Lucifer, Season 2

[random11]

Every end of an episode I'm still annoyed when I see the "based on the character from the comic" title.
Lucifer in the show is an airhead who thinks only he exists in the world, Lucifer in the comic knew others existed but he just didn't care.

But enough about this argument, I had an entire season to complain about that.
So just to be original, here are the two things that bothered me in the first episode of the season:

1) Maze said that she tried to break "Mother" for hundreds of years and failed, but it doesn't surprise me considering that she "tortured" someone in this episode with feathers and glue.
Really?! 2000 years of an expert torturer and THIS is what you do?
Maze, what did they do to you...

2) The powers of both Lucifer and Amenadiel are now unstable, sometimes working and sometimes not.
I should be happy now that there is some sort of a challenge to the characters, but I have a fear that the writers will use this instability to activate the powers whenever it is useful to the plot.
I hope I'm wrong, but I don't think so.

[DiscipleofBob]

Every end of an episode I'm still annoyed when I see the "based on the character from the comic" title.
Lucifer in the show is an airhead who thinks only he exists in the world, Lucifer in the comic knew others existed but he just didn't care.

But enough about this argument, I had an entire season to complain about that.

Season One was one of my favorite shows on television. Granted, I've never read the original comic. I expect if I had I'd be disappointed with the TV version, but now I also assume if I were to go read the comic now I'd be pining for the TV version.

I can sympathize though. Any time someone claims that Arrow is faithful to the comics makes me want to punch them through the Internet.

1) Maze said that she tried to break "Mother" for hundreds of years and failed, but it doesn't surprise me considering that she "tortured" someone in this episode with feathers and glue.
Really?! 2000 years of an expert torturer and THIS is what you do?
Maze, what did they do to you...

You missed the taser she also had. And I'm sure part of it was her only wanting to vent a little steam and not completely break him, lest Lucifer get in trouble with the authorities. Not to mention it's implied she spent the mid-season break becoming more, for lack of a better term, human.

2) The powers of both Lucifer and Amenadiel are now unstable, sometimes working and sometimes not.
I should be happy now that there is some sort of a challenge to the characters, but I have a fear that the writers will use this instability to activate the powers whenever it is useful to the plot.
I hope I'm wrong, but I don't think so.

As far as we know Lucifer's invulnerability is still only negated when the detective's around. Amenadiel we don't know exactly what, but it seems his time slow just lasts shorter than usual. I suppose there would be an awful lot of subplots that could be solved easily either way.

I just hope the entire season won't be Lucifer taking a beating because the detective's shown up and he'll be allowed to dole out some real punishment on the bad guys.

[random11]

Season One was one of my favorite shows on television. Granted, I've never read the original comic. I expect if I had I'd be disappointed with the TV version, but now I also assume if I were to go read the comic now I'd be pining for the TV version.

I can sympathize though. Any time someone claims that Arrow is faithful to the comics makes me want to punch them through the Internet.

Even without the comic I see it as yet another "cop plus one". Somewhere between the smugness (and "powers") from the mentalist, the quirky bits of Castle and social awkwardness from Bones.
The point is, we've seen it a million times already.
I don't think the show is BAD, but I do consider it a missed opportunity.

You missed the taser she also had. And I'm sure part of it was her only wanting to vent a little steam and not completely break him, lest Lucifer get in trouble with the authorities. Not to mention it's implied she spent the mid-season break becoming more, for lack of a better term, human.

And this here is my problem, if you quickly move all your unique characters more toward human, they lose what makes them special.
You can't have it both ways, you can't create a badass character that tortured people for centuries, only to become harmless prankster in a few weeks. At least if it was shown that Lucifer had to stop her from doing much worse and that she is disappointed about it.

And just for comparison, do you know what Maze did in the comic when she left Lucifer for a while?
Not a major spoiler: Took control of an entire race as her army and came back to be Lucifer's equal instead of his servant in one of the more memorable chapters in the series.

As far as we know Lucifer's invulnerability is still only negated when the detective's around. Amenadiel we don't know exactly what, but it seems his time slow just lasts shorter than usual. I suppose there would be an awful lot of subplots that could be solved easily either way.

I just hope the entire season won't be Lucifer taking a beating because the detective's shown up and he'll be allowed to dole out some real punishment on the bad guys.

