While I really liked the first season of Lucifer, I did have a lot of issues with it. Season 2 is definitely an improvement, but it still isn't able to fix everything.
Lucifer's second season focuses on Lucifer's mother (who I'll just called Goddess) showing up on Earth. As obsessed with justice as he is, Lucifer wants to keep Goddess on Earth to serve her sentence, while Goddess wants to go home and stick it to her husband. It's a solid storyline to base the season around, giving more of a focus to the celestial family dynamics at the core of the show. There is definitely a lot more fantastical aspects this season, between the introduction of Lucifer's brother Uriel, the stuff around the blade of Azrael, and that whole episode where Lucifer purposefully goes to hell. However, the real highlight of the season was actually the subplots. The whole cast gets interesting storylines that develop them so much more, like Amenadiel dealing with being a fallen angel, Maze adjusting to Earth and getting a job as a bounty hunter, Linda learning Lucifer's the devil and dealing with it, and Chloe trying to put the man who killed her father in jail. We even get a new character in the perky Ella, and while she doesn't get too much to do, she's a really likable addition to the cast who plays off the other characters really well.
However, I actually have quite a few issues with the season. First of all, while I definitely enjoy her character, the Goddess isn't quite as threatening of a villain as Malcolm was back in Season 1. Sure, I hated Malcolm, but I was also incredibly tense any time he showed up on screen. The Goddess feels like more of a mustache-twirling villain, constantly plotting to get Lucifer to return home. Don't get me wrong, she's hilarious, but she's not a very good villain. The same issue applies to Lucifer and Amenadiel too. The whole family is plotting against each other, but their motivations are so inconsistent that it just doesn't work as a major conflict for me. Another problem I had was with how strictly Lucifer tries to stick to the status quo a lot of the time. Chloe and Lucifer's romantic subplot started to drag on, as the show resorted to some pretty cheap tricks to prevent them from ending up together, Dan gets no noticable consequences for turning himself in last season, and the season ends with Lucifer just about to tell Chloe the truth only for the obligatory cliffhanger to stop him from doing so. And even with the added celestial stuff, pretty much every episode also had a (rather forgettable) case of the week regardless of whether or not it fit.
Still, this is generally a better season than the first, and it had even more great episodes than it:
Weaponizer: Uriel is easily the best one-off villain in the series to date, because he's actually a celestial. His powers (not unlike Domino's from Deadpool 2) are pretty visually stunning, and more importantly, intimidating. He's a serious danger to Chloe, and the tension slowly builds until the devastating ending where Lucifer has to kill him.
A Good Day To Die: I want more episodes like this one! Instead of a big case of the week, the main conflict of the whole episode was the cast working together to save Chloe's life. Lucifer going to hell was fantastic since we got to see more of the place and how it works, and while I'm not a massive fan of "Unsteady", that final sequence utilized the song perfectly.
God Johnson: I love the concept of this episode. As obvious as it was that "God Johnson" wasn't really God, it did lead to a lot of fantastic scenes. Aside from the dramatic tension between Lucifer and his father, there's the attempt to parent trap him and Goddess, the distraction in the mental hospital, and Linda being there to witness the whole thing. It's both funny and character-driven, so I liked it a lot.
The Good, The Bad, And The Crispy: This was a pretty solid season finale, if not quite as satisfying as last season's. Amenadiel and Charlotte both get really strong resolutions to their storylines, with the former getting his powers back and the latter getting sent away to make her own world. The cliffhanger was also really intriguing, even if it meant Chloe is still completely in the dark about everything.
Overall, Season 2 of Lucifer is an improvement on the first with better character work, more celestial elements, and some fun new characters. However, the show's refusal to evolve lead to plenty of really frustrating plot directions.
4/5 Stars
No comments:
Post a Comment