Crime solving devil–it makes sense! Don’t overthink it…
This week’s episode was supposed to be recorded at LuciCon in sunny Schaumberg, IL, but Covid put a damper on our plans. (Sad trombone sound). Instead, Tracie and Emily talk all things Lucifer together, from how Emily discovered the show because of her appreciation for Tom Ellis’s…acting, to how the sisters have had to grapple with the copaganda inherent in a story centered around an LAPD detective, to the ways Lucifer offers beautiful and accessible metaphors for mental health.
Join us as we overthink the crime-solving devil who is responsible for us launching Deep Thoughts About Stupid Sh*t in the first place.
Our theme music is "Professor Umlaut" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Learn more about Tracie and Emily (including our other projects), join the Guy Girls' family, secure exclusive access to bonus episodes, video versions, and early access to Deep Thoughts by visiting us on Patreon.
Mentioned in this episode:
Lightbringers: Illuminating the Deeper Meaning of the Crime-solving Devil TV Show
Crime solving devil–it makes sense! Don’t overthink it…
This week’s episode was supposed to be recorded at LuciCon in sunny Schaumberg, IL, but Covid put a damper on our plans. (Sad trombone sound). Instead, Tracie and Emily talk all things Lucifer together, from how Emily discovered the show because of her appreciation for Tom Ellis’s…acting, to how the sisters have had to grapple with the copaganda inherent in a story centered around an LAPD detective, to the ways Lucifer offers beautiful and accessible metaphors for mental health.
Join us as we overthink the crime-solving devil who is responsible for us launching Deep Thoughts About Stupid Sh*t in the first place.
Our theme music is "Professor Umlaut" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Learn more about Tracie and Emily (including our other projects), join the Guy Girls' family, secure exclusive access to bonus episodes, video versions, and early access to Deep Thoughts by visiting us on Patreon.
Mentioned in this episode:
Lightbringers: Illuminating the Deeper Meaning of the Crime-solving Devil TV Show
This is Tracy Guy Decker, and you're listening to Deep Thoughts about Stupid Shit, because pop culture is still culture, and shouldn't you know what's in your head? Today, my sister, emily Guy-Burkin, and I will be sharing our deep thoughts about the TV show Lucifer. Let's dive in. Have you ever had something you love dismissed because it's just pop culture, what others might deem stupid shit? You know matters. You know what's worth talking and thinking about, and so do we. So come over, think with us as we delve into our deep thoughts about stupid shit.
Speaker 1:This show is a labor of love, but that doesn't make it free to produce. If you enjoy it even half as much as we do, please consider helping to keep us overthinking. You can support us at our Patreon there's a link in the show notes or leave a positive review so others can find us and, of course, share the show with your people. All right, em, so we're not gonna do the what do you know? Because, listeners, if you don't already know, this is actually our second podcast together as sisters. Our first is a deep dive, episode by episode, of Lucifer. So if you really want to know more about how we got into Lucifer and what we know about it, if you are in fact, a Lucifer fan, please, please, rewatch with us.
Speaker 1:The show is called Lightbringers. We will link to it in the show notes here, and we have a lot of fun with it. It's actually we've been recording for like two years now, I think, so even though we only started releasing as a podcast a couple months ago. The recordings are old anyway, anyway. So, as two big fat Lucy fans, we were supposed to be at a Heaven and Hell convention right now, as we speak, in Schomburg, illinois, of all places, beautiful sunny Schomburg, Illinois.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so we were supposed to be in Schomburg for this convention, but you know COVID, so we are both feeling better. We're not in the same place, but somehow we both of our families got hit at the same time. So boo his COVID. It is the world we live in.
Speaker 2:Yes, so the original plan was this was going to be kind of like an audience interactive episode. We were going to be interviewing our fellow convention goers and we were also going to like. I had daydreams of Stevie Woodside and Rachel Harris and Lauren German giving us her sound bite, yeah. So we were going to ask other convention goers about what big ideas they took away from Lucifer and maybe how they discovered the show and what it means to them.
Speaker 1:And how it has, if and how it has changed their thinking, or you know how it shows up in their everyday lives. Yeah, yeah, but alas, it's just us, so let's get into it. Do you want to do the kind of recap of the show for folks? Would you like me to start that? How do you want to do that?
Speaker 2:Well, since I found the show first. I'll go ahead and do the recap. I discovered the show once it was on Netflix. They did a very good job of making sure they put Tom Ellis in all his six foot four gorgeousness front and center.
Speaker 1:Very little clothing, very little clothing. We all know Emily is a sucker for a handsome man, so predictable.
