It’s odd how in the second episode, Lucifer already seems bored of his life inside Lucifer. He casually mentions having a devil’s threesome (oh my – how risque, Fox!), he laments the presence of alcohol at all times – and save for the moments he’s fawning over Chloe, his constantly smirking face seems disinterested in the world surrounding him. So why are we following him around? “Lucifer, Stay. Good Devil” doesn’t really have a good answer for this; and in fact, it doesn’t really try to, building over the silly “war” brewing between Lucifer and his brother with a hilariously awful back story for Chloe, and an extreme waste of guest star Jeremy Davies. Even for a show in its second episode, “Lucifer, Stay.” is one odd hour of television.
First, the paparazzi story: “Lucifer, Stay” centers on the dead son of an actor, and the two paparazzo involved with killing/covering up his death (one of them is black, and the other is Jeremy Davies; can you guess which one ends up being the murderer?). Well, it doesn’t actually focus on the dead kid at all: each scene could’ve had a neon sign above Chloe’s head indicating she was taking personal interest in this story, considering how far it went out of its way to depict Chloe becoming anxious at every turn, because of how much this story spoke to her. Follow it with 40+ minutes of Lucifer pumping its fist at the horrible, inhumane paparazzi industry, and you’ve got an altogether underwhelming second episode.
Perhaps the most disappointing part of the whole affair is how the show backs away from the most interesting moments it offers its main character: when his half-naked therapist begins poking at the insecurities inside Lucifer (because “he’s changing”, though he tells two men to shoot each other at one point this episode), Lucifer begins to poke around the potential of studying Lucifer as a character, rather than displaying him as an extremely stereotypical image of “desire”, a white guy with a drinking problem whose powers of seduction allow him to conquer all the flesh of Los Angeles (except Chloe, which makes his heart flutter, of course). For a brief, brief second, Lucifer drops the double entendres and the show gets real about its titular character: coming to Earth has fundamentally changed Lucifer as a person, and all the hellish antics he used to get up to are no longer as satisfying as they once were.
Yet the second Lucifer dips its toes into these waters, it backs right back out: and then we’ve got a rather substandard story about an overzealous minority covering up a murder, shoved up against a story of Chloe dealing with a photographer who stalked her and her family (her mom was a queen of the B’s type), which ultimately goes nowhere (he didn’t murder the kid, so all Chloe can do is make strained faces at him). Sprinkled on top is the overarching, “there’s a family war” brewing in the obligatory spots between expository scenes (which really just leads to more exposition between Lucifer and Amenadiel; this show really likes to have people talk about how they/other people feel), and some longing looks between the main characters; because when adapting a particularly memorable character, there’s no way to fill in the world around him but with some classic “will they, won’t they” and a angry black man, right?
“Good Devil” isn’t nearly as disappointing as the pilot in a lot of ways; it can be geniunely clever in moments, and there are hints the show actually wants to develop Chloe and Lucifer beyond complete bores and immature deviants (respectively). Unfortunately, Lucifer‘s second episode continues to bury any seeds of hope under a thick layer of sugary-sweet, paper-thin character development, and a featherweight plot (again, about frickin’ paparazzi) that’s more interested in depicting Chloe as cold and emotionally damaged from her career as an actress, than it is telling a story about a crime and/or the Devil currently running rampant (which, so far, means causing a minor fist fight, and sleeping with a therapist) around the City of Angels – a show I’d much rather watch than what Lucifer‘s had to offer in its first two hours.
Other thoughts/observations:
- at one point, Chloe comes in a bar to question Lucifer about being shot. While there, she realizes the picture she saw of a paparazzi is important and needs to be investigated. Out of absolutely nowhere, she realizes a photo she was looking at an hour ago was actually a clue. What detective skills!
- Let’s just be honest: these two leads have absolutely no chemistry together. She’s all scowl-y, and he can’t stop smirking… how charming.
- oh, look, Lucifer showed off to himself to scare a street preacher; how thrilling!
- why won’t they show us Amenadiel flying? The network budget struggle is real, y’all.
- How does Chloe just ignore all the insane things Lucifer says? Are we actually supposed to take her seriously as a cop, since she follows around this guy all the time?
- so nobody cares that Maze is hanging out with Lucifer? She seems to just get a free pass, and she definitely doesn’t respect the guy’s supposed power.
- Police work in LA: where people can break into interrogation rooms, let non-police walk casually through murder scenes, and pitting two suspects against each other with guns in public is immediately forgotten.
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