LUCIFER Recap “Trip to Stabby Town”

By Chris B

Ah, the upbeat beach opener:  ocean view, bike riding in the park—and a woman knocked down and stabbed nineteen times in the street.  But she’s not aerated by any old weapon.  She’s taken out by Azrael’s blade, the very weapon that Lucifer had used to take out his brother.  Oops.

Apparently, in human hands, Azrael’s blade “wants to kill.  It demands to be used, to fulfill its purpose.”  It bends the will of the average person, whispering in its ear, turning any scrap of hostility into blood lust.  The weapon of the Angel of Death will give any one in its path a trip to Stabby Town, and what’s worse, the longer it travels from one hand to another, the more amplified the affect.  The trio of Maze, Amenadiel, and Lucifer have no choice but to get the weapon back.

Apparently, the deceased woman, Maddie Howard, was involved in The Glory Way, a “mind and body sensibility system designed to reveal…the Home You.” (I’ve got to say that Lucifer’s version, The Glory Hole, sounds infinitely more interesting.)  He and Decker ask who might have had grievances towards Maddie, large or small.

By the time Decker and Lucifer arrive to search for Duncan Watts, the yoga studio’s landlord, they happen upon the reason the blade was not found:  it is in the hands of someone new, someone who has not only killed Duncan, but also an entire yoga class.  Apparently, the whole class played Murder Round-Robin, killing each other one by one until the last man standing made off with the weapon.  This man seems to be Jenson Glory himself, the guru with a string of failed businesses behind him and his current one with lawsuits pending against it.

Glory is hauled into Interrogation, and Lucifer and Chloe take a pass at him.  They are able to dig into his psyche for his burning confession—an intense desire for a raspberry cream cheese muffin.  He’s a chubby carb addict, nothing more.

Corrina, Maddie’s partner, had been subbing for Jenson at the yoga studio the day all were killed.  By the time Lucifer speeds to Jenson’s home, the man’s been put down.  Corrina has used the blade to exact revenge for Jenson’s previous attack on her.  Years before, he’d raped her, and she’d nearly succeeded it burying it deep until the blade called to her.

Lucifer convinces the police that Corrina has acted in self-defense, but before he can retrieve the blade from Jenson’s corpse, it has been snatched by none other than Detective Douche.  Guess who he sets his sight on?  He aims the blade at Lucifer and accuses him of ruining his marriage:  “My entire life imploded because of you!”  He slices and dances around the placating demon, eventually coaxing the terrible truth—Lucifer has indeed sated his sweet tooth on Dan’s vanilla pudding from the precinct lunch room, and while I wish that were a delightfully filthy metaphor, it’s not. Damn.

However, Dan pauses in his dazed bloodlust, staring down the blade itself.  He seems to have a stronger core that we’d been shown as he fights the weapon’s effects.  He is able to break its spell, and Lucifer secrets the weapon away at last.

Therapy Gone Amok

Is a sandwich just a sandwich?  Dr. Linda isn’t telling, so the devil’s “emotional growth” will have to wait until she gets some dirt on the Who’s Who in the Damnation Zone and the prospect of its “tyrant wing,” which may be sporting the endearing presence of her own Uncle Edwin.  It seems poor Lucifer has “broken [his] therapist.”

He fears she’s gone batty.

LUCIFER: L-R: Tom Ellis and Lauren German in the “Trip To Stabby Town” episode of LUCIFER | Co. Cr: Bettina Strauss/FOX

When he returns to her later, we find their roles reversed—she is stretched out on the couch while he sits in the chair; she riffs endlessly while he attempts to keep her focused on the goal at hand.

He wants her to help him understand why he should give a crap if people are dying when humans are so “capricious…they’re willing to trade their souls to lose some unsightly belly fat.”  She’s far too distracted, though; for now, his therapy will remain in the self-service aisle.

Ultimately, Lucifer returns to the doctor, willing to discuss the ins and outs of Hell’s occupants.  (Spoiler Alert:  Trump’s headed straight to Hell when he kicks off.  Duh.  Who better for Caligula to chum with down there?)

However, she offers him an apology and is at last able to latch onto something that keeps her grounded in the work, to focus on what she surely recognizes in this immortal being:  “narcissistic tendencies rooted in a complex paternal relationship and a disrupted adolescence.”  So, it is back to work for Dr. Linda.