Speaker 2:So in the show Lucifer, which is based loosely on the comic books that are a subshoot like are already already based off of the Sandman comic books that were Neil Gaiman, and we all know how much Tracy loves Neil Gaiman. I love Neil Gaiman. So in the show, lucifer has and this is also true in the comic book he has gotten tired of running hell and so he decides to take a vacation in Los Angeles. The beginning of the show, which is set in 2016, which is when it came out. He has been in Los Angeles for five years. He has a piano bar called Lux. He brought his demon companion, mazakeen with him.
Speaker 2:His angelic brother, amenadiel, is very angry at him and is consistently trying to get him to return to hell, because, without Lucifer at the helm, amenadiel has to kind of keep an eye on things and he hates going to hell. In the pilot episode, lucifer has one of his former employees, who would sing while he played piano, come back to the bar to ask him about the favor that she got, because Lucifer gives favors in the hopes of getting a favor back in return in the future. So he had done her a favor to get her music career to take off, which it did. She is a superstar. However, she is also a big old mess with really bad decisions about dating, substance abuse, paparazzi photos that are really inappropriate, things like that. And so she asks him, like did I sell my soul to the devil? And he's like no, what would I do with your soul? And okay, why is everything bad? And he's like look, I'm going to call in my favor and it's for you to get your life together. That is what you need to do as the favor to me. So he clearly has a great deal of affection for Delilah. As they're leaving, someone shoots them both like boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
Speaker 2:Where Delilah is gone. He is shot several times, wakes up immediately because he's immortal and the police officer who was assigned the detective who was assigned the case is Chloe Decker, played by Lauren German, who he immediately flirts with and she is having none of it. He ends up working with her to try to solve this murder case and from there because he seems to have zero effect on her, whereas anyone who is attracted to men tend to be putty in his hands. So he is really weirded out by the fact that he has no effect on her and he kind of becomes a little bit obsessed with her. In the process of investigating del ilah's death they meet Delilah's therapist, linda Martin, played by Rachel Harris, who is very insightful and can recognize Lucifer's insecurities. So he decides to start seeing her for a little help with his mental health.
Speaker 2:And then things continue along there. That's the setup. Through a series of events that are somewhat reasonable and somewhat not, he ends up becoming the civilian consultant. So he becomes Chloe Decker's partner and over the next six seasons he quickly falls in love with her, although he does not realize it, and over time she falls in love with him. There is a lot of celestial weirdness going on too, with angels coming from heaven to threaten Chloe with the divine goddess, who is the parent, the mother of all of the angels, coming during one season. With God actually showing up during one season. It's a lot.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think one thing, one piece that is important that you hadn't gotten to yet is that in the beginning and for most of the characters, lucifer never says he is other than he is. He uses the name Lucifer Morningstar, he says I'm the devil, and so of course people think he's delusional or, like one character, ella thinks he's a character actor who just never breaks character, method actor, thank you, who never breaks character, so he always tells the truth.
Speaker 1:That's another cork of this character he always tells the truth. He sometimes withholds the truth but he doesn't actually lie, and so he's always straightforward about being the devil and no one believes him. Now, at some point in season, at the end of season three, so in season four, chloe knows that he that that is true, that it's all real, and so she knows for the final three of the six seasons, and then a couple of other characters do eventually learn the truth as well. So that's an important piece where we get some dramatic irony, which regular listeners know is something that I love. So from the beginning we have dramatic irony where we know that he's really is in fact the devil, but none of the other characters, another human characters, know that, at least in the beginning.
Speaker 2:I I'd actually like to say one of the things I find really fun and kind of delicious is Thinking through what Chloe must think of him during those first three seasons because, like she knows he doesn't lie right. She knows it's an important part of who he is, and yet she also knows that he can't possibly be what he says he is.
Speaker 1:So, she must think.
Speaker 2:He believes that he is yes, the thinking through how she handles that cognitive dissonance I find really interesting.
Speaker 1:And yeah, I actually like well and she ends up with that.
Speaker 2:She has feelings for him. Yeah, like in the first season, she's like he's a weirdo. I mean like he's an attractive weirdo yeah, charming, charming and attractive, but he's a weirdo and like I'm gonna roll my eyes. But to get to it's, even in second season, they they kind of come closer together during that second season. All while she's still being like this is really weird.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, he's delusional.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So by the time we get to the sixth season, like a lot of hijinks ensue. I mean like we couldn't possibly go through all, all of it and keep this to under an hour, which we try to do, yeah it's a lot, becomes soap opera II in a way. Yeah, some of it. Yeah, it's bizarre.
Speaker 2:I mean, I enjoyed every second of it, but it's yeah, I'm not saying that in a derogatory way, just in the like. If we tried to sum it up, you'd be like what happened now? Yeah, right.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:He's a good twit.
Speaker 1:Right, right, right, and he's gonna be God. What the time travel is.
