Only the thought of getting to see the first episode of season four of Lucifer could keep me up past midnight, but I did it and holy cow, was it worth it! The show that had its proverbial second coming premiered at 12:01am May 8, and the fandom was treated to the first of ten non-stop episodes. Nerds and Beyond is going to bring you a recap of every episode (because we can not help ourselves!) so stay tuned over the next few days. For now, let’s dive right into the first episode, “Everything’s Okay”. (Spoiler alert: everything was not okay.)
Spoilers ahead!
The episode began and I held back tears as Lucifer (played so brilliantly by Tom Ellis and oh boy, did I miss that face on my television screen!) sits at his piano in LUX, playing a heart wrenching rendition of “Creep” by Radiohead. As the scene changes around him, we witness time passing in his appearance grew more harried, the crowd around him changing, but still he sings, as if from his very soul, “I’m a creep. I’m a weirdo. What the hell am I doing here? I don’t belong here. She’s running out again.”
It’s three minutes in, and already I want to bear hug the Devil.
His latest rendition ends with a gun to his head, not that he can really be bothered to care. The owner is a blast from the past – the driver of the stolen Brinks truck from the beginning of the third season. While Lucifer points out that he did him a favor (after all, when he took the truck from the man, and that kept him out of prison) but all he seems to be mad about is that he spent a long time wandering the desert. Anyway, the man wants money, and he aims to get it from Lucifer.
In response, Lucifer bends the barrel of his gun.
He asks the man if he’s scared, and he says he is. “I wonder if that’s how she felt,” Lucifer replies and the dude’s goons start attacking him. As he fights back, Lucifer fills us in on what happened since we last saw him. In the moments following Chloe seeing his devil face, she was pulled away by the police (as she’d been shot) and we learn that she’s been gone ever since on “vacation”, without a word to Lucifer. He’s understandably hurt, telling himself that she’s processing, but he’s more concerned with the possibility that she’s decided he’s evil incarnate and wants nothing to do with him.
The man is frightened as Lucifer zeros in on him, and begs for his life, telling him that he’s only a thief. Lucifer’s taken aback – because no, of course not. This man is more than just a thief. Obviously speaking more about himself than this guy that just broke into his house, he loads the dude up with cash and riches and tells him to go do something positive with his life. It’s absolutely endearing, and in a span of five minutes, Lucifer goes from downright terrifying to terrifically empathetic. It’s what we love about him.
Maze shows up as the man leaves with his riches, and we learn that any past fight they may have had is resolved. She offers to find Chloe for Lucifer (bounty hunter, remember?) but Lucifer knows she’s really just trying to hunt down Trixie to apologize for the way she talked with her at the end of last season, and declines.
Doesn’t stop Lucifer from turning up at crime scenes anyway, hoping that he will find Chloe there. Dan isn’t particularly excited that Lucifer is around (he is still mourning Charlotte’s death) but Ella is happy to see him. He’s about to head out of the latest scene when all of the sudden, there she is. Detective Decker appears beside Lucifer like no time has passed. She greets him and then goes about her business at the crime scene, checking the body (a murdered beekeeper) and moving on to interview the widow. All the while, Lucifer is staring at her like she grew a second head. Chloe finally pulls him away and they have their first chat, but its brief. Basically — she had some time to process, and she’s fine with it. She’d just like to get back to work.
Yeah, that sounds totally believable, Chloe.
So Lucifer turns to the one person he knows can relate — Linda. Of course, what he really wants for her to do is to help him help Chloe to come to terms with her feelings. Only Linda is more interested in helping Lucifer come to terms with his own feelings: namely, that murdering a human caused him to get his devil face back. Maybe his concern is that he actually wants Chloe to punish him, to reject him, because he knows in his heart he’s done a bad thing. While Linda would prefer him to have a bit more self actualization, he instead decides to slowly (baby steps) prod the detective until she actually comes to terms with the truth.
He begins that prodding back at the precinct by telling Ella, in no uncertain terms, that he is the devil. She doesn’t believe him of course, but Lucifer uses this to show Chloe how fun it is to be in on the “joke” (aka, truth). Ella has analyzed the murder weapon, which was covered in regular honey (as opposed to the specialty honey that the beekeeper and his wife were known for selling), which absolved the widow from the murder.
They took to the local farmers market to see if they can find a suspect. In the meantime, Chloe takes a moment to explain that it’s not actually all that funny, the way Lucifer was duping Ella. Because in her mind, the truth is so fantastical, she can’t help but understand why people would tell themselves it’s impossible. Seizing an opportunity (since Chloe is so down with his “devilishness”) Lucifer offers to show her his mojo in action at a rival honey stand. The owner, Glen, is quick to fall under Lucifer’s charms, revealing that he wanted to kill Bob (the dead beekeeper). It would seem like case solved, but the truth was Glen had been terrified of Bob. Sure he’d destroyed Bob’s beehive, but in retaliation, Bob had show up at his door and with calm, cold precision, beat the crap out of him with a sack of doorknobs.
As they leave the farmer’s market, Chloe notices that they’re being followed. They cut out into some kind of shed to wait the guy out. Lucifer offers to use his “devil strength” and Chloe begrudgingly agrees. She’s quick to tell him to stop though, and while he assumes it was because she was finally telling him she wasn’t okay with who he is, it’s really because the guy Lucifer is assaulting has a badge.
Turns out, Bob the beekeeper was actually Bob the Knob, and was in witness protection from the Paradiso Crime Syndicate. His handler seems to think that it’s not a coincidence that the Paradiso family just got back into town and Bob shows up dead, so they agree to help him out.
