Tori Brazier reviews the twenty-first episode of Lucifer season 3…
Finally, after building to a head for three seasons, it seems that this could be the episode where Lucifer (Tom Ellis) will finally fully define and realise his feelings for Chloe (Lauren German), with Pierce (Tom Welling) seemingly out of the way… except that he still can’t truly admit them to himself. He is then supremely cheesed off to see Pierce still alive and at work the next morning, considering that he thought he had left him ready to dispatch himself to Hell the previous night, given his new, desperately longed for mortal status (“Shouldn’t you be having tea with Hitler by now?”, exclaims an incredulous Lucifer). Pierce has shared his theory with Lucifer about Chloe’s ability to make those she loves bleed as they are vulnerable, hence the sudden disappearance of his mark of Cain at the end of the last episode.
After promising not to interfere, a well-meaning Lopez (Aimee Garcia) goes to tear Pierce a new one, and in the process makes him realise that there is no longer a barrier to them being together anymore if he is now apparently mortal – and so Pierce sets about trying to win Chloe back. Maze (Lesley-Ann Brandt) is more than a little peeved to discover Pierce has called their master plan off, as her ticket back to Hell was killing him, and she is surely even more so when she later finds out that he is trying to win Chloe back, from the woman herself. We can trust that this will bubble over messily sometime in the near future…
Lucifer’s denial is frustrating if amusing, and particularly evident in his therapy session with Linda (Rachael Harris), as she tries to push him to the obvious conclusion (“because…”) with each train of thought – but the Lord of Hell is not quite wired the same way as everybody else, and he decides that it’s just about making Chloe pick him over Pierce (and not why) and therefore makes it a simple competition. He is not even especially curious when Amenadiel (D.B. Woodside) agrees to help him discredit Pierce with his Sinnerman connections – but only after Lucifer says it’s so that Chloe will pick him over the lieutenant (which is quite sweet really). As ever, Lucifer’s love for Chloe is more obvious to others than himself.
For his task, Amenadiel decides to team up with Charlotte (Tricia Helfer), who is desperate to secure herself a place in heaven after all the things she has done in her past (as both a lawyer and when possessed by the angels’ mother) – that is despite Amenadiel telling her that he has no power in choosing who ends up where. Still, this makes for a motivated companion and they set about hacking, stealing motorbikes and breaking and entering – all in God’s name, of course.
This episode’s competitive element sees Lucifer on great form, relishing his task and allowing himself to show off: he buys a car for Chloe when his initial cake and coffee is one-upped by Pierce’s batch of baking, and he organises a candlelit dinner – but all still without realising how he really feels and what he must simply say to Chloe to win her heart. There’s an excellent example of the pop culture references abundant in Lucifer too, as well as the flippancy with which he shares them, when Lucifer tells a murder suspect “respect for going full Tonya Harding”.
This week’s case mirrors Lucifer’s relationship tangle with a love knot of its own, based in the cut-throat world of professional ballet. It seems at first to be a cut-and-dried case of the jealous understudy ensuring her chance to star in a piece, until a talent show rears its ugly head, complete with its manipulative fraud of a creator. The final showdown mirrors the Lucifer/Chloe situation perfectly (and awkwardly), when Lucifer sees the lengths another will go to to try and win love without admitting that that is what he is doing. With the principal male’s pride in the way, his fear of rejection leads to him murdering his co-star in order to facilitate dancing the pas de deux with her understudy, who he truly adores, rather than just telling her how he feels.
It turns out that anything Pierce can do Lucifer can’t always do better as, after a push and some free therapy (as a friend) from a concerned Linda, he rushes to declare his feelings for Chloe – only to see her accepting Pierce’s proposal. Now obviously as a plot device this prolongs Chloe and Lucifer’s distance and installs Pierce as a more permanent roadblock to their happiness, but the acceptance seems unrealistic on her part as the proposal is almost forced out of Pierce as the action she demanded rather than words, when the ‘L-bomb’ wasn’t enough. I wouldn’t trust it.
Tori Brazier