Speaker 2:And, by the way, listeners, if you're not familiar with Lucifer, everything that we have just said is a plot point.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but I do think it's important to know that the structure of the show right. So it is a combination police procedural with a case of the week and also this kind of overarching family drama where the family happens to be like God and the angels. And there's some really interesting philosophical points in all of that and also some some societal things that come up, like when we were recording light bringers initially and we talked about the fact that it is a police procedural and we realized that we both literally me and Emily, but also we the broader, like American culture, have been so conditioned to expect and accept police Procedural as the vehicle on which we tell stories that we have become completely immune to what's sort of the Assumptions that are behind that which Emily introduced me to the term copaganda. And that's exactly what this is, in some ways like sort of Setting up that the cops are the good guys and that this chassis on which we build so much television entertainment Is a choice.
Speaker 1:It's not natural, and that was something that, like I was almost embarrassed that I was, so I had so completely internalized that idea that Procedural is kind of the natural storytelling mechanism, especially for television. So I think that's something that I also want to like name up front that this show I'm not sure what the right metaphor is. I started to say false prey to, but that's not the right word because I don't. That implies a Passivity to the show runners that I don't. I don't want to excuse them. I mean I love them. So I'm not. I'm not. This is not a like accusatory, but just I just want to like hold accountable. Like Police procedural was a choice. It was, and it did not come from the comic book, right? Like oh yeah, that is not at all in the comic book Game and did not write a police procedural right, there's no.
Speaker 1:Chloe Decker Right in the comic book. So that was a. That was a choice and it brought a whole bunch of baggage with it, as choices do. So that was just something I wanted to name up front, but I think the show runners grapple with over the six seasons.
Speaker 2:Yes, and I will say it is entirely possible that Fox would not have greenlit the show Unless it was attached to something like well, we know, procedurals will sell. Yeah, because I have read that there were points where they were like, okay, we want to do a little more with celestial stuff here, and the Fox executives were like no, no, no, stick to the procedural.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, absolutely. That's you're right. You're absolutely right, in fact. So one of the best episodes in the entire run priest walks into a bar Is, I mean, it's just beautiful television because it is completely character driven. There is a case of the week, but the characters are what shine through and the interviews from the show runners and others who helped Make that. They had to fight for that because the execs wanted more Gritty police procedural. So you're, you're right, you're right.
Speaker 2:So and there's a YouTuber that I like. His YouTube channel is called believe it or not. He talks about evangelical Christianity and that sort of thing. I don't remember how it came up, but he mentions because he he's very immersed in pop culture and he mentioned how he has friends who love the show Lucifer and he couldn't get Into it and For him it was not that he had trouble swallowing the idea that Lucifer, you know, came to the Los Angeles for a vacation and owned a Piano bar and has his angelic brother would visit and could stop time. His problem was the idea that the cops are the good guys in LA.
Speaker 2:Yeah and it was one of those when he said that I was just like that is really, I feel like, in some ways damning of Me, in that I never had a problem with it. Like I noticed on rewatch there is a line that I wonder if Joe and LD, who are the show runners, had to fight to get in, where when Chloe Decker is interviewing Lucifer right after Delilah's death, he says to her is your corrupt little organization actually gonna do anything about this or you're just gonna sweep it under the rug? And I've wondered if that was, if they had to push to get that line in. But I didn't even really like, I just kind of elided over it when watching it the first time and just like, absolutely, yeah, chloe's the good guy, the cops are the good guys and Even I mean to be fair a corrupt cop is is one of the main characters in the first season. Actually, yeah, there's three, there's three corrupt cops, yeah, in the first season. And so there is some some grappling with that. But there is still this sense of like we're fighting for what's right, we're bringing justice and and protecting and serving, and that is as you say. It's worrisome and in part because that that has to do with how we have been immersed in propaganda from babyhood.
Speaker 2:In 2020, after George Floyd's murder, I had to take a hard look at my love for a lot of different fiction. Specifically, I could not watch Brooklyn 9-9 anymore. Yeah, I really loved that show and I just I honestly couldn't watch it as much as I really enjoyed all the actors. I thought they did a really good job. They had all like it's Mike sure, who I love is the showrunner. He did the good place and Parks and Rec. I love workplace comedies. I have an enormous crush on Andy Samberg I mean all kinds of good stuff but I just couldn't. I couldn't watch it anymore. I struggled a little bit with Lucifer as well, although I Felt like I had more plausible deniability because I'm like, I'm in it for the Celestials.
Speaker 1:Well, also after that DB Woodside, who plays a men-a-deal and he's who is a black actor. Yeah, and he's he's been on record is saying he's he really pushed the showrunners to kind of Grapple with the role of police, especially around race, and they, they do, they do in that in that final season.
Speaker 2:Well, and even even in the was that season for that.
Speaker 1:Yeah with Caleb.
