~ Retrieved from my old blog, written in May 2019
Yesterday, the new season of Lucifer was released on Netflix, and I have many things to say about it so I’m going to try and put them into words. I’ve been really looking forward to this season, specially due to the cliffhanger with which the last season ended but also simply because I love the show. Constant tweets and posts from the Lucifer’s social media account also helped to increase my hype, which I finally brought to a maximum these last few days by re-watching some old episodes. However, yesterday I was thinking about how tonight I was going to watch the first episode and I started thinking “Come on, it’s probably not going to live up to the hype. After all, I’m hyping it a lot, and last season wasn’t really exciting except for some good moments”. Oh boy was I wrong. I was planning on watching only one episode a week, to make sure I didn’t binge it all at once. Yesterday, due to my hype, I changed my commitment to just one episode a day. Today, I’ve already watched the first three episodes. And, as I’ve said, I have thoughts.
The season starts with Lucifer singing – talk about giving the people what they want. Turns out this song is not only perfectly suited to the situation our main character is going through, a classic move in the show, but also a montage, that shows how time is passing for him, how he deteriorates as he descends into despair after the events from the last episode. Talk about great starts. Next up we have a fight, much more violent and with better action than what we’re used to, in which Lucifer shows some of that anger that we know and love and confirms that yeah, this is going to be a good season for the show.
I’m not going to be able to talk about each scene in the first episodes, but believe me, I could. As the actors mentioned in some interviews, the lower episode count has allowed them to compress more of the action and the drama into each episode, making sure that instead of them just running in place and stalling, we get one chapter after the other of exciting storylines with great turns and twists. Sometimes the episodes still drag a bit, and the characters behave in somewhat questionable ways, expressing how they feel in an artificial way, and making you think that they are trying to make drama out of nowhere, a recurring theme last season. However, most of the time, this isn’t the case. Even more, I’d say that in many cases the show seems to have taken on some new and impressive self-awareness, and addresses directly some of the issues that could seem the most annoying before.
There have been some things I haven’t liked. As I mentioned, the characters sometimes feel artificial, over-dramatic, and I’ve spotted some problems with the continuity between shots that annoyed me a bit. I don’t know much about the technical part of shows, so I don’t feel like I’m capable of talking a lot about this, but some scenes just feel a bit off, and others feel too much in your face. There’s some nitpicky things, such as how I’d prefer it if they changed Lucifer‘s voice while he has his devil face, maybe just the same effect they added to Maze’s demon voice. Also, specially with Chloe’s character, I feel like she took so many turns last season and became so unrealistic that even if now the character is becoming really good I still find what she does a bit hard to believe. I’m sure this is something that will go away though, seeing the complexity she’s achieved in just three episodes.
One of the main appeals the show has always had is the complexity of Lucifer’s character, and how each case they investigated was used as a tool to explore his psyche, thanks to his tendency to project his current issues onto the case. In this season, they not only have acknowledged that – something they had already done before – but they have taken it one step further, explicitly using the cases to advance the growth of other characters such as Chloe or Dan and explore their issues.
Where Chole had become a complete side-character, just some plot tool to act as Lucifer‘s love interest and the main source of drama in the show, she has now taken on a whole new depth. Instead of her blindly accepting Lucifer straight away, something I was kind of expecting and I even thought I wanted, the show-runners have decided that discovering her partner’s true nature will wreck her. But not in a direct, clear way as it did with Dr. Linda, no. She goes through many phases, and each of them is completely believable in relation to the Lawful Good detective we had met seasons ago, and the love we know she has developed for Lucifer.
On the other hand, we have Dan, who after his last loss has dived deep into work. He’s starting to believe that Lucifer might really be a bad guy after all, and his grief has made him decide to stop putting up with his jokes and pranks. I really liked the bromance that had been born between Lucifer Dan, where instead of being rivals they had started to respect and understand each other, although they weren’t exactly friends. However, this new strain in the relationship makes total sense and brings some new issues to be resolved. Furthermore, Dan is angry in general, at life, at God, at the system, for what he has lost and his inability to do anything about it. In the last episode, this frustration, along with a devilish little nudge from Maze, finally seem to take him down a dark path, which makes total sense when you remember his old days as a corrupt cop and his need to make things right somehow. There’s also some sexual tension between Dan and Maze that I’d love for them to explore.
And along with Dan and Chloe, there are so many more new ways in which each of the characters are being given new challenges in this season, new storylines that will make them change and grow in ways that I can’t wait for the show to explore, all while the criminal cases keep coming along, and the main plot around Lucifer, and Chloe, keeps going forward without being paused for several episodes. The last obstacle to Chloe and Lucifer’s relationship, which anyways seems already pretty consolidated, has come about in a really believable way that makes sense for both characters and doesn’t feel like more forced stalling to feed the “will they – won’t they” storyline. This obstacle even seems to have introduced a new theme into the show, one that has been hinted at before but never put at the forefront of the plot. As if all these hints had been planned all along, the last season seems to be asking the question that other seasons just pointed at but never where brave enough to ask: can Lucifer change? And with that, a deeper, more relatable question, that many great shows and characters have explored before: can each of us change? Can we grow and overcome our issues?
I’m only three episodes in, but I can’t wait to watch the other seven and I really hope that I’m able to keep myself from binge watching them too quickly. After all these seasons, the show seems to finally be willing to aim to its true potential, and I think that there’s so much more left for us to see. I almost petty the people at FOX who suddenly decided that they should cancel the show, but probably they are going to feel sad enough just by themselves. To be honest, I think that probably their biggest mistake was asking the show-runners to make the season 26 episodes long. In comparison, Netflix’s move to make it only ten episodes seems to have allowed for a new rhythm that gives a whole new energy to the show, along with a better distribution of the CGI budget that is really noticeable. I can only hope that all the marketing and promotion that Netflix is giving to the show is able to increase the fanbase even more to ensure new and better seasons, but apart from that, I just can’t wait to see what Lucifer has in store.