I might be wrong, but I think this time his invulnerability disappeared before Chloe arrived to the scene, meaning that this time she saved him.
Need to check it though.

[Olinser]

Oh crap did it start up again already?!?!

I gotta go find a place to watch it.

[Kislath]

That "glue" looked like tar to me. She tarred & feathered him, and that was after a lot of cattle-prod zapping.
This might be a kinder, gentler Maze, but she's still pretty mean.

I'm not sure what's up with Amen losing his powers. He might just be spending way too much time on Earth.

I sure hope that vial of Lucifer's blood makes it's way into the cute new CSI girl's lab despite currently being in a trash can. It would be fun to see her find that it has no DNA and is not of any known blood type. Being a Christian, maybe she'll figure out who Lucifer is long before Chloe does.

[Olinser]

All right.

Detective Douche is back? SERIOUSLY? And with barely a 10 second explanation that is questionable at best? Come on. Why does he exist as a character. Lucifer seems to have stopped trying to sleep with Chloe, so he literally has no point in this show anymore.

As for why Amenadiel is losing his powers - I'm guessing it is because he was healed with one of Lucifer's feathers, he's now 'linked' to Lucifer. So if Lucifer is close to Chloe, Amenadiel loses his powers for the same amount of time (or there may be some kind of battery effect - i.e. if Lucifer is with Chloe for 10 minutes, Amenadiel still has a limited a mount of power tat he's saved, but it takes him a while to 'charge' back up). It's a little hard to tell exactly where Lucifer and Chloe are when he's losing his powers, but that's my best guess.

Lucifer appears to be the same. He only lost his powers when Chloe was in the immediate area.

The only other thing I could think of would be just mental, Amenadiel is questioning his role in Heaven and starting to lose his powers. But that doesn't make a huge amount of sense since Lucifer still had his full powers even after being cast out completely.

The blood is going to HAVE to feature somewhere again. I mean it was literally pointless if it doesn't come back. I'm guessing somebody sees it in the trash, thought it fell off the desk, and takes it to the lab since it is fully labeled and everything.

[Kislath]

Okay... how does Mum know what a cellphone even is, let alone how to use one or disable one in water?

[random11]

I though Lucifer was a clueless moron when it came to humans.
Then I saw his mother...

[comicshorse]

Okay... how does Mum know what a cellphone even is, let alone how to use one or disable one in water?

I presumed it was more about putting it inside something to dampen the annoying sound, the fact that the water shut it down completely was just a happy accident

And oh poor Amenadiel, I can't help feel this is Dad's less than subtle way of pointing out he doesn't approve of who he was sleeping with

[Olinser]

Okay... how does Mum know what a cellphone even is, let alone how to use one or disable one in water?

Same reason she speaks English. Presumably she vacuumed up somebody's knowledge by some divine method - possession, brain sucking, or just good ole mind reading.

Alternatively, its unclear exactly how long she has been out, she probably just learned on her own. A basic cell phone is not a complicated piece of hardware to use, they're EVERYWHERE now, and 'don't put it in water or it will stop working' is one of the most basic facts about a cell phone you can know.

Now if she hacks into the police database I'll call shenanigans.

[random11]

And oh poor Amenadiel, I can't help feel this is Dad's less than subtle way of pointing out he doesn't approve of who he was sleeping with

I must add that Amenadiel's story is much more interesting than the one involving the main characters.

[Kislath]

Amen is having some serious problems. Poor guy. I don't suppose that angel wings just moult, eh?
I kinda wished that Dr. Linda would run across the hall to see what the screaming was about and see his wings.

Back to the cellphone thing, Charlotte knew what a cellphone was, but not a credit card?
Maybe it was just a case of "make the noisy thing stop." after all.

She'd better not suddenly know how to drive a car next week.

I liked the bit at the end when she looked up to Heaven and smirked mockingly, resulting in a lot of lightning and thunder out of the blue.
If the Old Man is watching, he's bound to be a wee bit irritated.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Maybe it was just a case of "make the noisy thing stop." after all.

I thought this was the clear interpretation: noisy thing was bothering her, so she dunked it in water, which she knows dampens sounds. If she knew how to use it, she would have answered it (if only to ask them where Lucifer is).

