Tuesday, March 6, 2018

Lucifer 3.16: “Infernal Guinea Pig”

“Let’s put Abel in this old coot. He gets a second chance at life and you get a chance at death.”
- Lucifer

Lucifer and Cain are trying their hand at resurrection this week as Chloe investigates a bomb that was delivered to a Hollywood producer. It wouldn’t be “Lucifer” if the procedural and the supernatural didn’t mix and hey, we actually progressed some of the smaller plotlines, too. Lucifer has the big idea to go down to Hell and bring Abel’s soul into a recently dead person so that he is technically alive again, hoping that will cure Cain’s ills. Of course, it doesn’t go off as planned. Unfortunately (although it makes for some amusing sight gags), Abel’s soul ends up in the body of the would-be victim of the bomb attack. She gets up and strolls out of the hospital with purpose (apparently those life-threatening injuries don’t mean a thing when you’ve got a new soul in the body). Then again, that does track with Charlotte being possessed by Mom.

So, while Chloe and Dan dig into a potential stalker who just turns out to be a conspiracy theorist who is actually right about a drug cartel connection, Lucifer and Cain head off to look for the newly resurrected Abel. Apparently, Abel’s hell loop involved him partying and eating a lot and always getting killed by Cain. So, they think with their manly parts and find Abel at a roof top pool party. Unfortunately, Amenediel found Abel first and has given her a gun to kill herself so she’ll go back to Hell. That isn’t likely to happen, when the drug cartel hit man pops up and she shoots him. A little later, we also learn that Lucifer’s latest theory—that if Cain gets killed by Abel (making thing seven), the curse will be gone—is dead wrong. Concerned that the drug cartel isn’t finished coming after Abel, Cain sends Chloe and Charlotte in to offer her a plea deal. Which Abel takes really easily.

While all of the craziness is going down, Linda tries to get Charlotte to open up about her trauma and make her patient understand that Linda knows what she’s talking about and that she needs to start her healing process by confronting her personal hell. Charlotte eventually agrees to this (after an interaction with Abel) and we finally learn what her hell loop was: her family being shot to death every morning by a different criminal she helped go free as a defense attorney. I honestly hope that Charlotte is able to move forward and deal with her trauma. I have to admit I wasn’t expecting her to take this kind of a turn and become a sympathetic character after Mom. But I’m liking it.

Speaking of traumatic experiences, Maze is still on the warpath with Amenediel and Lucifer enlists her to keep his angelic big brother occupied while he and Cain try to find a way to remove the curse. This leads to Maze tricking Amenediel and beating him up until he tells her that he doesn’t get why she’s mad when she dumped him and that hurting him won’t make anything better. In fact, it’s just hurting Linda more. Maze, obviously upset, storms off. I really hope the three of them can sort this out because the drama is so petty and ridiculous. I get that Maze is still new to human emotions but she’s been dealing with them long enough she should have some kind of control over them! But, I suppose that’s asking a lot of a demon who up until recently didn’t know she could experience human emotions.

Lucifer soon finds he has a little lack of control over his own feelings when he and Chloe take Abel to the Hollywood producer’s office. A previous visit yielded the nugget that the assistant (whom Abel is now inhabiting) was the only one who could open the desk drawer certain files in it. A little too late, Chloe realizes said file drawer is a trap and is rigged with another explosive. Lucifer is mentally kicking himself for putting Chloe in danger (see: Amenediel is right when he says that there’s more for God to take away from Lucifer if he continues to be defiant). But with a little teamwork and guidance from Cain, Chloe is able to diffuse the bomb and everyone is safe. It turns out the producer was laundering money for the cartel and the assistant found out and thus they tried to kill her. As murder plots go, it’s not super original but with this show, it doesn’t really need to be. Not when we have such heavy mythology going on right now.

So, it’s another case solved but things with Lucifer and Cain are far from settled. Cain still bears his mark and Abel is out in the world. And now, because Lucifer can’t justify putting Chloe in danger, he’s breaking his word to Cain about helping him die. This surprises Cain, seeing as Lucifer never breaks his deals. That’s kind of his whole schtick as the devil. Something tells me that Lucifer isn’t going to completely set up of the line of fire. He’s too invested in seeing his father be snubbed. I’m eager to see how the new dynamic between Cain and Abel develops as well. I understand that they had sibling rivalry but I want to know more about how it developed and why and whether now, after millennia of growth, they can put their angst aside and get along. Maybe see that there have more in common than they thought. And for the love of all things holy, please let Chloe find out the truth about Lucifer. I’m tired of sounding like a broken record but it is well past time that she knows. I mean, she was all jealous that Lucifer and Cain were working together on part of the case. It’s obvious they care about one another and are supposed to be together. So, just do it already! The will-they-won’t-they is getting boring.

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