Nine months late Lucifer finale thoughts
Jun. 1st, 2022 04:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ivyficI just finished season 6 of Lucifer. I don’t know if anyone else watched this, and if so, it was probably nine months ago, but I have thoughts.
Honestly I might not have gotten through the end of this were it not all available on Netflix while I’m quarantining. (I’m positive for COVID but asymptomatic, which means I’m FUCKING BORED.) The last two Netflix seasons it seems to have lost its mojo. No more episodic plots, mostly just hanging out with characters we know and love. And the plot of season six was…yeesh.
This sounds more down on it than I am—they did take the time to pay off all of their plotlines, including Ella figures it out and Dan reunites with Charlotte.
Miscellaneous thoughts:
- I did not love the Lucifer-is-going-to-be-god plotline. I generally feel in Christianity cosplay shows like this that once you bring in actual god you start losing any theological coherence. This meant for me that the Ella finds out plot line was way less interesting than it would have been several seasons ago. Cause now it’s, Ella finds out and the god she believes loves her fucked off to another dimension and surprise! Her belief system was in beings just as petty and flawed as Greek gods. If she’d found out earlier, she could have been the one with faith when Lucifer didn’t have it in his father. (Which is the role she was playing? But I’d have liked her to have more runway in the know.) But I’m glad she at least figured it out herself.
- Obviously Lucifer didn’t actually want to be god.
- Why was it necessary for Lucifer at the end of the show to leave all his friends and family? They did a good job justifying it in the season, but I don’t see why that had to happen at all from a writer’s perspective, especially if they’re going to decide Amenadiel doesn’t have to give up anything to be god.
- The show reversed a whole bunch of previously established things. Charlie’s fully human—no wait, never mind! He has wings (Amenadiel’s fist pump was AWESOME though). Amenadiel doesn’t want to be god because he wants to be with his family and raise Charlie. No wait, never mind! He can be god and also be with his family and also be a beat cop! Maze has to learn how to be happy and whole herself even after having her heart broken. Never mind! Eve is back and loves her! (I do love them as a couple, it’s just a reversal is what I’m saying. Also, loved getting Maze trying on her comics half-mask.)
- It’s been a while—did I miss that Linda and Amenadiel are in an open relationship? Or did they break up and decide to coparent and I forgot about it?
- I enjoyed Rory very much, though I spent the whole season waiting for a heel turn that didn’t come.
- I am a fan of the procedural genre, which has become increasingly problematic as copaganda as the years go on. But especially in a show this ludicrously unrealistic about the criminal justice system I really wish they did not try to address the concerns of BLM. Every show that’s done this it’s been kind of excruciating. At least here they a) had the white cop acknowledge that she’d never questioned the system because her skin color meant that she never had to and b) acknowledged that it’s systematic. Other shows that have made it about one or two bad cops are way more cringe. But the end of the show being Chloe and Amenadiel fixing the LAPD’s racism was just… um. And he’s god now, so…just don’t look too hard at why he can’t just fix the systemic problems immediately. Or maybe he did in that montage and we’re not going to worry about how.
I think really, though, the fundamental theme of this show is GET THERAPY. Which I’m honestly kind of happy with? From a theological standpoint, the way that hell works is kind of a problem since it requires people who cause harm to both know that they’ve caused harm and feel guilty about it. Within the world of the show, though, you never meet a character that doesn’t feel guilty about the bad things that they’ve done, so I guess this is on an alternate planet where that doesn’t happen. (Just mentally comparing it to The Good Place shows how much less thought-out the Lucifer moral world-building is. Won’t go into Good Place spoilers here, but there are parallels.) I do like that they revisited previous antagonist’s hell loops and established that everyone’s bad choices come out of pain and trauma and everyone can be empathized with.
So yes, I think having the show end with Lucifer being hell’s therapist was very nice. And I’m glad they got to actually end everything, instead of it ending on one of the several season-ending cliffhangers we got. I would have lived with the end of season 3, but am very glad they got a chance to give it a proper send off.
