Lucifer - S2E12 - Love Handles

Previously on Lucifer, “Stewardess Interruptus”

Saw 8: Lucifer Edition

The previously on went way back to the beginning so you knew it was about to be lit. Chloe wakes up from a hot sex dream about Lucifer with Maze hanging out in the room eating popcorn because Maze is a mess and likes to embarrass Chloe. She does point out that maybe Chloe should lighten up and get some real action, and surprisingly, Chloe takes that to heart. Lucifer on the other hand has turned into Cathy. He’s a giant, insecure mess and he’s trying to figure out if Chloe has been manipulated into liking him or if she’s somehow lost her immunity to his charms. The answers are: no and no. Chloe genuinely likes him, as we know, but because she’s trying to be flirty and casual and he already thinks she must be brainwashed, the two of them are basically playing a round of “Who’s On First?” as they awkwardly maneuver around each other.

While they figure out their love lives, the students of a local college are being poisoned by a psycho killer. Someone has been watching too much Saw and decides to present professionals with a moral dilemma: destroy the part of themselves that is essential to their work or an innocent college student will be killed. Okay, sidebar: out of nowhere, Lucifer cast this beautiful, older black actress sporting lovely gray braids to play a blackmailed surgeon. Kudos to their casting department because she also gives an emotional monologue about being a doctor and having to choose between her hand and an innocent student’s life.

Ultimately, she decides to destroy her hand but that’s not enough for the killer played by Tim DeKay (Second Chance). The killer is a former professor who got into a car wreck and saved his thesis rather than the young, Uber driver in the car. He’s determined to prove that anyone would have made that choice. He’s also the man behind the killing last week, since it was his poison, not cocaine, that the stewardess was smuggling into the states. 

This Is Real, Isn’t It?

For the professor’s final test, he places a track star in a vise to cut off his leg in exchange for another student’s life. When Chloe and Lucifer hunt him down, he adds a further twist, releasing a poisonous gas inside the lab so that Chloe must choose between getting to the antidote or potentially killing herself. Lucifer realizes that she’s going to choose to save the students so he gets her to run after the professor which will get her far enough away from him since he’ll be invulnerable to the gas. It’s a great plan because he gets to save the day and Chloe can catch the bad guy. And like Chloe says, they really are a great team.

Too bad Lucifer’s mother has been scheming all day. The Mother is trying to get someone to tell Lucifer that God has something to do with Chloe so she doesn’t have to look like the bad guy. She goes to Dr. Martin, but she’s smart enough (and professional enough) to not put herself in the middle of that can of worms. The Mother then appeals to Maze, who is initially skeptical, but when The Mother starts bringing up things like Chloe’s ability to make Lucifer physically vulnerable, Maze listens because she’s had the same questions about Chloe in the past. The two of them decide to tell him what’s going on but when Lucifer bounces in all happy about his new and totally not manipulated relationship, Maze wants to back out. Unfortunately, Lucifer sees a (hilarious prop) photo from the ’70s of Amendiel and Chloe’s mom on the wall of the bar they’re in and The Mother tells him that God placed Chloe in his path on purpose. The look of pure heartbreak on Tom Ellis’s face is like a gut punch. None of this is real, boo. But Lucifer has no time to process all of this because it looks like Chloe has been poisoned.

The Devil Is Laughing 

“I see you found my love handles” – Dream Lucifer talking about his devil horns.

“Have you ever … you know … made out in a library?” – Chloe trying to flirt. Actually every time Chloe tried to flirt in this episode was gold.

“Better safe than sorry.” – Lucifer putting hand sanitizer on a masturbating librarian’s hands.

For a three-part arc, I’m surprised the second installment has been so eventful. At the top of the episode I was shocked that Lucifer felt insecure about the kiss and questioned Chloe’s motives, but given the ending it made a lot of sense. Lucifer and all the other celestial beings have had every facet of their lives ruled by God for good or bad. It seems like moving to LA was the only choice Lucifer has ever truly made for himself and his second big moment, opening up to Chloe, has been tainted by his father’s machinations. And because God works in mysterious ways, no one knows his true endgame. The Mother is hoping this will force a fight between God and Lucifer and initiate her return to heaven, but I’m not sure that’s where Lucifer wants to go and this revelation might actually drive him further away from all things celestial.