Sunday, May 6, 2018

Lucifer 3.21: “Anything Pierce Can Do, I Can Do Better”

“I’m in. You are my brother and my test, whatever needs to be done.”
- Amenediel

So, going into this episode I had a sinking feeling I wasn’t going to like where it left Lucifer and Choe and the Cain of it all. And boy was I right. I’d love to say I’m surprised by Lucifer’s actions, but at least the way he acted was in character. And hey, I wasn’t the only one disappointed in him. He was, too!

The case involves the murder of a prima ballerina. The first suspect is her understudy (whose shoe was found at the scene and was in fact the murder weapon). But, Lucifer and Chloe are quickly pointed to a new avenue of inquiry: the victim was leaving to host a reality ballet coemption (seriously, do we need any more reality show?). With a little devil mojo thrown in, we learn that the head of the show was blackmailed into hiring the victim and then when he confronted her about it, she quit. Apparently, this guy was a big-name dancer who allegedly suffered a leg injury in a car crash. Thanks to Lucifer’s persuasion, we learn he faked the whole thing. Hence, blackmail.

In the midst of the investigation, we find both Cain and Lucifer trying to win over Chloe. Lucifer won’t admit it at the start but he wants Chloe to be with him. He initially frames it as restoring their partnership to what it was pre-Cain. Linda considers stopping him but doesn’t and she comes to regret it by the end of the episode. In his effort to woo Chloe back to him, Cain orders Maze to back off their plan (although hey his mark is gone). She isn’t going to let things go. She wants to kill Cain and pin it on Lucifer so his life on earth is ruined and he’ll take her back to Hell. She tries to make amends with Chloe in order to further her own objective but I don’t think it works out so well. Lucifer quickly sees what Cain is doing (trying to win Chloe back) and decides it’s going to be a competition of who can be better.

They start with giving her “stuff”. They both give her baked goods and then Cain stuffs her car with roses. Lucifer thinks he can one-up the Lieutenant by buying Chloe a car. She’s initially amused but then when she realizes he did it to one-up Cain, she gives the keys back. I really wish lucifer got out of his own way sometimes and just told her how he felt about her! He also tasks Amenediel (and by extension Charlotte) with finding a way to prove that Cain is the Sinnerman so that they can disrupt Cain’s attempts to win Chloe back.

I will admit, I enjoy Charlotte and Amenediel working together. They are quite fun. They stalk Cain to a meeting with a known fence and then Charlotte takes off on a motorcycle when Cain leaves. She lies about why she was following him (offering to be a rebound) to try and see what he got from the fence. Unfortunately, she can’t get her hands on it and when they break into his place later on, whatever he got from the fence was gone.

Thanks to some sleuthing by the cyber crimes division, Chloe learns that the blackmail video was sent from the IP of the person who runs the ballet company. Lucifer similarly deduced this (though I’m not sure how) and he’s already there when Chloe arrives. They start snooping and Lucifer proclaims the man is a stalker. When the guy gets home and Lucifer grabs him, Chloe realizes it isn’t so nefarious. They were having an affair. Later, Cain invites Chloe over to dinner so he can explain what’s going on. Lucifer overhears and invites Chloe to his place so that he can try to dissuade her from taking his nemesis back. Again, Chloe is impressed at first until she realizes that Lucifer is just trying to beat out Cain. She’s about to head over to see her ex when Ella and Dan discover a reflection in the blackmail video of the male lead in the production.

It’s only at this point that Lucifer realizes what a big mistake he’s made. The killer didn’t want to kill the victim but he did want her out of the way so the understudy could be the lead because he loves her. He was just afraid to admit his feelings to her. So, as Lucifer wallows in his own self-pity and heartache, Linda drops by to tell him she’s sorry for not stopping him. She challenges him to confront why he doesn’t want Chloe to be with Cain. First, he rails about his father’s plan but she calls bullshit on him. It’s an excuse and he knows it. He really wants Chloe to choose him because he loves her (and if Cain’s theory is right that Chloe’s affections make them both vulnerable, then she has feelings for him, too). But, Lucifer’s revelation is too little, too late. He arrives at Chloe’s to watch from the window as Cain proposes to her and she says “yes”. Honestly, I’m not sure why she accepted. She spent most of the episode unhappy with him and saying she couldn’t trust him for what he did. I knew this was where the story was headed based on previews and some other articles I’d read and it’s partly why it took me so long to get this post up. I really have not enjoyed this part of the season because it feels like an artificial way to keep Lucifer and Chloe apart. There was so much promise at the start of the season that now, feels like such a long time ago. Let our leads get together. Let Chloe know the truth and go from there. That can still be an interesting story and quite honestly, if we don’t get to at least Chloe knowing the truth by season’s end (in 3 episodes), I may be done blogging Lucifer.

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