Tori Brazier reviews the twenty-second episode of Lucifer season 3…
Although Lucifer often provides fun team-ups courtesy of its strong ensemble of characters (the current Amenadiel and Charlotte pairing, Ella and anyone – and remember Lucifer and Pierce’s short-lived domestic bliss?), this episode provides the dream team we’ve all been waiting for: Dan and Lucifer.
After last week’s dramatic denouement, where Chloe’s (Lauren German) shock acceptance of Pierce’s (Tom Welling) proposal stopped Lucifer (Tom Ellis) from revealing his true feelings for her, the detective is getting to grips with planning a wedding in just three weeks. As she takes some handy holiday, Dan (Kevin Alejandro) is assigned her cases and, by default, her partner and ‘consultant’ Lucifer. They begin to investigate the murder of an owner/competitor at a pedigree dog show, and Lucifer, determined to understand why Chloe would marry Pierce (rather than probe his own feelings towards her further now he’s had the chance to retreat), seizes on the idea that he must act like Chloe to understand her.
Ella (Aimee Garcia), meanwhile, is super-stoked to organise Chloe’s bachelorette party, as a sister with four brothers and someone who described the news of her engagement as exciting in a “heart-melting, brain-exploding” type of way. She does not anticipate meddling from Maze (Lesley-Ann Brandt) though, determined to get Chloe signing on the dotted line as Mrs. Pierce as quickly as possible in return for Pierce’s promise to help her find a way to return to Hell (although she doesn’t know he’s faking his Mark of Cain). ‘God squad’ Amenadiel (D.B. Woodside) and Charlotte (Trica Helfer), however, are busy on their own mission to put the kibosh on the wedding for Lucifer’s sake: Amenadiel attempts to bond with Pierce – as a fellow ex-immortal – in order to get under his skin, and Charlotte is ready to ply Chloe with alcohol and supply doubts about her upcoming marriage. Poor Ella’s excited plans are not quite ready for co-host Maze’s bizarrely sedate (read: boring) choices or Charlotte’s wilder behaviour on the hastily-booked party bus.
As Lucifer and Dan work and bicker together – and Lucifer decides that his investigation of Chloe’s character requires a wardrobe change – they take in an underground poker ring, where Lucifer decides that to fully ‘be’ Chloe he needs a Lucifer (of course!). Step up Dan, to fill the void of a “clever, unpredictable, handsome and sexual” partner – or supply merely one of those qualities, Lucifer claims, as he pushes Dan into the dragon’s den. One of the best aspects of Lucifer and Dan’s antagonistic friendship is the ability it gives them to argue and yet cover heaps of subtext. Lucifer asks Dan about Charlotte and his relationship (pretending to be Chloe and so pretending to care), before lecturing him about being too scared to tell her how he feels… Yes. Dan gets the chance to shoot back later though, pointing out the irony when Lucifer starts accusing him of being irresponsible and having no respect for protocol when he takes himself to the murder suspect’s house ahead of the team – just as Lucifer does when with Chloe. And just as he had asked Dan to act. Lucifer then starts to realise why Chloe might choose Pierce over him, despite his celestial/hellish status.
After Chloe has a drunken heart-to-heart with her party-bus driver during the party, having left the other girls arguing on the sidewalk, it seems she’s worried at the speed and sureness of her and Pierce’s journey to the altar. She arrives back at the apartment and returns her ring to him. This directly follows an appearance from Maze where she warns him to expect her knives/torture/anger/revenge. It’s a tough day for the lieutenant. It’s a rather better day the next morning for Lucifer, however, as he gears up to declare himself to Chloe again – but then finds that he (again) doesn’t have to after she reveals her unengaged status. Although it could feel a rather cheap escaping of emotional pay-off, there are two episodes left in the season so we’re sure to be kept hanging! With a brooding Pierce staring daggers at Lucifer from the gallery above as he and Chloe discuss their next case, those two episodes are sure to contain plenty of vengeance.
Tori Brazier