AS to drive a car, I'd expect Lucifer to give her lessons on modern life off-screen (maybe with a bit of a montage or have them in the intro completing the training)

GW

[random11]

BTW, it seems like something important was ignored here, the body "mother" took has family.

No one will ask why the woman didn't return home to her husband and children?
Should we expect multiple awkward moments explained by loss of memory, or will it be swept under the rug and ignored in the next episodes?

[Olinser]

Amen is having some serious problems. Poor guy. I don't suppose that angel wings just moult, eh?
I kinda wished that Dr. Linda would run across the hall to see what the screaming was about and see his wings.

Back to the cellphone thing, Charlotte knew what a cellphone was, but not a credit card?
Maybe it was just a case of "make the noisy thing stop." after all.

She'd better not suddenly know how to drive a car next week.

I liked the bit at the end when she looked up to Heaven and smirked mockingly, resulting in a lot of lightning and thunder out of the blue.
If the Old Man is watching, he's bound to be a wee bit irritated.

I mean I said it last season - Amenadiel engaged in some SERIOUSLY questionable actions in his campaign to get Lucifer back to Hell that unambiguously resulted in the deaths of multiple completely innocent people.

Since his final show had him explicitly tell the therapist that he needed to 'atone', it sounds like Amenadiel at least thinks his powers and wings are being taken away because he's finally crossed the line enough to face consequences.

[Clertar]

I prefer the original to the remake, personally.

Spoiler

Show

[comicshorse]

Hmmm, Mum seemed genuinely surprised by her abilities at the end there to me

[Kislath]

Ok, it's been a few episodes since we talked about this show, I'm not sure why.. but tonight's show was a good one.

SPOILERS AHEAD!!!! ( really good ones! )

To catch you up in case you missed it, Maze has moved in with Chloe. Yes, they are now roommates! Things haven't exactly gone very smoothly.
This week, though, Maze took Trixie out Trick-or-Treating.
Maze intimidated people into giving Trixie much more candy, and CASH, than she normally would have gotten. Maze admitted that this whole trick-or-treating thing was a lot more fun than she had anticipated.
Trixie lamented that Maze wasn't wearing a costume.
Maze decided to "put one on," and started wearing her true face, worried that Trixie would be traumatized.
"COOL!" said Trixie. "Now we'll get LOTS more candy!"
*sigh* Kids today...

Meanwhile...

Last week, another Angelic brother showed up. Uriel, this time.
Uriel has a cool power to see patterns and connections in all things, and to make things happen with just one teensy little adjustment here or there.
For example, he moved a guy's skateboard just a few inches to one side as it lay in someone's front yard, and it resulted moments later in a crazy chain reaction of events which resulted in Chloe getting banged up in a car crash.

He confronted Lucifer with an ultimatum-- "cough up Mom so I can take her back to Hell, or I'll kill Chloe next time."
Lots of stuff happened.
In the end, it turned out that Uriel had stolen the Blade of Azrael, and his real plan was to KILL Mom. Soul-kill her, that is; no more Hell or heaven for her, just non-existence.
Even worse, because Lucifer had made things SO difficult, he said that he would kill both Mom AND Chloe!
Lucifer then got ahold of the Blade and killed Uriel.

Lucifer was really broken up over this. He had never killed anyone, let alone a brother, and he started cracking up over it.

Okay, so now we come back to THIS week. Lucifer is not his good old self. At all. He starts acting all crazy in a subconscious desire to be punished, and it's causing some serious problems for everyone. Heck, he even recklessly flashed his fire-eyes at a suspect in the prologue to frighten him.
Whoops, wrong guy. Innocent.
They get on the trail of the real killer, though, and when they finally catch him, it turns out that the killer was also just trying to get himself punished for something that wasn't even his fault. Lucifer could relate to that, and indeed had tried to get himself shot during the confrontation.

Chloe has had enough. She begs Lucifer to tell her what's wrong, and says that she'll understand, but he says that there is no possible way she could ever understand. She said "fine, then go talk to your therapist or something before your problems eat you alive."

So he does.

