Tag: Lucifer Season 5 Part 1

Lucifer (Season 5: Part 1): It’s Heaven-Sent – Netflix Review

The Devil is coming back from Hell for another good time.

SUMMARY

After he was forced to go to Hell at the end of the last season in order to regain his throne and quell a demon uprising, Lucifer Morningstar (Tom Ellis) is feeling the eternal torment. It turns out that even though only a few months have passed on Earth, thousands of years have passed in Hell. However, after he sees a familiar face in the underworld, he finds out that Chloe Decker (Lauren German) might be in trouble. Moreover, he soon discovers that his identical twin brother Michael is impersonating him on Earth. Lucifer returns in order to try and stop Michael with the help of the other regulars: His brother Amenadiel (D. B. Woodside), the demon bounty hunter Mazikeen (Lesley-Ann Brandt), Det. Dan Espinoza (Kevin Alejandro), Dr. Linda Martin (Rachael Harris), and Ella Lopez (Aimee Garcia). 

They’re the new hot couple on TV.

END SUMMARY

Sometimes I think someone really did sell their soul to make this show successful. This series invokes trope after trope constantly, including some very tired ones (introducing an unmentioned identical twin character, for example), but I still enjoy it thoroughly. We’ve had the relationship between Chloe and Lucifer going on since the beginning of the show, but every time it seems like it might go somewhere, something intervenes and resets the status quo for a bit. At the end of the last season the show was on Fox, Season 3, when the pair finally seemed poised to get together, Chloe finally witnessed Lucifer in his true form and bolted. She spent most of Season 4 getting over it and so, naturally, at the end of the season Lucifer had to leave. Given that I routinely get the same feelings of perpetual return to the mean from Eric Kripke’s other show, Supernatural, I’m guessing that’s just what he considers the best way to keep a show going for a long time. Since Supernatural has 320 episodes, he’s probably got a point. However, this season was originally supposed to be the end of the show, so, surprisingly, some stuff actually starts to move the status quo forward. After Covid-19 stalled the production the show got renewed for another season, so I don’t know if the show will undo that in the second half, but I hope not. 

They even do the show within a show trope and I love it.

A big part of why the show works is that it properly maintains the balance between the episodic mysteries that Lucifer and Chloe encounter as part of the LAPD and the overall story arcs. For example, last season, a big arc was the birth of baby Charlie, Amenadiel and Linda’s baby, and this season deals with their parenting a lot, usually by just having them caring for the infant while talking to the others. It allows all of the plots to move forward together, or at least to not feel like they’ve been dropped. 

They also do a great job with experimental episodes.

Tom Ellis does double duty in this season as both Michael and Lucifer, and you can tell the difference in the characters by more than just his accent (Michael has an American accent for some reason). Michael, despite being God’s literal right hand in most Biblical dogma, is the more duplicitous of the two and also the less confident. Even when he’s attempting to be Lucifer, he constantly seems a bit more on edge. I think it might be a reflection of the idea that someone who always tells the truth never has to worry about what to say next. Brandt does a good job of portraying Mazikeen as still heartbroken after getting rejected by Eve in the last season. The character is trying to deal with some very relatable issues, even though she is supposed to be a literal soulless demon. 

The evil twin of the devil is a weird statement.

Overall, solid addition to the show, albeit a bit short since it’s only half of a season. Can’t wait for the finale.

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