TV Review: <i>Lucifer</i> – “Pops”

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It looks like this week’s Lucifer episode centered on parents one way or another. Chloe’s mother made her big entrance and Lucifer dedicated this episode to the issues with his father. Both leads were tackling personal issues, and it wasn’t just their interactions that turned up the excitement this week.

When Lucifer’s favorite chef dies, all signs point to one of his staff being the killer and them seeing him as a father figure complicates things. Lucifer tries to push the ”one of you killed him because he was like a father to you” angle but that doesn’t exactly work out. The staff keeps repeating that line, even though the chef threw things and had a strong temper. Lucifer isn’t exactly feeling this case until the son of the chef shows up for an interview and describes a life quite similar to his.

But it turns out that his son wasn’t set to inherit the restaurant with his death, so Chloe and Lucifer focus on the chef’s prodigy. She mentions how he was like a father to her, and Lucifer again starts to push that if someone has a father/child relationship it must mean it grew sour. Lucifer spends a large portion of this episode projecting his own issues onto others and it opens up a few of his thoughts to us. He clearly isn’t settled with how things ended with his father and maybe the fact that Lucifer might never see his dad again, stirs something inside of him?

Maze coming to Linda for help was such a dynamic friendship this week. Female friendships are rare so far on the show, so Linda/Maze interactions definitely lifted the tone of the episode. Maze is trying to adjust to being human since she isn’t going back to Hell with Lucifer anytime soon. But Linda’s advice isn’t exactly helpful, making friends isn’t something Maze is looking to do so as soon as this session started, it ended.

And while Lucifer freaks out over the overused mentions of the word God, Chloe has to deal with her mother. First Penelope invites Lucifer to her planned family dinner and then when she dresses Trixie up for some movie role. This causes a fight and leads to Trixie ordering an Uber to visit her favorite friend. Unfortunately Lucifer isn’t there but Maze is, and yes a new friendship was born. This was my absolute favorite part of this episode, Maze was looking for some type of human connection and she found it in the most unlikely place, but it also had to be the most pure. Trixie is an innocent character that isn’t corrupted by the world yet, and Maze bonding with her was a beautiful touch to the narrative. And the idea of Maze and Linda bonding off-screen is a great addition to the story as well!

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The same can’t be said for the rest of the gang when Lucifer decides to bring Junior to dinner (after he confirms that he didn’t kill his dad of course). He pushes for Junior to prove that he didn’t kill his father and that leads for a very tense dinner. Chloe is upset with Lucifer for being so selfish and frankly she isn’t wrong. With so many different connections on the show, Lucifer’s need to connect it all back to himself can get old sometimes. But this helps Chloe realizes that it was the prodigy chef that was the killer, she wanted to kill Junior but accidentally killed his father instead.

Now this leads Lucifer’s problems to come to some sort of end when Chloe stumbles into his bar drunk and ready to have sex with him. Only he denies her and she ends up asleep on his arm, which is when Lucifer says his father’s name. He spent the whole episode acknowledging others saying God but he would never actually say it himself until Chloe and the feelings that come with her reached some sort of temporary conclusion? While Lucifer keeps mentioning sex with Chloe, when the opportunity presents itself his reaction isn’t what he thought it would be.

Dan and Malcolm are still working together, with Dan trying to gain his freedom only to have threats thrown his way in return. Dan will continue to be wrapped around Malcolm’s thumb, but it was something he said that stuck with me. Malcolm mentioned that Dan will have to actually shoot him this time, instead of missing, if he wants to get rid of him. Foreshadowing, perhaps?

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This foreshadowing doesn’t wait long, with Malcolm and Dan beating each other up in an alley. Dan initiates it, but he is the one that ends up in trouble because we are led to believe that he might not make it. His strength doesn’t match Malcolm’s, and his fate might be in trouble if the end of the episode is anything to go by. Plus Malcolm gains access to Dan’s phone and the fact that he uses it to cut Dan’s ties to Chloe is worth mentioning.

This episode didn’t give us much in terms of Lucifer’s progression, but I am hoping that we will get to see something actually happen now that he picks up on his changes. Nothing could stir Lucifer awake like the lack of sex with Chloe did and that should manifest itself into the last few episodes of the season in some way. The perfect set up would have to be an actual confrontation between father and son, but I am not sure how far the show will push this plot this season.

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