she has to be nice as she has a guaranteed entry to heaven

Except, as Amenadiel explains, he doesn’t have his wings and Lucifer is seriously not welcome in Heaven. They cannot get her a get out of hell pass no matter what… which panics Charlotte and drops her in a pit of despair. Because one brief opportunity to be bad and she has a complete relapse back to her evil ways. She considers herself hopeless, doomed to hell.

Linda is right… Charlotte was not ready for this knowledge


I’ll be honest, my main takes from this are STILL a) why hasn’t Lucifer told Chloe yet especially since it’s apparent her supernatural nature makes her at least partially vulnerable to supernatural exploitation. But mainly b) Lucifer needs to sleep? I mean, really, the devil gets sleep deprivation? I thought evil never sleeps and good is ever vigilant? Lucifer needs sleeep?

Of course if I were Lucifer now I’d congratulate Caine on his new mark-less existence. And then take him down to hell. Sounds like fun!