If she can handle Lucifer, think she’d give Trump a go, just for kicks?

Right—too scary to contemplate.

Damn.

Tested Faith

While Maze and Amenadiel move Uriel’s body to a more secure location, Lucifer seeks out Ella’s help to identify a foot print found in the dirt.  She tries to lecture him about the nature of favors: “The whole point of a favor is to do it for free, and then you just trust that the love will come back to you.  Favors are about faith.”  He can but cringe at such a concept, so she whispers her request in his ear and succeeds in shocking the devil:  “You’re a nasty little nerd, aren’t you?”  Well played, Lopez.

For her part, Chloe seems piqued that Lucifer and Ella are working together so closely, particularly when he accidentally attributes one of her slogans to Decker.  She casts a bit of a green side-eye at him and drops it.  Later, Dan calls her on the same thing, and she does a poor job of blowing off the suggestion of jealousy, though she seems appalled by the idea that Lucifer might have actual feelings for the young scientist.

Ella’s not so sure about her deal with Lucifer when she gets to the sight in question:  “Does your favor involve killing me?”  He appeals to her speech on faith, and she grudgingly relents, agreeing to take a mold of the footprint, as well as to reconstruct the nearby pile of half-burned papers, all while keeping the secret of his “super creepy non-grave grave.”

Ella comes up with a shocking find:  the footprint taken from the grave site and one from the yoga studio match.  She demands answers.  “Come clean with me, or I can’t keep this a secret anymore.”  She assures him that growing up in Detroit prepares one for the worst, but he appeals once again to her faith.  She is willing to allow hers to be tested, and they hug it out.

And then Decker walks in.  Oops.

So what did Ella request of Lucifer in return for his favor?  A trip to church.  She’s sensed that he’s “been searching for something” and feels this experience might help to resolve it, a “spiritual lost and found.”  Doubtful, though, as he enters eagerly enough—in pursuit of a leggy brunette.  Oh well, it was worth a try.

Chloe finally confronts Lucifer with her disappointment about his secretive behavior with Ella, clucking at him about the unprofessional tryst with a lab tech.  Amused, he quells her fears with the truth that all is above board:  “Always the truth—a point of pride for me.”  She is relieved, faith restored, but brushes it off when he offers to “cross boundaries” with her and become “partner-friends who hang out naked.”  She declines.

Damn.

Family Feud

When Ella rehydrates the burned papers near Uriel’s grave, she discovers that it contains a map from downtown L.A. to the grave site, as well as a logo for the law firm of Richards and Wheeler—the very one for which dear Charlotte works.  Surprise, surprise.  Lucifer is dismayed to learn from her that she’s sent at least a dozen clients in search of the blade, all as a ruse to get God’s attention, for “if his toys started stabbing each other with a celestial blade, he might take a moment” to mourn with her their dead son.  Not so much.  She gets no notice from above.

Lucifer is none too pleased the Mum has been the impetus for humans to die, even though “that’s what they were designed to do.”  She’s baffled why her son has changed and now seems attached to the human creatures, but she agrees to help him get it back, as opposed to having Maze come by and revisit with her the bad old days of unmerciful torture.

When Lucifer compares a list of Mum’s clients to the list of people with beefs against Maddie, Duncan Watt’s name pops out.  Lucifer immediately alerts Maze and Amenadiel, who toss the office and find no blade, but Maze is given a chance to unload.  She identifies the real problem as Charlotte herself:  “She released the blade to create chaos, and you two respond by coddling her.”  She also pronounces his Mama’s Boy routine a huge turn-off.  Right on both counts, Maze.

In the end, Mommie Dearest claims that she merely wants her family back, that with her two sons by her side, “a united front,” then Dad “would be forced to listen to reason.”  Amenadiel agrees with her since the problem with the blade shows that humans and divinity do not mix:  “It shouldn’t be here—we shouldn’t be here!”

But Lucifer isn’t ready to throw in with them.  The only place he’s ever felt at home is on Earth amongst people, and he is not going to leave without a fight.  When Charlotte gets a look at the electricity radiating down the blade as he speaks, she checks herself.  She beckons Amenadiel to follow her out, then gleefully tells him that, for her plan, “a window just opened.”  And something tells me that she will waste no time in trying to shove something—or someone—out of it.

Oh.  Damn.