Speaker 2:Both of those post-fox was once because yeah show was on Fox for the first three seasons. It got canceled and there was a fan led campaign to save Lucifer, save Lucifer, hashtag, save Lucifer and so they were able to do that. Netflix picked it up, so the final three seasons were done on Netflix and with the produce, my net additional skin Language and there's a lot more skin. I saw someone say that naked ass shows up a lot yeah. Yeah, I saw someone say that time. Ellis's ass is the MVP of Season four, totally, totally.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they were like.
Speaker 2:Let's go for it.
Speaker 1:Tom's ass will play yeah, and we are great for it. Oh my god, that's right, do not.
Speaker 2:Yeah, when I tell people about the show, I lead with the squeeing over how absolutely gorgeous not just Tom Ellis, but the whole cast is. The whole cast is really gorgeous. It's just beautiful.
Speaker 1:Really, they're all really remarkably gorgeous, from Trisha Helfer, who plays Charlotte Richards and the goddess, and DB Woodside is gorgeous and Lauren German is gorgeous and Rachel Harris is gorgeous and Leslie Ann Brandt, who plays Mazakeen Mae, is the demon right hand. She's amazing. I mean, the woman was carved by a classical artist.
Speaker 2:She's just so gorgeous I'm sure I'm from the oh, Amy Garcia, I mean Anami Garcia, Anami Garcia, yeah.
Speaker 1:They're all just really really good looking and good actors too. Yes, yeah.
Speaker 2:And it's an ensemble cast that it's rare that I like every single person, like every single character, and it's not that you need to, it's not that you need to like every. But Tracy and I, just before we started recording, we were talking about friends, because just this morning we learned that Matthew Perry, who played Chandler Bing, died, and I was saying he was always my favorite friend as an adult. Watching, I can now see the incredible amount of comedic timing and ability that David Schwimmer brought to the role of Ross. But I could not stand Ross. Yeah, like he's, just, I really did not like that character and I feel bad for David Schwimmer that that's who he's known as, because I think he's a mensch.
Speaker 2:In any case, the way that these characters are written, they have conflict and they are not perfect characters and they do struggle with any number of things and they do things that I disagree with or think are wrong or wish they wouldn't do. And yet they are all still people I root for, even when they do something egregious, like Kevin Alejandro's character, anna Spinoza. He is Chloe's ex-husband and he's a corrupt cop and I never would have thought I could forgive a corrupt cop, but he was one of my favorite characters. In some ways. There were points in the first season where I wanted him and Chloe to get back together Even though I was in it for Tom Ellis and he really loved Chloe and I wanted them together. But I could really see they have an incredible bond and they have a child together and he is a good person and he loves her and all of that. So in any case, I lead with that. But I actually recently told my therapist that I feel like Lucifer is one of the best shows I've ever seen or any kind of media I've seen that grapples with mental health and provides metaphors for mental health as well as direct description and understanding of mental health, because we do have the character of Linda, played by Rachel Harris, who is a therapist. Now it ends up being because this is how shows go she ends up being everybody's therapist, yeah, which is, first of all, you don't go drinking with your therapy clients and clearly there's got to be other therapists in Los Angeles. She would refer people, but in any case, but they do have her talk people through their traumas in ways that I think is very important for the audience to see and there's also just these incredible metaphors I've talked to you about this before in Lightbringers, and I just want to highlight it again.
Speaker 2:In the second season, lucifer is always self-loathing, but he is especially disgusted and horrified by himself because he killed one of his angelic brothers, because it was either kill Uriel or Uriel would kill Chloe and destroy their mother, the goddess. And so, though he didn't exactly have a choice, he feels as anyone would feel in destroying your sibling, and so he lashes out, he's trying to get people to hurt him because he feels like he deserves to be punished. And he ends up finally talking to Linda about it, and he's explaining the whole thing, because he tells Linda I'm Lucifer, banished to hell, and she takes it as a metaphor. And so he's explaining the whole thing about how he killed Uriel using Azrael's blade, and blah, blah, blah. And she says no, I'm not doing this anymore. Stop with the metaphor, tell me what's really happening, show me who you are. And he says are you sure? And she was like yes, we cannot move forward without you doing this.
Speaker 2:And so he very gently shows his devil face, which you see on occasion. It's horrifying, it's burned, it's red and ugly and bald, and it's just this lovely moment. They're in her office at night. The way that the cinematographer handled it. They have lights going past, as if there are cars driving past, and so there's lights going over his face and you just see his face and the back of her head.
