“Everything’s Coming Up Lucifer”: A Lucifer Season Premiere Review

Season 2 of Lucifer is here and I’m so excited! I love this trash show. Despite many problematic issues and some stereotyped writing, this show is remarkably entertaining and Season 2 looks set up to be better than the last one. I’m actually surprised by how much I enjoyed the latest episode and by how excited I am for the rest of the season. I was also pleased to find that certain issues with the show have been fixed and that the overall plot for Season 2 involving Lucifer’s mother actually seems like it might be really interesting.

Spoilers for first episode of Lucifer Season 2.

The episode begins with Lucifer and Amenadiel looking for their mother, who recently escaped from Hell. They suspect that she is possessing a recently dead body and keep checking in on people who seemed to have died before miraculously coming back, such as people whose hearts had stopped or who appeared to be braindead for several minutes before coming back. Their pursuit doesn’t turn up anything right away, and while Amenadiel starts to suspect their mother isn’t in L.A., Lucifer isn’t convinced. He believes his mother is pissed because he did nothing when she was sent to hell, leaving her locked away. While he’s looking for his mother, Chloe calls Lucifer in on a case. There’s a girl who was stabbed through her head with metal pipes, making it look like she has devil horns. Lucifer is convinced this is a message from his mother. Chloe also reveals that she has a vial of his blood from when he was shot at the end of last season and that she is going to test it because she doesn’t understand how Lucifer survived. This actually excites Lucifer, who wants Chloe to believe he is the devil and encourages her to do it. The case eventually shows that Lucifer’s mother was in no way involved, leaving Lucifer at square one. He confesses to Dr. Linda that he feels bad for doing nothing when his mother was sent to hell, saying he regretted not hearing her out. The episode ends with a woman walking into Lucifer’s penthouse, wounded, and revealing she is his mother before passing out in Lucifer’s arms.

I am very pleased with the start of this season, especially when it comes to our characters of color. While Lucifer had more characters of color than some shows, they were still very much side characters who were interested primarily in Lucifer and lacking their own story arcs. That thankfully seems to have changed this season. Amenadiel has gone from something of an antagonist to now partnering up with Lucifer to find their mother. The brotherly rivalry between the two is hilarious to watch and the actors seems to play off of each other well. But Amenadiel isn’t just acting as Lucifer’s partner this season. In this first episode, Amenadiel discovers that his powers seem to be lessening and slipping away. Amenadiel is now less concerned with Lucifer and more concerned with what is happening to him. He is also still very much interested in Maze, Lucifer’s demonic henchwoman and bodyguard, though they appear to be on a break.

This season, Maze is on the path to no longer being a lackey to any of our male characters. She tells Lucifer she needs to find her own path away from him, though it’s clear the two are still very much friends and allies, and she also breaks off her romantic relationship with Amenadiel. Amenadiel pretends to be okay with it but seems fairly heartbroken. I’m excited to see how their relationship develops, but I’m more excited to see a female character decide that she needs to take a break from men to find herself. This type of story is rarely given to female characters. I’m also pleased to see that Maze and Dr. Linda have become friends. This show has been greatly lacking female friendships, so I hope that the show gives us lots of scenes between the two and really explores their relationship.

The show has also introduced a new female character of color named Ella Lopez, whose characterization I was initially worried about, but ended up being fantastic. Ella is the new forensic scientist and is so far one of my favorite portrayals of a modern-day Christian. She questions her faith and doesn’t believe things blindly, but still understands that faith is something that you believe whether there is solid proof or not. When she first meets Lucifer, she explains that she thinks the devil gets a bad rap and explains to Chloe how she was taught that to truly follow her faith means to question it. Be still my little religious heart! I love this new character. She also fills in the void of needing an actual religious character in our main cast. Chloe is spiritual but not religious, Dr. Linda has expressed no religious or spiritual interests, nor has Dan, and all our other characters are supernatural beings who don’t need faith because they know things for certain. We saw with Fr. Frank in Season 1 that having an open-minded religious character interact with Lucifer makes for great TV and interesting discussions about theology. I’m still mad about Fr. Frank dying, but Ella fills the void for him almost as well. I say “almost” simply because it was great that Fr. Frank knew Lucifer was the devil, whereas Ella still just thinks Lucifer is a cool dude with a weird name.

Which brings me to one of my main problems with the show: how does no one know Lucifer is actually the devil yet? Chloe seemed to be on the verge of finally figuring things out, but throws out Lucifer’s blood instead of testing it. It’s getting frustrating at this point. I get how maybe Chloe, despite some of the stuff she’s seen Lucifer do, would doubt that Lucifer’s the devil. Chloe is very coldly analytical and wants to test everything until she knows all the facts. So I get her assuming maybe Lucifer is playing tricks or something, but how many times can she see him pull off something supernatural before she believes? The more they stretch it out, the more it seems like she’s just stupid or blatantly in denial instead of just a skeptic. I really want someone human to know the truth. Even Dan, who I very much dislike, has seen Lucifer survive some amazing things and he never seems to even question like Chloe does. The show can’t drag this out much longer. I need someone, hopefully Chloe, to know that Lucifer is the devil by the end of Season 2 or I’m going to be super frustrated.

And finally we have Lucifer’s mother, who only appeared during the last few minutes of the show. I’m extremely interested to see how the show develops this idea of God having a wife and the angels having a mother. I recently discovered that there is more Biblical and historical basis for God having a wife than I originally thought, but still not much is known about her, seeing as she was almost erased from history. According to scholar Francesca Stavrakopoulou, God had a wife that the Israelites worshipped alongside him named Asherah, who is most notably referenced in the Book of Kings. It’s no secret that Judaism wasn’t entirely monotheistic until around 586 B.C. But I never realized the extent of the polytheism until recently. It will be interesting to see how the writers develop her character and I’m extremely excited to see this new family dynamic play out. We have no idea what her name is yet, as she is only referred to as Mom. But I will be really excited if it is Asherah or some variation of it.

It was a bold and interesting risk to give God a wife and Lucifer a mother, and having her be locked away in hell could potentially make her seem like yet another evil Biblical woman. Despite only seeing a few seconds of her in this episode, though, I’m excited because of how Lucifer talked about her, and because of the sneak peek released for the next episode. I was initially worried that Mom would either be the stereotypical evil woman or that God would seem evil; at least one option seemed unavoidable. But I think part of what relieved me was the very human route that the show is taking with it. Lucifer describes to Dr. Linda that when he was kicked out of heaven, his mother did nothing and just let it happen. So when she was sent to hell, he also did nothing. He later, as I mentioned earlier, regrets this. God, his wife, and Lucifer (and other angels like Amenadiel) are portrayed as very human. They are a normal family with family issues and drama, just ones on a literally cosmic scale. This takes some of the pressure off of the writers to portray any character, God included, as perfect. Based on the sneak peek, Lucifer’s mother doesn’t seem to be interested in getting revenge of any sort on Lucifer or any of her children. In a lot of ways it seems like she just wants a relationship with them again. The family drama could be potentially fascinating and I’ll be excited to see how Mom’s presence is handled by Chloe.

However, apparently I have to wait two weeks for the next episode thanks to the presidential debate, so for now I’m just fanatically watching sneak previews for the rest of the season and counting down the days until the next episode. Are you excited about Season 2 of Lucifer? Let me know in the comments!

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