He goes to see Dr. Linda, and tries to talk about his problems, but she just can't stand it anymore. She says that she can't work like this, with all of the wacky metaphors and fantasies. She says that she can't help him unless he's finally totally honest with her. If he wants her help, he has to cut the crap.

Okay...you asked for it.

YES! He finally showed her his true face.

She turned into a quivering mass of gelatinous fear, quietly gibbering and having a spazz attack in her chair.

Unable to rouse her from her near-catatonic state, Lucifer just walked away and left her there to get a grip.
---episode ends---

The previews for next week suggest that she isn't coping well with the situation. Wait'll she figures out that Maze is a demon! LOL

[random11]

I'm impressed, a good episode.
It's amazing what you can come up with when you have writing and acting that contain actual emotions that are built and not just pop out of nowhere.

I didn't like Uriel as a character (or as I called him, the Rube Goldberg machine angel), nor did I like his episode with all the plot holes, but I can't ignore the impact it had on this one, so kudos!


As for criticism, I wasn't very impressed with the real face of both Maze and Lucifer.
Maybe they should get a couple of guys from the team that works on "Ash vs the Evil Dead". One makeup session from them, and the doctor's reaction could have looked more natural.

[comicshorse]

Trixie lamented that Maze wasn't wearing a costume.
Maze decided to "put one on," and started wearing her true face, worried that Trixie would be traumatized.

I thought the actress who plays Maze portrayed this wonderfully. Yes she was worried Trixie would be traumatized but, I think, she was just as worried that it would mean Trixie would reject her
(Cuteness the one power that effects all supernatural beings)

And it seems wonderfully convenient that the result of Mum and Amendiel's conversation is Amen deciding that Dad is to blame for it all

[Pronounceable]

This is going great. I sure am glad not a diehard fan of comics, or I wouldn't be able to watch this.

I kinda miss Detective Stache tho. He was pretty amusing.
Mom is totally up to something, that's not how a grieving mother acts.
I like Maze, I like Doctor, I like Detective Douche. Pretty much all the cast is great. Though forensics girl was missing this time, I thought all main cast is supposed to appear in every episode of a TV series.

[Olinser]

This is going great. I sure am glad not a diehard fan of comics, or I wouldn't be able to watch this.

I kinda miss Detective Stache tho. He was pretty amusing.
Mom is totally up to something, that's not how a grieving mother acts.
I like Maze, I like Doctor, I like Detective Douche. Pretty much all the cast is great. Though forensics girl was missing this time, I thought all main cast is supposed to appear in every episode of a TV series.

Oh yeah. Mom is totally scheming something up. The only question is what that scheme is and who is going to be affected.

My guess from what's happened so far is that she's going to try and turn Lucifer from little-kid tantrum of "you can't tell me what to do and you can't make me do my chores!" (chores in this case, being running Hell) towards open revolt and trying to take over Heaven from God.

Uriel was the next logical step down this road - now she can use him as an example of, "Look how bad this place has gotten with HIM in charge. You and I could run it so much better, so the angels don't have to knife each other."

[random11]

This is going great. I sure am glad not a diehard fan of comics, or I wouldn't be able to watch this.

I'm a big fan of the comic, which is why I didn't like the first season.
In all the first season, they didn't even get close to the comic, but they kept winking at audience with JUST enough hints that someone in the writers team did read the comic.
The result was annoyance instead of nostalgic.

In the second season, they removed the shackles of the comic. They were still not original since they stayed with the "detective plus one" script, but at least they weren't restricted anymore, which allowed them to take some original directions.
I may not like all the directions, and I certainly still prefer the comic, but now it's something different that can be judged by itself.

It took me awhile to understand what bothers me about the "detective plus one" shows, what makes them bad and what can make them possibly good.
The basic problem is in shows that you take an eccentric special character, but then all the plot focuses on mundane police investigations. This restricts everything that can make the character and the show special.
Lucifer was swimming in this problem until the last episode with Uriel. In that episode, the focus shifted from the police investigation of normal murders to Lucifer and his world.
So now, instead of being the focus, the police investigation only acts as a way to balance the insane plot and to create a parallel human motive.
This is a good thing, and I do hope they continue in this path.

[Kislath]

Ashara ( Mom ) is definitely up to no good. Lucifer is going to wind up thinking that Uriel was right all along before this is over, I'll bet.