When Chloe arrives home, she finds Maze in the dark, shackled to a chair of her own volition. It’s Maze’s twisted way of telling Chloe she’s one of those safe demons, and that she would never hurt her, but truthfully Chloe says she isn’t worried. Elated, Maze breaks the chains (like they could ever hold her anyway) and asks about Trixie. Chloe tells her that Trixie is still pretty upset over what Maze said to her when they last saw each other, and she doesn’t think she will be over it anytime soon. Maze plays it off like this doesn’t break her heart, but we know it does.
Amenadiel flies down from Heaven to Lucifer’s balcony as he pours himself a drink. The angel is back from the Silver City, having delivered Charlotte to her final destination. Lucifer is happy that his brother has finally gotten what he wants (his wings back) and he shares that he too may be getting what he desires — the detective finally knowing the truth, and accepting him. Amenadiel is concerned that everything may not be as it seems, and offers to stay on Earth to help Lucifer through anything he’s feeling. Though grateful, Lucifer refuses and tells his brother to “go home.”
The next day, our crime fighting duo visit the Paradiso mob family to see if they can get any clues. While they claim they haven’t seen Bob since he testified against their uncle, a jar of Bob the Knob’s avocado honey on their charcuterie table tells a different tale. Caught, they admitted that they didn’t actually have a beef with Bob, and that they’d come out to Los Angeles because they’d received an anonymous tip that he was here and wanted to warn him of possible danger. And stayed because they fell in love with his honey.
Though they’d hit a bit of a dead end, they left as they normally do – making a light hearted joke. As they did so, Lucifer reached out and touched Chloe’s shoulder — and she recoiled from his touch. She insisted that he startled her, but something about the action didn’t sit right, with him or with us.
Chloe believes the crime family, much to the chagrin of the handler, who doesn’t believe them for a moment. But in the process, they do discover that while the crime family had acted as if they knew Bob’s wife Lenore, she herself had never mentioned them.
Meanwhile, Lucifer seeks council with Dan regarding Chloe but specifically an answer to the question, “What do you do when a women recoils to your touch?” Dan is of course, completely insulted, and tells him, in no uncertain terms, that it’s because the woman thinks you’re disgusting. Way harsh, Dan. Way harsh.
Lucifer turns to Dr. Linda, who tells him she is going to help by using a metaphor – one that again points out to him that maybe he’s projecting his feelings onto Chloe. He ignores her, insisting that the recoil is due to Chloe not dealing with her own feelings, and he’s going to use the case to help her come to terms with them.
Oh Luci. It’s a wonder Linda even tries anymore.
Dan and Chloe talk for a bit as they approach Lenore’s house to interview her. Chloe is sorry that she wasn’t there for Dan after Charlotte’s death, but he insists that work for him is the best way to get through his mourning anyway. It’s lovely to see how their relationship has developed into friendship over the last few seasons. When they get to the front door, it’s open, and the house has been ransacked, with Lenore nowhere to be found.
Lucifer and the rest of the police arrive on the scene, but all signs point to Lenore having skipped town. When they reviewed the footage from the farmer’s market, it only shows the crime family speaking with Bob once, but the handler made multiple visits. On one visit, he also spoke with Lenore — but yet, he claimed to have never spoken with her either. It seems also that several of the witnesses in his protection have turned up dead over the years.(The plot thickens!)
In Linda’s office, she is trying to help Maze come to terms with how sad she’s feeling about Trixie. In an effort to cheer her, she offers to fight with her, and Linda lands one good punch just as Amenadiel shows up. He insists they stop fighting over him (they weren’t) but the bigger thing he’s feeling is a sense of loss. The Silver City didn’t feel like him. “That’s because this is your home,” Maze points out.
With all signs pointing to the handler as the murderer, Chloe and Lucifer track him down as he’s about to kill Lenore using the crime family’s MO. He’s bitter as hell, having to protect all of these criminals that basically got away with their monstrous things because they could turn state’s evidence, and he’s been framing these murders after the people that wanted them dead. This strikes a nerve with Lucifer, who obviously is trying to make up for his past transgressions, and this man was killing people who were actively trying to change their lives for the better. They fight, and Lucifer is shot in the hand while Lenore is pushed (whilst tied to a chair) into a pool. Chloe dives in to save her, while Lucifer runs after the handler.
He makes an attempt to get away, but Lucifer grabs the car (and a nearby pole) and uses all of his devilish strength to hold the car in place. Chloe comes out just in time to witness this, and the look in her eyes – it’s terror. She gets it together enough to tell the handler to stop and arrest him, but by the time she looks up, Lucifer is gone.
At the precinct, Maze drops off a bounty and is about to leave when she sees Trixie. She tries to avoid her (thinking she’s still hurt) but Trixie rushes after her to hug her. She’s not even a little mad, which isn’t at all what Chloe lead Maze to believe.
Amenadiel is also at the station, and he finds Dan to ask him why he chose to live in LA. They talk for a bit, but Dan points out it’s mostly the people that keep him there. He’s obviously still talking about Charlotte, and Amenadiel can see it. He tells Dan that she’s in heaven, and while at first Dan is angry, the angel places his hand on Dan’s chest and insists. We see Dan take a shaky breath, and then actually believe him.
As the episode wraps up, Lucifer is back at his penthouse, playing “Creep” and Chloe shows back up. He’s expecting her to reject him, but she insists that all she saw tonight was her partner — and she grabs his hand. The tension releases from his shoulders as he smiles.
But later, we see Chloe enter a church. It’s ornate and huge, as she sits down at a pew and begins to sob. Beside her, a priest appears to give her solace, and she looks up at him. He smiles as he tells her, “We knew this part would be difficult Chloe. But just remember, what you’re doing is what’s best for everyone on Earth. Including Lucifer.”
Stay tuned for the recap of the next episode!
