Kevin Alejandro Answers a Burning Question About Dan Espinoza and ‘Lucifer’ Season 6 [Interview]

Warning: This article contains major spoilers for Lucifer Season 5.

Lucifer Season 5 ends with a bang, and for one character in particular, we’re still left with some burning questions. 

I recently spoke with Kevin Alejandro about the second half of the season, filming the musical episode, and whether or not his character Dan would be back for Season 6.

Season 5 is a big one for Dan. In the first half of the season, he learns who Lucifer really is, which leads him to face life’s most important existential questions. In the second half, he’s shot and killed, leaving everyone around him devastated.

Alejandro told me that emotional death was something he wanted to see happen for his character and the show. 

The Lucifer Season 5 finale was nearly the last episode of the series. It wasn’t until the cast and crew were nearly finished shooting the season that they learned Netflix was bringing the show back for one more.

So, believing that the series would end with Season 5, Alejandro had a conversation with showrunners Joe Henderson and Ildy Modrovich where he pitched the idea that Dan would die.

He said he felt that “the audience is really starting to understand who Dan is. And not only understand him, but I think the audience is really starting to like him. It might be a really impactful thing if before they fully grow to love him, that he’s taken away.”

He noted that he wasn’t sure if this was something the writers had already planned, but he felt like he had some influence over that story. For Alejandro, this really felt like the right move for Dan.

“He is, in my opinion, one of the most human characters on the show. He has a relationship with everybody that pivots around him,” he said, adding that he felt it would be “a beautiful, poetic way to go out.”

Of course, it wasn’t until after that plan for Dan that they found out they’d be coming back for another season. Though for a show like Lucifer, a character being killed off doesn’t mean we’ll never see them again.

The question for Dan now is where he wound up in the afterlife — and if we’ll get to see him again. Alejandro did confirm that he will be back for the final season of the series.

“Joe and Ildy had already come up with a way to bring me back that was respectful and not cheesy in any sort of way. And they gave me the opportunity to end the show with everybody because that was really what I wanted to do,” he said. “I wanted to end it with the family that we all created.”

“Dan is back in some capacity. I’m not sure that it’s in a way that people will expect,” Alejandro continued. “What I can say is that his process in life and the way he analyzes things and goes through his life to make decisions hasn’t changed in his death. He has his own emotional journey to explore in Season 6.”

Dan’s death was foreshadowed in a few ways, and Alejandro noted, in particular, how much his character is forced to endure on Lucifer Season 5 Episode 12, “Daniel Espinoza: Naked and Afraid.”

“He goes through every emotional outburst that a human being could go through. If you looked at it that way, that could be a little bit of foreshadowing,” Alejandro noted. “It’s like, how much can this one person really endure?”

Alejandro also spoke to the relationship his character has with Chloe Decker and how that affected the emotional scene where Chloe finds that Dan has been shot.

“Those two characters are really sort of a representation of where we’re at in today’s society. People don’t just stay together because that’s what’s said that you have to do,” he said. “There is a genuine love and a genuine respect for each other; it just didn’t work in that capacity. However, they’re great parents. They co-parent together, and I really like that part of who they were.”

“With the inevitable ending of Dan, for him to pass in her arms, it had to be that way. It had to be that way, because she’s the only true person that knows and accepts him for everything that he is,” Alejandro said. “It was a very difficult scene for both Lauren [German] and I to shoot, because we both have that mutual respect for each other as colleagues and as friends as well.”

He recalled more details about shooting that scene, and how the location helped to set the tone.

“We shot in a really amazing location. It was the old train station in downtown,” he explained. “I think they shot parts of Batman in there as well. So it just has this sort of tomb-like feeling.”  

“We all knew what we were shooting. We all knew what we were about to go through. But that atmosphere really solidified that tone,” Alejandro continued. “We’re usually a loud, joking, fun group of people, but on that day, it was more smiles and chuckles as opposed to outright laughter and giggles, because we all understood the gravity of what we were doing. And there was a good respect for the way that the story was being laid out. We just respected the moment so much.”

The second half of Season 5 also includes plenty of light-hearted moments, and some truly fun ones for Dan. The long-awaited musical episode, for example, allows him to shine in a new way when he performs “Hell” by Squirrel Nut Zippers.

“I hadn’t been able to do musical theater or theater in general in over twenty years, so all of those wonderful nerves and insecurities came back,” Alejandro recalled.

“I got to experience all different kinds of things that I would never get to experience, like going into a recording studio and recording a song and learning all this great dance choreography,” he added. “It felt so good to be able to tap into that part of what I can do and challenge myself.”

Dan also has the chance to meet God himself in the second half of the season, and then he realizes that he’d slept with God’s wife. That interaction is another fun one for Alejandro’s character.

“Dennis [Haysbert] was a perfect addition to the show. I can’t imagine anyone else doing what he did,” Alejandro said. “His voice, his presence. He didn’t have to do anything. He does have this celestial personality to his entire being.” 

“Dennis naturally has this giant presence that’s kind of intimidating if you don’t know him, so I think that lent itself to the awkwardness that Dan felt,” he added.

He also noted what a fun responsibility it was to be able to introduce that character on Lucifer Season 5 Episode 8, “Spoiler Alert.” 

Speaking of directing, Alejandro participated in Season 6 in that capacity again as well. He confirmed that he directed the Season 6 premiere as well as the penultimate episode of the series. 

“Both were just amazing experiences, but completely different because the COVID of it all made it a little more challenging,” he said. “But we still got through it, and we did it together. It’s a great mirror of the struggle and journey that our show has taken in itself, going from one network to another, from one cancellation to a savior, to a series finale, and then one more season after that. It was a great, great, great experience. I’m so lucky to be a part of it.”

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Lucifer Season 5B is currently streaming on Netflix. 

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