Lucifer Season 5 Part 2 Review: Always a Good Time, But We Have Some Questions
Warning: This review contains spoilers for the entirety of Lucifer Season 5 Part 2.
Lucifer Season 5 Part 2 is about what you’d expect from this show. It’s a good batch of episodes featuring some laughs and a lot of heart. It’s nothing fantastic, but it will keep you entertained.
There are some pacing issues and some annoyingly out-of-character choices made by our favorite characters that bring the second half of Season 5 down a bit. But, let’s discuss where Lucifer Season 5 Part 2 excels first.
Once you get past the weirdness of the Allstate guy being God, you can appreciate just how much levity he brings to the season. He’s such an unexpected source of comedy, which is part of the reason it works so well. No one expects God to get a kick out of making people break out into musical numbers.
God also allows the family dynamic to move more to the forefront of the series, giving us a chance to learn a lot more about Lucifer and Amenadiel.
It’s one thing to hear about Lucifer’s relationship with God and how strained it is, and it’s another thing to see them together. We get a chance to witness what Lucifer’s had to put up with and form our own opinions on his relationship with God.
There’s a good balance between the humorous moments where God attempts to insert himself in Lucifer’s life to get to know him better and the heartbreaking ones. The series doesn’t shy away from showing us how broken their relationship is and that one visit can’t fix the damage to Lucifer’s mental health that the relationship has caused.
Outside of the celestial family, there’s so much fun in watching everyone interact with God. Despite not being in the know, Ella has some beautiful moments with him that help demonstrate what kind of God he is to those who believe in him. Dan, of course, gets slightly different but highly hilarious (and dangerous) interactions with God.
Dan: Maybe I misunderstood, but I think he suggested that, uh, Charlotte was his wife.
Amenadiel: Oh…yeah. For a while my mom, the goddess almighty, was inhabiting Charlotte’s body.
Dan: Right.
Amenadiel: Yeah.
Dan: And I’m just wondering, was the goddess ever inhabiting Charlotte’s body while I was inhabiting Charlotte’s body?
Amenadiel: See I prefer not to talk about this, Dan, but I do believe that there was some, um… overlap.
Dan: Cool. Cool, cool, cool. And when the Bible says that your dad is a, uh, jealous God is that like a literal thing? I mean surely he’s above all those petty human foibles and feelings, right, like jealousy or murderous, revenge-driven rage
Amenadiel: Well… no, I don’t believe he is above those things.
The musical aspect of Lucifer Season 5 Episode 10, “Bloody Celestial Karaoke Jam,” is an absolute delight. Admittedly, the fact that there isn’t original music is a bit of a letdown, but it’s still a fun hour.
The song choices are fitting and amusing, and Tom Ellis delivers amazing performances. Original music would have just taken the musical to a different level.
Having people break into song is the right amount of wacky that fits in seamlessly with the show, and it leads to the discovery of a later issue — God believing he’s lost control of his powers.
It’s still unclear why Ella and Maze broke into song, although I’m assuming we’re supposed to believe it happened because God didn’t have control over his powers. That moment never quite works, logically, but the number is fantastic.
Now onto the main weakness of the season: our characters, specifically when they make decisions that don’t quite make sense.
For instance, Lucifer’s decision to be God, despite being a good redemption arc, comes out of nowhere, and he never has a good answer for why he wants the job.
It’s reminiscent of The West Wing Season 3 Episode 7, “Gone Quiet,” when the senior staff rejoices and mocks the majority leader after he “gets the question” and completely flubs the answer, prompting them to wonder if Bartlett has an answer for why he wants to be president.
Lucifer does not have a good answer, even when he eventually lands on “to prove I’m worthy” of Chloe, it’s still not a good answer. You keep waiting for him to come up with an actual, decent reason why he suddenly must be God, but it never comes, making it hard to fully support him.
Perhaps the worst offender of poor character choices this season is Chloe Decker.
She makes a couple of strange decisions, but first, let’s talk about her deciding to quit being a detective in order to help Lucifer when he’s God. This decision makes absolutely no sense, and it is impossible to support her as she pursues it.
It would be one thing if this decision was made because Chloe realized how dangerous being a detective is and wanted to leave for a safer job. This would have made total sense after losing Dan. But that’s not what happens; Chloe never once doubts that her job isn’t safe.
Instead, it comes across as a decision Chloe makes after hearing that her parents had a deal where one of them got to prioritize their jobs for a bit and then they would switch. So, Chloe comes up with the idea that she has to do the same thing and quit her job to support Lucifer.
She becomes just as impulsive as Lucifer is, which is out of character for her. The more you think about it, the more aggravating and frustrating Chloe quitting her job becomes.
There’s not much to say about her decision to join the final battle against angels other than it is ridiculous and that Chloe has to be smarter than that. She knows she can’t really hurt the angels and that they can easily kill her. But sure, Chloe, go fight them and then, not at all shockingly, die at Michael’s hands.
I don’t know what got into Chloe Decker this season, but all of her logical thinking went out the window, making her very frustrating to watch.
Now, we sadly have to talk about Daniel.
Honestly, I’m still in shock that he’s dead. You’d think that if an important character of a series is going to be killed off that there would be some buildup to it. But that doesn’t happen on Lucifer Season 5 Episode 15, “Is This Really How It’s Going to End?!.”
The decision to not draw out Dan’s kidnapping adds to the shock factor of his death, which could have been the intended purpose.
