Lucifer 1.06 “Favorite Son”

The Sandman: 5 Stars Read this first, it’s really good. I’m going to just keep putting this here until you do. It’s by the guy who wrote American Gods, you liked that didn’t you?

Lucifer – The Comic: 5 Stars, read it, but not before The Sandman: Seasons of Mist because it connects and stuff. Will also keep putting this here, because it’s a good thing. Good things… are good? I got lost somewhere

The Rundown: Lucifer! Bro! Getting back to your source material gave you such a boost in my esteem. In this week’s episode, something precious has been stolen from Lucifer, and we get to see what really makes him vulnerable. Add in some great tidbits from the comics and this is my favorite episode yet.

So, in this week’s episode Lucifer is brought to consult on a murder/theft by the docks. He quickly loses interest, and almost abandons the Detective (they do actually use her last name this episode, but I still forget it) to her own devices, until he realizes that the stolen items belong to him. He is enraged at the insult to his person, as well as baffled as to who could have known about the shipping container that was stolen in the first place.

So, yes, unlike previous episodes of this police procedural driven show, this week the crime perpetrated was against one of the protagonists themselves! Not just any protagonist, but Lucifer! Now he has a believable reason to be invested in the outcome besides some obscure reference to his ‘role’ as punisher or justice-seeker or whatever they’ve been painting him as. One of my favorite things about this episode, in fact, is it seems to throw away almost every shitty character trait and strange history that was hodgepodged onto his character to begin with. We get a reference to his true name, referenced in the comics (and scripture) as Samael, the Lightbringer. We get that glorious speech about him NOT being a contributing factor in humanity’s drive to do evil. We also get further intel on the location of Lucifer’s wings, which has the potential to lead into one of the more epic threads of the original storyline.

Despite hitting some long awaited sweet notes, there is still a lot to dislike about this episode. Within the span of one episode, lady-cop has gone from begrudgingly allowing Lucifer to tag along, to acting like he’s her best friend. She goes on this whole passionate rant about how she’s ‘afraid’ Lucifer is a criminal, and she’ll be disappointed to find out that she’s right. This goes against everything she’s been about from episode one. From the beginning, she’s been trying to take Lucifer down as a thorn in her side and sometime suspect. All of a sudden she gets real deep with the feels, even establishing that Lucifer has always been honest???

Like, she’s disturbed because Lucifer won’t tell her what’s in the container, because he’s been sooooo forthcoming and above-board the whole time. So yes, it’s nice to see more the cold, angry passion of the character from the comics finally making some kind of transition into the show, but we still get garbage like Amandiel’s pathetic ‘manipulation’ of the therapist.

While this is definitely the best episode of the show so far, I really wish it could drop more of its lame rehashed TV plot points. Still, its return to the source material even in this limited form is a cause to hope! You’ve caused me to hope show! Damn you! I really don’t know how I’m going to take the inevitable let-down when it doesn’t deliver.