“Manly Whatnots”

Lucifer further explores Chloe’s doubts about the man who helps her on her cases actually being the Biblical Prince of Darkness.

This episode is the first one that feels as if it’s exploring what the show really should be about. It’s not perfect but the shift in focus to Lucifer and Chloe is encouraging for future episodes and leads to a much more enjoyable viewing experience.

The case of the week is fairly boring but thankfully almost incidental in the grand scheme of things. I do like that it shifted gears to being a kidnapping rather than another murder and the fact that it turned out to be a larger scheme was a nice twist but I wasn’t really all that interested in the characters involved.

One thing the case did accomplish was tying into the central theme of debauchery. Lucifer spends the entire episode trying to convince Chloe to sleep with him and the case surrounds a self-help guru who makes money out of employing buzz words that apparently empower men to objectify women to the point that they will sleep with them. It’s all a bunch of crazy nonsense and the episode treats it as such but the idea that these sorts of tricks don’t actually tend to work resonates with Lucifer who finds that his familiar tactics don’t work on Chloe.

The reasons for her resisting him are still unclear but I like how the episode plays with the idea and suggests reasons for that without actually confirming it. I found the fact that Chloe doesn’t believe in God –and by extension the Devil- but does believe in good and evil or right and wrong so the fact that she has no foundation for belief in these concepts might make her immune to Lucifer’s charms. It’s only a theory and my money is still on her having supernatural origins but the fact that the show is playing with the idea shows some creativity.

Chloe is starting to show some real personality at last. The extra look she takes with a coy smile when Lucifer is standing naked shows that she does like what she sees even if she will never admit it. Her sarcastic grins at the ridiculousness of the seminar around picking up women also reveal a little more of what goes on in her head. She still has the problem of being a detective with an attitude but there are layers starting to form and I hope that this continues to develop.

Lucifer seems much the same as ever. Chloe is still a mystery to him and his main focus this week is to get her to sleep with him so that he can get her out of his system. It has worked for him in the past and he believes it will this time but of course it won’t be as easy as that and her continual resistance to his effect will be a constant source of frustration for him.

Tom Ellis is a lot of fun to watch as always but if the show doesn’t change up this character then there’s a risk that the shtick will become stale. It won’t take long for this to happen either so hopefully the writers will actually start developing the character rather than reminding us that he’s changing without actually really showing that.

There was one encouraging scene that suggested depth to Lucifer when Chloe noticed the scars where his wings once were. Apparently he had Maz remove them for reasons that aren’t made clear but the whole point of the scene is for Chloe to see him in a slightly different light. She now sees him as the victim of abuse who is hiding behind a mask of bravado to cover up his true feelings and insecurities. Lucifer’s reaction showed some vulnerability to him and allowed his cocky attitude to disappear for a brief moment. Hopefully there will be more of this as the episodes go on.

I imagine the wings will be brought up again as he will have had to put them somewhere and I suspect they hold some kind of deeper significance that we are not aware of at this point.

Amenadiel

One possibility is that the wings could be a source of power that wears off when not in contact with them which could explain why he bled after he was shot by Chloe. I found Lucifer’s reaction to feeling pain interesting. Maz seems to think that it’s a sign that they should leave and have been there for long enough but Lucifer is excited by the prospect as he has no idea what will happen next, probably for the first time in his eternal life. Whether this excitement can be translated into engaging storytelling is anyone’s guess but the potential is certainly there.

Maz’s scene with Amenadiel could have been interesting but was executed really poorly. The whole Angel vs. Demon thing is something we have seen a lot in other shows such as Supernatural and Constantine to varying degrees of success. This show isn’t bringing anything new or interesting to the table so far but the idea that Amendiel and Maz want essentially the same thing is a good one and I like that there is a real hatred from either side. There’s a reluctance to work together at this point but as Lucifer becomes more unpredictable that may change. Their brief fight was stylistically pretty cool as well.

Verdict

An improvement over the previous episodes that suggests the show is starting to shift towards what it really should be about. Tom Ellis is as entertaining as ever and some depth is starting to appear in the Lucifer character. Chloe is starting to show a little bit of personality outside of her attitude. The show still has significant problems but this is an encouraging change.