LUCIFER “The Good, the Bad and the Crispy” Recap

By Chris B.

The action picks up with the chicken nugget from last week, the former Chet Ruiz, criminal and idiot, who never imagined when he stabbed Charlotte in the gut that from the wound would come a blast of fatal light.  Surprise!  Charlotte makes good use of her office supplies, balancing her red stilettos on her victim to get the proper angle to staple her stomach back together.

The wounded goddess shows up at Dr. Linda’s office for assistance, and though the good doctor narrowly escapes Chet’s fate, she comes up with the best solution mankind has for this:  duct tape.  When Lucifer arrives, however, he fears she is going to wear out her human body; she is, in his assessment, “a ticking bomb.”

Amenadiel is stoked that he seems to be God’s favorite son, given that the final piece of the sword turned out to be around his neck.  As he takes time to process what’s happened, Lucifer heads out with Decker to a crime scene.  It is Chet Ruiz’s body, dumped in a warehouse: buck naked, shaved from head to toe, and bathed in bleach.

Chloe seeks help from Chet’s brother, Hector, who has been in Mexico to keep himself far away from his family’s dirty dealings.  He acknowledges that his family has many enemies, but he’s no idea who would want his brother to die.

Ella is stumped by the lack of evidence at the crime scene until Lucifer unwittingly provides her with the inspiration to check satellite images.  Nice work, man.  This nets an image of a van with dandelions on the side, which they track to a lot in time to see two people in hazard gear toting a body in plastic.  Jackpot!

Or not.  The masked individuals are two perky sisters who run a crime scene clean-up business, complete with body removal; the corpse they’re carrying is merely a man who died of a heart attack two weeks ago.  Their van was near the Ruiz dump site because one of the girls was visiting her boyfriend.  It has to be said:  dead end.

Unfortunately for Ava Lyon, it truly is.  She is later found in the Dandy Lyon office, burned to a crisp.  It seems Charlotte has paid her a visit, too.  However, Ava’s sister is afraid to tell who hired her, so Chloe calls Lucifer to help by doing “his mojo thing” to get her to cooperate, but he begs off to deal with his reappeared mum.

Chloe and Dan track Charlotte to the Santa Monica Pier to arrest her.  Before they can, she makes a request to borrow Chloe’s phone, with which she calls Lucifer to let him know the stakes and twist his arm to cough up the piece she wants.  Then, she gives Dan one last sloppy smooch, and goes outside with Chloe.

Before Chloe can properly take Charlotte into custody, she confesses to Chet’s accidental demise but claims to have nothing to do with Ava Lyons.  Lucifer interrupts them, offering his mother the completed sword if she’ll back off of Chloe, but before the detective can figure out what he’s talking about, Hector Ruiz shows up, gun in hand.  Apparently, he’s been following the case closely and is the one who dispatched Ava.  Hector wants to shoot his brother’s killer, but Lucifer warns, “You shoot her, and we’re all dead.”

He shoots.

Redemption

Lucifer seeks Maze’s help because he needs “the best bounty hunter out there” to find Amenadiel so that they can assemble the sword before dear Charlotte “spews light everywhere.”  Maze is unimpressed by the prospect of Charlotte exploding or humans dying, but when Lucifer implies that the death toll would also include the likes of Trixie, she agrees grudgingly to help.

Amenadiel has disappeared to try Dan’s therapy:  improv.  He uses the forum to alternately brag and moan to the audience about his life.  Of course.  He’s been deaf to Dan’s warnings about the policy to avoid sensitive topics like religion.  When he next uses a scene about zookeepers and a pregnant giraffe to bellow, “How can I help when I’m supposed to kill my own father?” it is clear that he’s not quite catching on.

Maze tracks Amenadiel to the theater, and while he pontificates once again about his emotions, she tases him.  (Have I told you lately, Maze, that I love you?)  He has, however, secured the last piece of the sword some place else (though not in his keister, in case you were wondering.)  He has had a complete change of heart about their plan to bust into heaven and destroy their father.  Now that he sees himself as the favored son, suddenly he no longer fears manipulation:  “It’s all about perspective.  Father doesn’t always make things clear because he wants us to form our own beliefs, and I strongly believe that I am to guard that piece.”

At this point, Lucifer is compelled to tell Amenadiel his real plan of simply locking Mom in heaven to “let the two lovebirds torture each other for eternity.”  Amenadiel is not having it; he wants go back to being the “loyal soldier” that he was meant to be, and that means that their mother stays here on Earth.  Lucifer is adamant that the goddess’s powers will spell doom (for Chloe), so “Mom has to go.”

Charlotte apparently agrees with that assessment; she has disappeared.  Where she goes, though, is back to Dr. Linda.  Mommie Dearest grabs the doctor by her arms, and using her Amazonian height to her advantage, tries to intimidate Linda into telling her why she had wondered if Lucifer had been the one to stab her.  The goddess will stop at nothing to uncover the plot against her.

When Maze arrives at Dr. Linda’s office, she finds it in shambles and Linda on the floor, beaten and oozing blood from her abdomen.  Maze is stricken by the sight of her friend in this condition, vowing that she’ll fix it.  A few moments later, Amenadiel appears at the door, and Maze begs plaintively, “Help me.”

At this point, there is no way Maze could get Linda to the hospital before she dies, so Amenadiel makes a play for the one thing they need:  more time.  He tries his forgotten powers and is once again able to warp time.  This allows Maze to scoop up the doctor to procure the medical attention that can save her life.

Rebirth

When Lucifer learns that the body in the warehouse was put there courtesy of his mum, his fears amp up considerably.  Since Chloe is on the case, he knows that she will solve it; he is terrified that it is only a matter of time until “she is, quite literally, toast.”

Chloe is even more frustrated that Lucifer seems to be hiding something from her, but she is savvy enough to consider that perhaps he is not hiding something, but someone—namely, Charlotte.  For her part, the goddess also knows Lucifer is hiding a secret, and when she confronts him and Amenadiel, she shows her displeasure by throwing them both across the room and demanding the sword’s last piece.  Amenadiel refuses, telling her she’d have to kill him first.  She determines to find another way.

Lucifer begs his brother to give their mother what she wants.  He is desperate to save Chloe.  It turns out Amenadiel has slipped the key into Dan’s pocket when he gave him an awkward hug at their improv outing.  Lucifer nabs the artifact from Dan and rushes out to the pier before disaster can befall the detective.

Thanks to Amenadiel’s most timely of interventions, however, Hector Ruiz’s bullet is superfluous.  While the humans stand in stasis, Lucifer and his mother retreat to the beach; he hastily reassembles the sword with the key, and it promptly bursts into flame.  He then turns it on his mother, accusing her of using him and using Chloe.  She counters with the old twist back to Dad, creating Chloe to manipulate Lucifer, but the devil stays the course.  “I’m not leaving, Mum…Going home?  That’s not starting over; it’s going backwards, and that’s not good for anyone.”

He encourages her to move on by slicing a rip in the atmosphere, through which she can escape and start her own world without her former husband.  The goddess says her tearful goodbye and then lets her light be sucked into the portal.  Lucifer tosses the sword in after her.

Mother Morningstar disappears, and Charlotte Richards returns to life.  One life ends and another begins.

So it goes with Lucifer.  He calls Chloe to say he’s coming over because he is finally ready to tell her everything, and presumably that means showing her his true form, just as he had done with Linda.  But as soon as he ends the call, he is whacked in the head and awakens in the middle of the desert, shirtless and abused.  He gets to his feet and looks to the sky—

And spreads his large, white, angelic wings behind him.