Speaker 2:And then he comes back to his Tom Ellis face and he gives this little like Not quite a smile, like hey, are we okay? Kind of look. And Linda is not. She is catatonic, basically. And that moment reminded me so much of what people who deal with serious mental health crises feel like when finally showing their true face to someone they trust, and it actually it's devastating because she can't handle it. And the thing is that is also probably gonna be the case for a lot of people who do show their true selves. They might show it to a friend who can't handle it, and so he just very quietly gets up and leaves and it's heartbreaking. But it makes me feel like I better understand what it's like to be in that situation, to be suicidal or to be trans or anything that someone might find difficult to take and fear.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think I wanna even broaden it even further, because I think part of the heartbreak and the resonance of that moment is that anything about which one has taken on a posture of self loathing, anything about which one has sort of internalized that it's not okay, that if that other person knew this about me, that they would reject me which it could be absolutely anything I think it is completely human to have had a moment like that, whether it was something that society told us or something that we just had internalized. It could be something that, when said out loud, very few people would think should need to be hidden, but so many of us walk through thinking like I'm a fraud and if they knew they wouldn't like me anymore.
Speaker 2:It reminded me of after Robin Williams' death. I remember reading something from a comedian saying that one of the difficult things of being a comedian is that people expect you to be funny. And so if you drop that mask and you're not funny, like that's when it's very clear that the comedian trusts you, like if you're the audience and if you say, like what happened to the fun guy? They're gonna put that mask right back up again and make jokes, and so that's that sort of thing, like if they knew the real me, that I'm sad, that I'm self loathing, that's you know.
Speaker 1:whatever it is whatever it is that I'm not funny all the time. That moment, yeah, I think the resonance and the heartbreak and the strength of the actor too. I mean you point out that the little smile that's like hopeful and fearful all at the same time, and then the very quiet, like of course I should have known, as he leaves the office, yeah, she's heart-breaking.
Speaker 2:How do?
Speaker 1:you make your face. Do that Like? What purpose?
Speaker 2:Not an actor but I don't know how. How do you have that kind of control over your face muscles?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. So that's one relatively early moment in the sixth series of six seasons. Excuse me of sort of seeing a mental health metaphor, but it's not the only. Do you wanna share?
Speaker 2:others. The other one that really stuck with me because it made me mad, Right. And then the second one was so there's Ella Lopez, who she doesn't join the cast until season two. She is the she's like the forensics expert, Forensics expert and she is this, like ray of sunshine. She hugs everyone, she always wears these funny, cute, adorable t-shirts. She is tiny and adorable. She's just always like, just very, very chatty and joyful and cheerful.
Speaker 2:And there are comments throughout the series where she says that there's darkness inside her. And in the fifth season she ends up this is another one where it's gonna sound like a soap opera. She ends up dating a guy who turns out to be a serial killer and that really shakes her for good reason and she is like there's something wrong with me because he saw himself as like me, because I have this darkness inside. And she ends up seeing Linda, because Linda's the only therapist in Los Angeles, and she describes what this inner darkness is, and what she describes is very clearly intrusive thoughts, Like she's talking about. She was going for a run or something. She saw a guy on his phone walking, not paying attention. It was like he was about to walk into traffic and she saw it happen in front of her that he got hit and blood everywhere and blah, blah, blah, blah, and then she didn't do anything and then it was too late and Linda's like, did he get hit? And she's like, no, no, no, he looked up and he stopped. But I had that thought and I didn't do anything. And my frustration with that episode, which otherwise handles her intrusive thoughts very well, because she ends up talking to God, as played by Dennis Haysbert, who makes it clear to her that the darkness is not who she is, that that is something that is within her. But that is also because of how much brightness she has the darker the darkness, the brighter the light. But I was very frustrated by it because it was clearly intrusive thoughts.
Speaker 2:I have had intrusive thoughts my entire life. I did not know what they were until I was in my 30s and it would have given me a lot of comfort and made me feel a lot better about myself and my thought processes to know that there was a term for it and that it happens and that it's no different from clouds moving across the sky or another metaphor I've seen, as intrusive thoughts are like goldfish and a pond. You're the pond, the goldfish just go by. That was a moment where they very easily could have had Linda say that sounds like intrusive thoughts and those are common and I know it's because they wanted the Ella character to have the moment with God and get that reassurance that way.
Speaker 2:But they very easily could have had her say like those are intrusive thoughts and Ella goes like yeah, but mine are worse, and exceptionalize herself and say like no, no, no, no, that might be other people but I'm bad, and then still have that moment with God, Considering how well they handle so many other things. So the moments that I talked about earlier. There's also a moment in season four where Lucifer has a breakthrough, realizing like he blames everyone for his problems. But really it's all self loathing. There is quite a bit with Mazakeen is best friends with Linda and how Linda talks to Mays about like self worth comes from within bitches.
Speaker 2:And helping her become her own person, rather than Lucifer's minion, which is what she was created to be. So there's so many moments.
Speaker 1:There's also a lot. There's a lot of work that multiple characters do about sort of conflict and strife with families of origin. Yes, Like a lot.
