'Lucifer' Season 3, Episode 15 'High School Poppycock' Recap: The Murder That The Devil Wrote [SPOILERS]

Lucifer (Tom Ellis) and Detective Chloe Decker (Lauren German) have had cases in the most unexpected places, and their latest brings them to high school. “Lucifer” Season 5, episode 15, titled “High School Poppycock,” has Lucifer and Chloe infiltrating a high school reunion to catch a novelist’s murder. But Lucifer’s focus is elsewhere. He is still hellbent on defying his father’s wishes and fulfilling his promise to Pierce (Tom Welling). Meanwhile, Amenadiel (D.B. Woodside) and Linda (Rachael Harris) struggle with making their relationship public.

Lucifer’s Mental Block

God works in mysterious ways, and Lucifer hates it. After his father returns his wings, Lucifer has been a mess. Was he still the devil? What was his father planning? Because of his paranoia, he dreamt of his wings coming back and almost killing the detective. He then puts all his focus and effort into thinking of ways to remove Pierce’s curse, but his ideas are running dry. Luckily for him, the death of Kathleen Pike—a best-selling YA author who died after she was bludgeoned using her typewriter—might give him some inspiration.

The YA novel wasn’t to Lucifer’s liking, but it did attract a few crazy fans who were mad at Pike for delaying the release of the last book. Their first suspect is a superfan who had a heated argument online with Pike about her books. Donning a name “Ashley3001Fan,” they expected a 16-year-old girl, but not a middle-aged man who personally delivers ice cream to his favorite author. However, he was only a very supportive fan who even helped the author finish her book. He was able to tell Lucifer and Chloe that Pike’s book was based on her former classmates. Now they have a long list of suspects who didn’t like being a character in a book.
No one likes their dirty secrets to be in a best-selling book, so that’s a definite motive for murder. Pike was supposed to unveil her new book during her high school reunion—in front of the classmates that she based her characters. Lucifer goes undercover as Todd—a former classmate of Pike—to infiltrate the high school. 

More High School Drama

Unfortunately, Chloe goes full-on fangirl being Lucifer’s plus one. She enjoyed “Class of 3001” so much she couldn’t differentiate between the real-life counterparts of the book’s main characters. But instead of finding a murderer, they found themselves in the middle of unfinished high school drama. Luckily, Lucifer was focused on looking for the murder suspect. He found out Todd was always left out of the loop, which leads them to believe he was the murderer. While everyone else had an alibi the night of the murder, Todd was with Pike two nights ago. For Lucifer to attend the reunion as Todd, they had Maze “take care” of him. With a new suspect on the list, Lucifer and Chloe rush to Todd before he hurts anyone else. 

But Todd was in the middle of drama as well. How would you feel if your ex-boyfriend is dating your closest friend? It hurts even if you were a demon from hell like Maze. Amenadiel wants to take his relationship with Linda public but is worried about Maze’s reaction. Hoping to ease his new girlfriend’s nerves, Amenadiel tried to talk to Maze about it but was blocked by Trixie. Things get a little more awkward when it seemed like Maze wants to put the water under the bridge. Instead, she set up Linda and Amenadiel on a blind double date. Linda with Todd, who was supposed to attend the high school reunion, and Maze with Amenadiel. Tensions get thicker during the date when Maze accuses Linda of being selfish. The date ended with Lucifer and Chloe arriving to take Todd into questioning.

Lucifer learns he can fix the past

Todd told them Pike tracked him down to help her finish her book. She made him the hero of the series with a peaceful ending. Chloe was disappointed and confused since Pike’s agent, Vincent, told them he tweeted about Pike’s last book as an action-packed conclusion. Putting the pieces together, they set a trap for the murderous agent. Chloe called Vincent and asked if he knew Pike was working with a ghostwriting fanfiction writer for the last book. Vincent denied it, but moments later we see him pull a gun on who appears to be Ashley. When he turned around it was Lucifer; Vincent realizes it was a trap.

He then confesses he wanted Pike to choose Ashley’s exciting ending because he didn’t wait years for a dull, uneventful conclusion. But when the author refused, he threw a typewriter at her. To make matters worse, he destroyed the only copy of the manuscript—which angered Lucifer. Despite solving the case, Lucifer still had no idea how to undo Pierce’s curse.
At the end of the episode, Lucifer invited Chloe at the Lux for her to experience her first high school dance. In the middle of their dance, Lucifer tells Chloe he wants to prove his father wasn’t an all-powerful being as he sets himself out to be. Still in the dark about Lucifer’s secret, Chloe rolls with it, thinking it’s one of his many metaphors. She tells him he should move on rather than sulk about the past. Naturally, Lucifer takes it as the opposite, and he finally had an answer to the curse—all he needed to do was reunite two feuding brothers.
“Lucifer” continues next Monday, March 5th, with “Infernal Guinea Pig” at 8/7c on FOX.