Honestly I might not have gotten through the end of this were it not all available on Netflix while I’m quarantining. (I’m positive for COVID but asymptomatic, which means I’m FUCKING BORED.) The last two Netflix seasons it seems to have lost its mojo. No more episodic plots, mostly just hanging out with characters we know and love. And the plot of season six was…yeesh.
This sounds more down on it than I am—they did take the time to pay off all of their plotlines, including Ella figures it out and Dan reunites with Charlotte.
Miscellaneous thoughts:
- I did not love the Lucifer-is-going-to-be-god plotline. I generally feel in Christianity cosplay shows like this that once you bring in actual god you start losing any theological coherence. This meant for me that the Ella finds out plot line was way less interesting than it would have been several seasons ago. Cause now it’s, Ella finds out and the god she believes loves her fucked off to another dimension and surprise! Her belief system was in beings just as petty and flawed as Greek gods. If she’d found out earlier, she could have been the one with faith when Lucifer didn’t have it in his father. (Which is the role she was playing? But I’d have liked her to have more runway in the know.) But I’m glad she at least figured it out herself.
- Obviously Lucifer didn’t actually want to be god.
- Why was it necessary for Lucifer at the end of the show to leave all his friends and family? They did a good job justifying it in the season, but I don’t see why that had to happen at all from a writer’s perspective, especially if they’re going to decide Amenadiel doesn’t have to give up anything to be god.
- The show reversed a whole bunch of previously established things. Charlie’s fully human—no wait, never mind! He has wings (Amenadiel’s fist pump was AWESOME though). Amenadiel doesn’t want to be god because he wants to be with his family and raise Charlie. No wait, never mind! He can be god and also be with his family and also be a beat cop! Maze has to learn how to be happy and whole herself even after having her heart broken. Never mind! Eve is back and loves her! (I do love them as a couple, it’s just a reversal is what I’m saying. Also, loved getting Maze trying on her comics half-mask.)
- It’s been a while—did I miss that Linda and Amenadiel are in an open relationship? Or did they break up and decide to coparent and I forgot about it?
- I enjoyed Rory very much, though I spent the whole season waiting for a heel turn that didn’t come.
- I am a fan of the procedural genre, which has become increasingly problematic as copaganda as the years go on. But especially in a show this ludicrously unrealistic about the criminal justice system I really wish they did not try to address the concerns of BLM. Every show that’s done this it’s been kind of excruciating. At least here they a) had the white cop acknowledge that she’d never questioned the system because her skin color meant that she never had to and b) acknowledged that it’s systematic. Other shows that have made it about one or two bad cops are way more cringe. But the end of the show being Chloe and Amenadiel fixing the LAPD’s racism was just… um. And he’s god now, so…just don’t look too hard at why he can’t just fix the systemic problems immediately. Or maybe he did in that montage and we’re not going to worry about how.
I think really, though, the fundamental theme of this show is GET THERAPY. Which I’m honestly kind of happy with? From a theological standpoint, the way that hell works is kind of a problem since it requires people who cause harm to both know that they’ve caused harm and feel guilty about it. Within the world of the show, though, you never meet a character that doesn’t feel guilty about the bad things that they’ve done, so I guess this is on an alternate planet where that doesn’t happen. (Just mentally comparing it to The Good Place shows how much less thought-out the Lucifer moral world-building is. Won’t go into Good Place spoilers here, but there are parallels.) I do like that they revisited previous antagonist’s hell loops and established that everyone’s bad choices come out of pain and trauma and everyone can be empathized with.
So yes, I think having the show end with Lucifer being hell’s therapist was very nice. And I’m glad they got to actually end everything, instead of it ending on one of the several season-ending cliffhangers we got. I would have lived with the end of season 3, but am very glad they got a chance to give it a proper send off.