However, it would have been better if the show let us sit with the severity of Dan’s situation more because it would have created some tension and suspense. We would’ve felt concerned that he wouldn’t make it out alive. Instead, the opposite happens. I was sure he would get out of this without any issue.
It isn’t surprising that the show would decide to kill off someone in what was supposed to be the final season; I only wish it is handled a bit better.
Speaking of Lucifer Season 5 originally being the end, it’s not hard to see that Lucifer Season 5 Episode 16, “A Chance at a Happy Ending,” was supposed to be the series finale. What better way to go out than with an angel battle royal that ends with redemption for Lucifer?
It’s extremely fitting. But now, we have Season 6 and the new series finale ahead of us. The scale of the Lucifer Season 5 Episode 16 ending is so big that I fear that Season 6’s finale will pale in comparison.
Stray Thoughts
- Dan’s episode is weird and not entertaining, at least not until the end when Lucifer reveals it is a prank.
- Please tell me Michael won’t appear on Season 6 at all. I’m over him.
- Eve and Maze are super cute.
- Lucifer deciding he can’t love Chloe is beyond frustrating.
- Chloe trying to force connections between the case and Lucifer’s personal drama is fantastic.
- Maze growing a soul is a very sweet redemption arc for her.
- Mr. Sellout Bitch made it to heaven!!!
- God asks the important questions — why is Lucifer’s kitchen a wall of scotch?
- Dan and Chloe being able to discuss all the God/Lucifer/angels developments is so wonderful.
- Michael Voltaggio wins the award for the most unexpected and amazing cameo.
What did you think of Lucifer Season 5 Part 2? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
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Lucifer is now streaming on Netflix.
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Allison Nichols
Allison is in a love affair with television that doesn't seem to be letting up anytime soon. Slightly damaged fictional characters are her weakness. She loves to spend her free time curled up with a cat and a show to binge-watch. Allison is a Tomatometer-approved critic (Rotten Tomatoes).
4 comments
Considering you think it’s “Mr. Sellout Bitch” and not “Said Out Bitch”, I don’t trust anything you say. 🤦♀️
Thank you! My thought exactly!
Just saying, episode 16 was not originally supposed to be how the finale went. The Creators said that if season 5 had been the end, Lucifer becoming God would have been Act 5 of the season and a sixth act would have followed exploring that idea, probably forcing a need to condense what happened beforehand which might have hurt or benefitted the season, we will never know.
I somewhat agree with Chloe’s behaviour being weird, but Lucifer wanting to be God to be worthy of her does not seem out of character at all for me although in the end, it turned out, he became God by being worthy of her, which is sweet, sweet irony. But her taking part in the battle is, in my opinion, important, since it shows that humanity are also god’s children in this universe, so they cannot just downright excluded from the decision, making her and Eve basically humanities representatives in it.
It was a strange season emotionally. There were some moments early on in part 2 that really brought a tear to my eye with how touching and heartwarming they were, or how good the musicals were.
But then in the last 2 or 3 episodes it all fell apart. Dan’s death had absolutely zero emotional impact with me, as did his funeral or the hospital waiting room or any of the ‘hard hitting’ emotional scenes. They all just felt so dry and sterile and forced, and I felt like I was watching actors act out a scene rather than people experience real grief. It made me feel absolutely no emotions about his death at all, couldn’t care less which I thought was strange, totally took me out of the moment and watered down any attachment I had to him as a character. I believe the actors in any scene requiring real emotion and grief we’re overacting the parts, making a bigger scene about the deaths than what it’s really like in reality. I suppose because you can’t really fake grief if you’ve never experienced it but Chloe is normally very good at showcasing grief and suffering, but with the death of dan scenes they all are just loud and wailing while somebody cuts onions up nearby to make them cry. The emotional moments that were meant to hit hard and really tear at your heart strings totally failed to even make an impact. It’ feels like watching a death from ‘bold and the beautiful’ from the 90’s.
I feel like if they had planned on Dan staying dead, then they should really have been building up some kind of foreshadowing or something to hint at his real mortality and the ‘life is fleeting’ stuff over the whole season, instead of shoehorning it all into 1 or 2 episodes. Which leads me to believe he won’t stay dead or stay in hell. It just doesn’t mesh with the narrative of the show for Dan to stay dead, it doesn’t fit.
I agree with most your stray thoughts though, especially the ‘I must become god’ nonsense after 5 whole seasons of ‘grrr god is bad’ we’ve dealt with. I mean he sorted his daddy issues out which was lovely to see and him getting closure and becoming at peace with his father was great, a very nice way to wrap it up. But finding peace with his dad and the ‘I must now become god’ shtick doesn’t go hand in hand. It doesn’t suit it character’s 5 seasons of development and growth to suddenly throw away coming to terms with his guilt, grief and everything else he’s done to wedge in this out of the blue desire to be god because of ‘reasons’.
And the ‘I can’t love you now Chloe’ nonsense, pfft please. Who came up with that lousy bit of screen writing? We’d literally just spent the whole of season 4 and 5A with him coming to terms with himself as a man and his ability to selflessly love somebody more than himself. Was there a writing room team change or show runner change or something we didn’t hear about happen between 5A and 5B? Have the new writers even seen the show before?
All in all, I feel 5B was a real let down from the amazing standard of lucifer show we are all used to. I really hope with this fall in quality they can channel their inner amenidel, to rise and learn to fly again. Because god, how the mighty have fallen.
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