Speaker 2:Yes, there are some really lovely things that we see. So a menadil is kind of an antagonist in the first season, but even in the first season there are these lovely moments between him and Lucifer, showing their long history together as brothers and he becomes very much a protagonist over time and seeing the way that they're shared childhood I don't know if you can call it that since they were born fully formed history cause trauma in them both. And seeing even Lucifer's growth, when he finally gets the recognition from his father, from God, that he's proud, that God is proud of Lucifer, his first thought, lucifer's first thought, is like I think a menadil should hear this too, and so there's a lot there in terms of recognizing the trauma of childhood. Lucifer was the favored son until he rebelled, you know, according to the background within the show, but a menadil was like the oldest child follow the rules, do what my parents want, and you know, like get the gold star and how that causes trauma as well. It's all. I think it gives people a lot of ways in. There's a lot of paths into self knowledge from watching the show that I find lovely and so hopeful.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we have been recording Lightbringers since 2021. We have very much slowed down in our recording cause, like when we first started, we're like, yay, every week we get to watch two episodes and talk to our sister, blah blah, blah, blah. Oh, we were so excited and now we're in season six and both of us are like I haven't watched yet. Have you All right, let's reschedule. That's true, and it's. There's a couple like season six is no one's favorite season as far as I know. I mean in the fandom, there's a lot of people who are really mad about season six, the way that it ended. I honestly I don't have an issue with the way that it ended because I really do get into like, the kind of logistics and practicality of an immortal being and a human woman and there's no happy ending where they're together when she's in her 30s and you know he looks like he's in his 30s yeah.
Speaker 2:So, like I was totally fine with them being separated for the duration of her life and then being together forever after her death, and in fact that was like the happiest happy ending I think that we could get, but it's still there. There were quite a few things where it just just didn't sit quite the way I wanted it to. One thing that really stuck with me about the final season that I really liked and felt was a wonderful theme and message to end on is the show ends with Lucifer realizing that his job, instead of being the Punisher of Hell, being the King of Torment, is to help the damned souls overcome the guilt that has put them in hell, overcome the trauma that they've been carrying, so that they can then go to heaven, because I think that's an.
Speaker 1:I think that's an.
Speaker 2:I think that's not just about, like, not feeling guilty about the past harms caused, but rather becoming better people becoming the people that they yes, yes, that they had the potential to be, and Lucifer accidentally helped two different characters do that and then realized like he could do that, and so he basically creates a therapy room like the one that Linda has in hell, and he works with the souls not one on one because there's too many, but three at a time at least. So that is where he ends. Chloe had left the LAPD because she wanted to support Lucifer in becoming God again. This sounds like a soap opera, but, and she learns in a way that is like how did you first the? How is it you just learned this? But she learns of the overwhelming racism, like throughout the LAPD. There's an episode starring Marin Dangi I'm not sure how to pronounce her last name. She's an actress who I love, who has been in a bunch of different things, including better off Ted, and she had a role in Brooklyn 99.
Speaker 1:Oh my God, we should record an episode about better off Ted. We have to record an episode about better off Ted.
Speaker 2:But so she is a beat cop who wanted to be a detective. She's a black woman and a menadil who has joined the force is seeing firsthand how much horrible racism there is. And he asks Marin Dangi's character why do you do this? And she's like well, because if I don't, there's no one here to keep an eye on this. And so Chloe learns about this. She's trying to decide like, should I come back to the LAPD? What if that's gonna be bad for my kids? And a menadil is like well, I don't have that choice. And Marin Dangi's character doesn't have that choice.
Speaker 2:And so it becomes clear that meaningful work and Chloe is also completely lost without a job. She's very bored, she's kind of loses herself a little bit. So the meaningful work and it's more than just the work that she had been doing solving crime, but the meaningful work of trying to improve a situation that is unacceptable is so important. I really appreciate it because I don't know how often do we get that message. The importance of finding the work that you are good at and can do and that will help is wonderful.
Speaker 1:There's something about purpose, I think in the way that it's presented as well. But it's not the way that the show presents it. It's not sort of grandiose. I mean the whole point is that like the small acts that make a difference I mean Chloe becoming Lieutenant is actually relatively grandiose. But some of the points that are made specifically between Amenadiel and Linda are who's gotten used to being the therapist for angels and now is feeling a little let down by just ordinary human psychotherapy problems. And Amenadiel really pushes back on that.
Speaker 1:And I think the kind of undercurrent of that season for us in terms of what you have labeled meaningful work, like I want to nuance the word work because it's not even necessarily like labor for compensation, it's about impact and the fact that even seemingly small acts can have much more important impact to the folks whom they affect. And that feels like a really important message that you're right. I mean we get it, but we don't get it. I feel like it's sort of societally, it'll be given with one hand and taken away with the other. Yeah, as we're sort of told like yeah, you know, it's a wonderful life, everything you touch makes a difference, but then also like, if you're not a charismatic leader at the front of some big, huge impact like you don't actually matter, or even if you're not productive enough and you're not completing all your to-do lists and you know, like the cold productivity.
