LUCIFER “Monster” Recap

By Chris B

Oh, Halloween, you’ll never be the same after aligning yourself with Lucifer.

This smash finds a zombie wedding in a graveyard, so appropriate since the bride and groom end up with matching bullets, one to the arm and one to the chest.  And who says romance is dead?

Peggy Russo, make-up artist and dead zombie bride, was apparently “disgustingly perfect,” so much so that one of her bridesmaids wished to spoil her wedding.  She told Peggy’s ex-boyfriend, Jason, where the ceremony was going to be, and now she thinks herself responsible for Peggy’s death.

Jason, who turns into a weepy puddle when confronted by the devil himself, is not the killer.  He ran from the wedding, bumping into a musician with a guitar case on the park service road who’d been on his way to the ceremony.  The problem:  there was a DJ booked for the reception, not a live group, so what could possibly have been in the stranger’s case?

They are led by a napkin at the scene to Freddy and his popular food truck by the beach, but before they can get much from the owner, he is also shot through the chest by a long-range rifle, a pre-meditated crime, the next on an apparent list.  Guess Lucifer will have to get his tasty oily balls elsewhere now.  (Anyone know Pete Schweddy’s number?)

Turns out the groom-to-be litigates malpractice cases with the doctor who was married to Freddy, so the killer could be seeking revenge for a wrong perpetrated to his loved ones by destroying the lives of theirs.  A recently dismissed case has Wes Williams as the prime suspect; the wife of this ATF agent and long-range marksman died tragically of lung disease.

Wes has worked his way into the pharmaceutical company where Williams’s wife had been in a clinical trial, unfortunately as part of the placebo group.  He plans to take out the wife of the doctor who ran the trial, but he is waylaid by Decker and Lucifer.  He fires all around Lucifer until he is found and captured by Decker.

Mama’s Boy

Charlotte has made it her business to soothe Amenadiel’s feelings since he, too, feels responsible for Uriel’s death.  She coos, “You have welcomed responsibility all your life.  Don’t you think you should give yourself a break?”  Then, she moans that she, too, feels responsible, evoking the predictable denials from Amenadiel.  She promises Amenadiel that he should be rewarded, not punished.  She’s good.

She knows that her eldest son has lost his powers, but she promises there is a way to restore them.  This leads them to Uriel’s burial site in the woods.  Apparently redemption is to spring from grief and acceptance, not the assignation of blame.  (I would label this discovery as a fairly obvious one, but this dysfunctional ethereal family is slow on the uptake and not exactly brimming with emotional intelligence.)

Amenadiel pledges that he’s done trying to please his absent father.  Under Mommy’s spell, he seems to have exchanged one commander for another.  Oh, Amenadiel, when will you learn?

Tricks and Treats

Maze is getting along fine with Trixie in their new shared dwelling, giving her rides on her swing.  So why is Chloe so perturbed?  Oh, yeah—it’s a sex swing.  Oops.  Time for a talk about boundaries, something that Maze has little interest in.  She’d rather spend her Halloween the traditional way—“slutty outfits, humans abandoning their inhibitions, masquerade orgies.”  Makes you misty for the good old days, doesn’t it?

Maze gets a chance to “take [Chloe’s] offspring for a walk,” otherwise known as trick-or-treating.  She’s kind enough to indulge Trixie’s costume desires, swapping out her so-last-year princess dress for the President of Mars (“Duh!”), complete with bullwhip.  Truthfully, Maze is the perfect companion to have at the chincy houses that don’t want to pony up the candy; a good stare-down from Satan’s minion practically has them spitting Clark bars out of their nostrils.

Trixie is slightly disappointed that her companion hasn’t dressed for the occasion, so Maze takes a leap—she offers up a partial view of her real face, a threaded and throughly creepy site.  Trixie, however, is thrilled, grinning and shrieking, “Cool!”  Maze seems unprepared for this; in fact, she seemed to be holding her breath, as if waiting for the inevitable rejection.  It doesn’t come.  Trixie likes Maze as she is, making her far wiser than every single adult in the entire cast of characters.

Road to Perdition

Lucifer is hot on the trail of personal damnation, blocking out the guilt for murdering his brother with swirling amounts of booze and pretty girls.  Doctor Linda tracks him down for missing his session and is shut down flatly for her efforts.  She retreats with the promise that her door is always open, but Lucifer is unimpressed:  “Feel free to shut it.”  He is off the wagon, in every way that counts.

Lucifer shows up to the crime scene looking a mess, desperately trying to get drunk but foiled by his “supernatural metabolism.”  He’s helping himself to the cake and champagne left behind, much to Decker’s horror.  She accuses him of not being interested in solving the case.  That gets him; the quips and humor drop away so he can take another indirect stab at himself:  “Every killer must be punished.”

Lucifer swings from making out with a witness to ripping the door handles off the interrogation room and flashing his red demon eyes to punish the would-be shooter.   His conduct is outrageous, and Decker threatens to take him off the case if he pulls another stunt.  Lucifer shrugs it off, “I did what I had to do.”  I guess that is both a gift and a curse for him.

A small bit of insight comes from Charlotte, who reveals that “Lucifer has never been one to face his emotions; instead of looking in, he acts out.  A rebellion here, an apple there…”  When Lucifer again does what he must by stealing Douche’s gun and badge to obtain needed information, he flips out at Dan’s accusation that he “only does what he wants.”  That earns the officer a punch to the face and gets Lucifer that seat on the bench he’d been promised.  He flails, “Why are you so surprised, Detective?  I’m the devil, remember?  I’m evil!”  The self-flagellation continues.

He tries some piano therapy, but that, like the booze, is ineffective.  In desperation, he staggers to the drug company lobby and begs the sniper to shoot him.  The man refuses to, and Lucifer demands an explanation why.  “Because you didn’t deserve it.”   The sad man had only wanted those involved to suffer as much as he is, but in reality, it is himself that he blames for his wife’s death.  Lucifer sees that “it wasn’t vengeance that you want, but punishment.  Well, now you’ve got it.”  But Lucifer doesn’t, and no matter how harshly he tries to punch himself in the face, he’ll never bleed enough to satisfy the hole left by his brother’s death.

In the end, at Chloe’s desperate insistence, he returns to Dr. Linda for help.  She is at a loss, choked in the tangle of his seeming metaphors.  She pleads with him to be honest about who he really is; after all, every session they’ve had has been “about getting to know the real Lucifer.”

So no more lies:  he shows his real face.

When the doctor freezes, from fear or repulsion, he leaves.  A monster, alone.