He might even kill her himself. I'm assuming he still has the Blade of Azrael?
( OH! About that-- did you notice that they referred to Azrael as a "her?" Female angels? Really?? GRRR )


The big question is "how much damage will she do before she's stopped?"

Since God didn't send Uriel, I can only wonder what His whole take is on the situation. Mysterious ways, and all that, he must have known what would happen and has a plan. Is this whole thing some sort of test to see if Lucifer is finally ready for... something?

Poor Lucifer. I didn't catch it at the time, but there was more to the scene at the end when he revealed himself to Dr Linda. The one time when he really needed acceptance and understanding, all he got was rejection and the guilt from terrorizing her. He must have felt like crap.
Heh. Sympathy for the Devil.

I've also noticed one thing about angels. They seem so far to each be the embodiment of some facet/aspect of God. The range and scope of their varied powers makes each one very unique in some major way, as if each one was given one or two of God's powers. I think that's very cool. It makes me wonder if that's important somehow.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

( OH! About that-- did you notice that they referred to Azrael as a "her?" Female angels? Really?? GRRR )

Given that they are establishing the God-Mom-angels as a "regular" family (with the angels having had childhoods and the parents going through a bad divorce, with a missing mom and a distant dad as a result), why would there not be female angels?

Grey Wolf

[Brother Oni]

Given that they are establishing the God-Mom-angels as a "regular" family (with the angels having had childhoods and the parents going through a bad divorce, with a missing mom and a distant dad as a result), why would there not be female angels?

So far in Lucifer, we've seen 3 male angels (2 white and 1 black) and heard mention of 1 female one.
If we include Constantine TV, we've got Manny and Imogen (1 black male, 1 white female).

I'm with Grey Wolf on this - why are female angels raising eyebrows if different skin colours didn't?

[Eldan]

Well, it's a departure from Biblical and other classical Angel lore, which pretty firmly establishes them as the sons of god.

That said, everything else is a departure too, so I don't have much of a problem.

[Olinser]

So far in Lucifer, we've seen 3 male angels (2 white and 1 black) and heard mention of 1 female one.
If we include Constantine TV, we've got Manny and Imogen (1 black male, 1 white female).

I'm with Grey Wolf on this - why are female angels raising eyebrows if different skin colours didn't?

Well the major objection in this case is that in the comic Angels are actually sexless.

These objections were actually initially raised last season when Amenadiel was shown to be capable of actually having sex with Maze (and when Lucifer was actually determined to have normal equipment - although the rebuttal there was that was only the case because he'd cut off his wings) This is just a continuation of that objection.

[Brother Oni]

Poor Lucifer. I didn't catch it at the time, but there was more to the scene at the end when he revealed himself to Dr Linda. The one time when he really needed acceptance and understanding, all he got was rejection and the guilt from terrorizing her. He must have felt like crap.

Well it's a running theme that humanity must not get a glimpse of the divine. Lucifer's wings caused enough of a stir - imagine coming into contact with the original owner, let alone the entire challenging of your perception of the universe.

Well the major objection in this case is that in the comic Angels are actually sexless.

These objections were actually initially raised last season when Amenadiel was shown to be capable of actually having sex with Maze (and when Lucifer was actually determined to have normal equipment - although the rebuttal there was that was only the case because he'd cut off his wings) This is just a continuation of that objection.

Ah, so it's not an objection to female angels but an objection to there being either male or female angels in the first place. That's a perfectly legitimate quibble especially since as you've said, angels being sexless is a major plot point in the comics.

[Olinser]

Well it's a running theme that humanity must not get a glimpse of the divine. Lucifer's wings caused enough of a stir - imagine coming into contact with the original owner, let alone the entire challenging of your perception of the universe.



Ah, so it's not an objection to female angels but an objection to there being either male or female angels in the first place. That's a perfectly legitimate quibble especially since as you've said, angels being sexless is a major plot point in the comics.

Right, the race thing is a complete non-issue since that's not even what the angels actually look like - Lucifer has shown his real face several times now, and I recall him egging on Amenadiel trying to get him to show his 'real' face as well. So if they can hide their real faces, it stands to reason they can pick whatever skin color they want.

Functional male and female, on the other hand, raises a whole host of other issues.