Speaker 2:Oh for sure the cold productivity If you're not waking up at 4.30 and doing hot yoga, like what are you even doing with your life? Yeah, and to that point, like, the first person that Lucifer helps get from hell to heaven is Lee, mr Set Out Bitch, who is a minor character we see at the very beginning of season two, three, four and then five, and then again at the end of season five, beginning of season five, he is dead and in hell and Lucifer basically ends up trying to help solve his murder within hell, and by doing so it is little. I mean it's a big thing, I mean like to have like the ruler of hell actually, you know, taking you around, but it's a relatively little thing, because where they end up is standing outside of his parents' house, lee's parents' house, where his sister is having a baby shower. Baby shower, that's right.
Speaker 2:It was the last time his whole family was together, because his parents died I think his mom first after that, and he wouldn't go in because he was the family screw up and he knew if he went in he was just going to let them down again, and so that was like the moment that's really hurt him in a way that set him on this path that led him to go to dying and going to hell, even though we learn in that episode just how much his sister loved him and missed him all that time.
Speaker 2:And so, like, it is a relatively little thing, you know, to talk through that moment, because that's the sort of thing where, like, I have no doubt that you know if Lee were a real person, he wasn't thinking about that. Like it wasn't. Like, you know, like that's the one thing that's wrong in my life, that's the thing that I need to fix. But by like, getting to like, this is the little moment and we're doing this little thing which is talking through your grief over not being there when your whole family was together for the last time.
Speaker 1:I mean it's also significant that Lee is a petty criminal. Yes, right, I think it's also significant that the person who is the object of this attention is not the charismatic, perfect leader. He's very much an everyman.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, and the devotion between him and his sister is so real and yet so common, if you know what I mean. Like it's you know everyone has that kind of devotion. Somewhere there's someone that they feel that way about and that person feels that way about them and I'm going to get teary-eyed, I like, for he's kind of a gag character Lee is, but he really tugs at your heartstrings. He becomes this like such an important character to Lucifer and to the audience, even though he is a petty criminal who is making terrible decisions and who is hurting the people who love him best, but only because he doesn't know how else to be.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So the last theme from Lucifer that I wanted to kind of articulate is the importance of it's a constellation, it's redemption, and that's definitely a big part of it. I mean, from the very beginning I think that was where we were going with this right Like if the devil can be redeemed, then surely there's hope for those of us who are mere mortals. I think that's at the core of why this show has appeal. But I think part of the greater nuance that gets into the what you just named about meaningful work, specifically the way Lucifer finds it at the end of times is pushing back against the binary right, like God the devil, heaven, hell, god bad. That binary is constantly reasserting itself and pushing itself on Lucifer and telling him that he's bad, which is part of the whole self-loathing.
Speaker 1:And when taken together all six seasons, the show Lucifer fundamentally rejects that binary. It just says no, it's not true, there are shades of gray and more than that, it's not fixed. Bad choices are bad choices and new ones can be made. Right, people can grow. And I think that that message, especially since we started here talking about mental health, that that message feels essential and important, but also even just like changing the way we think and pushing back against either or and binary thinking also feels deeply, deeply important and the show, over and over again, does that for us, right From season one, seeing Amenadiel the angel as the antagonist through when we get the twin Michael, who is an archangel, who's a villain in this show. I mean, he is a total villain and his superpower is to sense people's fears and he's meant to be of the Silver City. So I think the showrunners were like pushing on this idea of the binary is false and insufficient to describe reality.
Speaker 2:I also think that it's important in that sixth season we see redemption for two kind of irredeemable criminals. So first is Jimmy Barnes, who is the person who killed Delilah in the pilot and he's pretty awful Like we see him in the pilot. We see him, I think, once, maybe twice more in season one, where he's kind of gone a little bit nuts because he saw Lucifer's real face, or Lucifer's devil face rather, and things have gone badly for him. But he's not seen as a he is not a sympathetic character, that's not sympathetic character at all. And we see an episode in Yabba-dabba-doomy in season six where he has died and so Lucifer goes to hell and kind of sees where his origin story is, why Jimmy Barnes became who he was as an adult, and he's able to feel sympathy and empathy for him.
Speaker 2:So there's that character and then the very final scene of the show Lucifer is in session with three souls. There's one, a woman, who we've never seen before. There's Reese, who is a character we saw in one episode, who is Linda's ex-husband, who is sympathetic but really stuck in his ways in a way that hurts the people he loves best and so does need the help to become the person who can be in heaven. And then there's Vincent LeMec, who was the person who murdered Dan and who, it's very difficult.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he was a mercenary and just completely unrepentant and had no regard for human life whatsoever.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and he kidnapped Rory too, didn't he? Was that that, yes. So I think it's very significant that he is on the couch as well. But who's not Is Malcolm from the first season.
