Devil in the Details: Binge-Watching Lucifer

Let me get two things out of the way.

First: I know Lucifer is based (loosely!) on The Sandman, the graphic novel by Neil Gaiman (illustrated by a multitude of artists). And I know the character was spun off into a series of his own with the awesome Mike Carey writing. (Have you read his Felix Castor series? No? Go do so, and then maybe we’ll get some more of them!)  Though I have read Sandman, I’ve never dipped into the Lucifer series. My familiarity with the original stories begins and ends with Lucifer cutting off his wings and having a half-faced servant named Mazikeen. So I’m not coming at this series with any expectations.

Second, I am that person. You know the funny fake blurbs that get laughed at any time someone starts floating a television idea?

A yeti, separated from her tribe! A park ranger in disgrace! Together, they fight crime!

A talking dolphin! A new recruit to the Coast Guard! Together, they fight crime!

It’s the same formula over and over again; mash up two unlikely characters and make them solve mysteries. It’s lazy. It’s ridiculous. I love it. Love it.

So sure, tell me there’s a show about a charming devil and a by-the-books detective who fight crime and my reaction is: let me at it.

All of this is just to point out that I started this binge as an uncritical audience as any show-writer could want.

So, how did I like Lucifer?

Mild spoilers throughout.

Well, the super short-answer is I burned out at the beginning of season 3 for one specific reason: Chloe Decker.

The slightly elaborated on answer is I went from loving it and giggling, watching three or four episodes at a shot to one or two, while wandering in and out of the room, to actually being exasperated at the idea of watching more, though still picking at it like a scab.

So the good:

Tom Ellis. Tom Ellis. Tom Ellis.

C’mon, the charming rogue is in actuality a thankless role. It’s too easy for charming to be smarmy. Too easy for glib to be obnoxious. Too easy for audacious to come off as either abrasive or as behavior that should end in handcuffs.  Tom Ellis manages to walk the line. He gives a sardonic, gleeful lilt to everything he says, so, even at his most irritating, he feels like he’s inviting you to see that really, everything is just a joke and it’s probably a joke at his expense.

Yet, he’s also got enough gravity to pull off the cosmic moments where you have to believe that he is Lucifer, the immortal devil, the fallen son, locked in a grudge match with his father… Which is good, because otherwise, it would seem crazy overwrought and you’d laugh the whole thing off. So kudos to Ellis. Plus, he sings every so often, with a pleasant voice.

Actually, Lucifer is blessed with lots of great characters/actors. I adore Dr. Linda Martin (played by Rachael Harris), the devil’s unwitting (later very very witting) psychiatrist. I love Mazikeen’s (Lesley-Ann Brandt) slow slide toward understanding human emotions simply by feeling them herself. DB Woodside shows up here as Lucifer’s stuck-up “good” brother Amenadiel, and watching him shift his relationship back and forth with his bratty brother is endless fun. For god’s sake, this show even has an adorable child that is in fact, adorable. I’m sure there’s a TV Trope for her type: the small diabolical genius who manages to be adorable as she cons her way into cash and chocolate cake. I think there should be more Trixie. Even if she has a stripper’s name.

The mysteries are fun. Nothing crazy original, but they’re the pleasant sort of violent crime. A murder, a cast of unlikeable suspects, crazy twists, and of course, the inevitable high-stakes confrontation. If you like Monk, or Castle, or, well, any odd couple crime-solver, it’s all cut from the same cloth. Fun, extreme characters. Easily solved mysteries.

The dialogue, as you would expect, is often fun and always bantery. I do like banter. I’ll put up with a lot for banter.

The fantasy angle is really enjoyable (for the most part); watching Lucifer’s take on religion is amusing. Not particularly transgressive, so not particularly challenging to the viewer. It allows you to just enjoy the idea of god’s family as a set of squabbling, dysfunctional beings with superpowers without having to really delve into religious complexities.

So the bad.

There’s a weird writing glitch that the screenwriters get into sometimes, where they go for the easy laugh. This shows up in strange scenes. Lucifer is presented to us as all about freedom, not caught up with human mores at all. Yet his mother arrives on earth, and the writers dutifully trot out standard scenes of “son shocked by free-wheeling mother!” “Son shocked that Mum might have sex!” “Son shocked by nudity!” The scenes are funny, but they’re funny at the consistency of the character that’s been built up.

The CGI is… minimal. Whatever, it’s network TV. But Lucifer’s devil’s “face” which is supposed to evoke such moral and existential horror in those who see it is more laughable than anything else.

But mostly, the issue that gets me is Chloe Decker. I am bizarrely fond of Lauren German after her stint in the too-soon canceled Happy Town (I am STILL BITTER). So I was glad to see her having another leading role. But, if being the charming rogue is a thankless role, being the doubting detective, the one who is told the truth, but never believes it… that’s worse.

First season, Chloe has an interesting arc, trying to prove that there’s something off about Lucifer before taking her own weird leap of faith and deciding that she didn’t need to know. Then in the second season, she takes a back seat to the more vivid fantasy storyline. Her story arc is minimal: she becomes a small obstacle to Lucifer’s larger problems, because she doesn’t know the larger problems even exist.

Then in season three; the storyline promises that Lucifer will prove he is the Devil to Chloe, only for him to have the sudden mystical inability to prove it. (Though I can definitely quibble about him lacking the “ability” to prove it to Chloe while busily cutting off his wings every other scene.) Why not show Chloe the wings? Because the writers don’t want Chloe in on the Big Secret. Why? Because it’s their only source of tension between Chloe and Lucifer. And that’s a major issue.

The psychiatrist starts out assuming everything Lucifer tells her is metaphor, but he finally impresses the truth on her. And her character gets to grow as a result. Gets to be part of the bigger plots, gets to react to all the fun stuff. While Chloe gets shoved off into the increasingly small “solve crime” section.

I’m hoping the third season will improve Chloe’s arc, but skipping ahead to read the wiki on the show suggests that her arc goes back to revolving around being men’s love interest. I don’t have high hopes. Especially since episode two involves the new head detective (Tom Welling, sigh. Not my favorite actor) conspiring with Lucifer to keep Chloe out of the major case to “protect” her. FFS, writers. Do Better.

It’s not that I want this to be the Chloe show—it is about Lucifer—but demoting her to part-time detective, potential love interest, and confused spectator is irksome. She never gets to be part of the A plot, and she doesn’t get to play the fun parts either.  All she gets to be is the dogged detective and humorless love interest.

I’ll still watch it, because really, the lure of Tom Ellis chewing scenery and being snarky everywhere he goes is enormous fun. But sometimes all I see is missed opportunities for great storylines.