Lucifer - S3E16 - Infernal Guinea Pig

Previously on Lucifer, “High School Poppycock”

Brother to Brother

After last week’s flash of inspiration, I thought Lucifer had a grand plan. Turns out, he should have kept to the drawing board. His grand plan is to bring Abel back from the dead, implant him in a new body and that will “erase” what Cain did and remove his mark … I am truly disappointed in Lucifer for thinking this was a good idea. Things go from bad to worse when Abel lands in the body of a young woman instead of the 90-year-old man they were hoping to put him in. This leads to Lucifer and Pierce running interference so Chloe doesn’t discover that Abel is in the body of her witness.

Although the A plot is all over the place, we do get some gems to move the story forward. First, Abel is in hell. Turns out he hated Cain too but Cain “won” their fight and murdered Abel so he’s the cursed one. Second, Abel was the first soul in hell and the demons perfected their torture on him. His hell loop, which we first learned about in “Off The Record”, is Cain killing him again and again. This gives us some touchstones to Maze and Charlotte’s characters.

Tortured

Maze is still hurting over Amenadiel and Linda. So much so that when Pierce tells her that Amenadiel wants to stop Lucifer from getting to Abel, she immediately agrees to help. Like Amenadiel, I wonder how long we’re going to drag this out. Maze broke up with him, now Amenadiel and Dr. Linda are broken up, I’m looking like that Tyrese video; what more do you want from them, Maze?

Charlotte’s arc is a lot meatier. She has been trying to jog her memory and get back the time she lost while she was in hell and The Mother was running around in her body. But all of that is really a smokescreen because what she’s really terrified of is going back to hell. We find out her hell loop was watching her family be killed by one of the guilty criminals she knowingly helped stay out of jail. Tricia Helfer is pitch perfect with her portrayal of Charlotte’s inner turmoil.

To wrap up the story, Lucifer futzing around with Pierce inadvertently leads to Chloe having to defuse a bomb so he decides that working with Pierce is distracting him and putting Chloe’s life in danger. Abel is still in the young woman’s body, but gets hit by an ambulance because he doesn’t know how to cross the street. Pierce is back at square one trying to figure out how to die.

The show is still treading some water though there were great character moments from Maze and Charlotte in this episode. Lucifer’s plan was ill-conceived and him bailing on Pierce (especially after he convinced him to go along with his crazy plans) is unfair and childish. Chloe will be alright and Lucifer hanging out with Pierce for the day does not directly correlate with Chloe having to defuse a bomb.