Speaker 2:Malcolm was the overrunning villain, human villain, in season one, and he is a psychopath. There is something seriously wrong with him, and one of the things that people talk about about the show is they say that there are no locks on the doors in hell and it's your guilt that keeps you in hell. And they're like well, what about people who don't feel guilt? And we do see, sometimes there are some doors that are chained. Presumably that's where Hitler is. Presumably that's where the people who are not capable of feeling guilt, and I have no doubt that if they get to the point where Lucifer has talked to everyone who is capable of feeling guilt and help them, he'll probably start to see if there's anything he can do to help the Malcoms of the world. Right, but they're backburner, so like even a mercenary. And we know a little bit about Lamech, because he was being possessed by Dan's ghost when Dan so proper young.
Speaker 1:I think we know it sounds ridiculous.
Speaker 2:When Dan goes up to heaven, it makes sense, don't overthink it. When Dan goes to heaven and Lamech says I want that, I saw that I want it, and so we see that there is something there in him that is capable of recognizing goodness and recognizing grace, and so you know, even though it will be a very long time before he is able to overcome the issues in himself that keep him chained to hell and make him a better person who can ascend to heaven, it is possible, even for a mercenary who has no regard for human life like Lamech, even if it's not possible for a psychopath like Malcolm.
Speaker 1:We've been talking for a long time and, as we know, we could talk a lot longer about Lucifer because we have done. We didn't even get into some of the things that we always get into right, like, yes, it passes the Bechdel test. As a series, there are probably episodes where it doesn't. Individual episodes that don't pass the Bechdel test. Race, at least in the beginning, is like Eh, eh, not so great.
Speaker 2:It's a relatively diverse, relatively diverse ensemble cast.
Speaker 1:It is. And you know, like I mean, he becomes a protagonist but, like DB Woodside, who's this big, beautiful black actor plays an antagonist in the beginning, right, and there are many times where we noted where, like the villain, like they were like, oh like, put a black actor in there, even if it was more than once, when the character name was written to sort of read as Ashkenazi Jewish, there would be a black actor in that role, which absolutely there are black Ashkenazi Jews. Just want to say that out loud. And also, I'm not sure that that's what the casting folks were going for when they cast. You know, a black guy is Ryan Goldberg. They were just like, oh wait, there aren't enough black people on the screen. And then it ends up being like a Shmuck who is a murderer. So, like greater care could have been taken around race in casting and writing from the beginning.
Speaker 1:It gets better, it gets better and you know, in some ways Chloe Decker is a caricature, at least in the beginning, and then they're not sure who she is. You know, there are times when we, as we were rewatching, where we were like what, why would she's doing that? Like, that is not in character. So you know, and I think part of that is there absolutely were women in the writers room and also it was just like oh right, this isn't just, she's not just a plat device, she's a character. So, you know, we didn't even get into all of those things. We went with the things that felt like bigger, deeper, more important. But, folks, if you're Lucy fans and you want to hear more about that, if you want to hear me geek out about some biblical stuff.
Speaker 2:Oh, Tracy does some really great geeking out, really geek out.
Speaker 1:In fact, I actually have to put in, I have to record a caveat, because I always get confused about Eve's name in Hebrew and I got it wrong when we recorded Most of what I said. What I said still stands, but I said it wrong, so I will. I will fix that in that episode when we finally release it. But yeah, I, I, folks, I geek out like really deep, deep, deep in the weeds. Delightful, so all right. Any final thoughts?
Speaker 2:No, I think it's. It's just a fun show that has a lot of deeper stuff in it. It's a still waters run deep kind of show.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's also. I mean, one of the reasons we wanted to do like, one of the ways that we kind of promoted the Lightbringers, is that, like we both like dig deep into religious, philosophical, sociological, psychological, psychological analysis and also we just drool over the beauty. Both are true, both are true.
Speaker 2:So give me a man and some eyeliner and I am just happy.
Speaker 1:It's true, she's a sucker for eyeliner. I'm a sucker for eyeliner. All right, so next time? What are we talking about?
Speaker 2:So next time we are going to do a deep dive into the Neverending Story, the movie from 1984. With Atreyu and the Luck Dragon, with Atreyu and the Luck Dragon.
Speaker 1:Yes, I'm looking forward to that. Well, I'll see you then, Em. See you then. Thanks for listening. Our theme music is Professor Umlaut by Kevin MacLeod from Incompetechcom. Find full music credits in the show notes. Until next time, remember up. Culture is still culture, and shouldn't you know what's in your head?