camille_bourg-1 Reviews

Lucifer: Partners 'Til the End (2021) Season 6, Episode 10

A disaster, a nightmare, a shame, unbearable and unacceptable, the worst possible ending for this show

[1/10 · 14 November 2021]

Only now, over 2 months after this ending ripped me alive, do I find the courage to finally review it.

I was prepared to say "goodbye" and to move on, relieved and at peace, but this twisted and sick ending won't give me the chance.

Showing that they ultimately never loved their characters or the relationship between them, the writers chose for them and for the show of which they are the heroes the worst possible ending, the most unfair, the most painful, the most horrible, the most unacceptable, and managed to definitively and forever nullify in barely one episode the 92 previous ones and all that their hero and those he loves had learned and understood there, 92 episodes of growth, of maturation, their whole journey, the whole show.

In fact, in spite of the thrilling action scenes and the masterful direction that magnifies them, in spite of the simply beyond sublime performance of Tom and Lauren, inhabited by their roles and overwhelming, and the deluge of devastating emotion that comes out of them and hits us right in the heart, this is simply the worst episode ever written, the bad implementation of a bad premise, where Joe and Ildy get everything wrong from the first to the last minute.

But it doesn't matter as long as we're in the action scenes of the first half, they're here for the spectacle and definitely not for too much thinking, their only goal is to impress us, take our breath away, make us shiver, and from that point of view it's a success. Then Le Mec is defeated, Chloe's injury during the battle is not serious, Rory have been saved from her kidnappers and shown how much her father cares for her, it made Lucifer understand that his calling in life is to heal the souls, the day he was supposed to disappear is over and he hasn't disappeared, this whole plot that was unnecessary but harmless is over and we naively believe that we're finally, at long last, going to witness the so well-deserved and long earned happy ending of our beloved heroes... and this is the moment when the writers, in complete contradiction with what the show had always seemed to be aiming at, ruin it completely, destroy it purely and simply by shoehorning in the most incomprehensible, the most unbelievable, the most unjustifiable twist, the most totally devoid of sense and of the slightest reason to be: Rory decides that, after all, her father must abandon her and her mother as planned.

A secondary character introduced only 8 episodes ago and never developed ever since decides on the fate of those who have been the main characters of the show and whom we've known, seen grow up and loved for 6 whole seasons. Her decision is so unjustified, so absurd that even after 2 months of discussing it on social media I still can't figure out according to what logic are linked together the arguments that lead to it: whereas the premise is that Lucifer would never have found his calling without Rory, the real reason turns out to be that changing the future would make her a different person. Showing that she was never a character but only a tool for the writers, Rory had a chance to change her past and to live a life of love and happiness with both her parents, but finds herself so cool as she is (why? Because she's a lesbian, good at lying and pulling people's leg, and has blades as feathers in her wings? I'm sincerely asking, because we literally know nothing else about her...) that she refuses to change for a better and happier version of herself and forces Lucifer by emotional blackmail, in a truly unbearable scene where he begs her a dozen times with tears in his eyes, to go back to hell to fulfill his calling of healer of souls and never come back ever again.

And here is how, after 6 seasons of efforts to grow, improve, open up, learn to trust and love himself, to believe he is worthy of being loved and to show how much love for others he has in him, as a reward this being of light, cheer and kindness, this lover of life and people, who had always advocated for free-will and the right for everyone to fulfill their desires, is deprived of his desire to live happy with his wife and their child and robbed of his free-will to obey an unavoidable fate and be exiled, alone, apart from the people and the places he loves, in the hole of darkness and despair that he hated so much and wanted to never go back to, ironically stuck there with no right to ever leave it again whereas his new role is to allow the damned, people as evil as himself is good, to leave it. As a reward he is grounded. Punished. And it is completely unjust. All this growth only to return just where he started, all that he went through only to get no reward for it, so many achievements only to lose them all.

From this point on, the last 20 minutes of the episode are a torture, so painful that the mind disconnects, as well as a pure and simple middle finger in the faces of the fans. With a horrid sadism, as if only to hurt us, they happily show every other character have their happy endings and live happy on earth while Chloe fills up, delivers and brings her baby home alone and miserable without the man she loves and father of her child. I witnessed them as in a nightmare, crying and endlessly repeating "they're not really gonna do this...?", hoping until the last second that something would stop that disaster, unable to believe that Lucifer and Chloe would be deprived of happiness for good, but nothing stopped the disaster. Lucifer and Chloe well and truly end up separated for the rest of their lives.

A father is torn apart from his child, will never see the belly of his beloved get round, will never feel the kicks of the baby in the belly against his hand, won't see the child be born, will never hold her in his arms, sing her lullabies, tell her bedtime stories, see her grow up, learn and make him proud, will never be a father or prove he could have been a father, perpetuating the cycle of parental abuse of which he himself was a victim; a woman in love spends the whole rest of her lifetime until she dies as a single mother of two, twice a widow, going through the nausea, the backache, the delivery, the sleepless nights, the screaming of the baby alone and miserable, without the help of the father an man she loves, without ever seeing his face, hearing his voice and feeling his body against hers again, which makes her nothing more than a breeder, the test tube from which God has brought out his ultimate weapon to send the devil back to hell; and a child grows up without her father and with a sad and broken mother, insecure, incomplete, with a lack, a void in her life, being hidden the reason why she has no father and hating him, which makes Rory's whole life a lie and Lucifer and Chloe the liars as well as bad parents against their will. For anyone who has ever had the slightest sympathy, the slightest tenderness for these characters, it is simply heartbreaking.

And it is even more heartbreaking as this suffering was shoehorned in as a profession of faith in a surprisingly deterministic and pessimistic conception of the biblical concepts of good, evil, God and the devil that conveys nauseating messages extremely problematic on a moral and ethical level: the devil belongs in hell no matter how good he is, God always wins and his plan was perfect no matter how disproportionately cruel it was, fate wins over free-will no matter what one really wants and how hard one tries to earn it, duty is more important than love and family, abandonment is okay, trauma makes one a better and stronger person, ruining the happiness of others to get one's own is a proof of this strength, a child can force their parents to sacrifice their happiness and the parents have to obey the child, life is only sacrifice, life is worthless facing afterlife, and death is the reward... where on earth are gone the absence of Manichaeism, the humanism, the positive messages about the value of every single life and the right of everyone to be their own person to which the show had always accustomed us for the previous 5 seasons and a half and that made us love it so much?!

And NO, the pathetic 30-second Deckerstar reunion in hell once Chloe is dead at the very last minute of the episode on a song for emo teens doesn't make this ending any less bad. Because the man and the woman who share that ridiculous peck on the lips with no passion or desire whatsoever before the door closes and the show ends there and like this aren't Deckerstar anymore since a long time, each has built their own life without the other, they're not part of each other's life anymore, don't know each other anymore, they have become strangers, their relationship long doesn't exist anymore, and the fact that they reunite nevertheless in the Afterlife is too little too late and will never erase the fact that they did go through this suffering, that Lucifer did lose his child, that Chloe did spend the entire rest of her life of mortal human being on earth alone and waiting to die, that she is dead, and that she is in hell! This rushed and botched mockery of a happy ending was only added to give fans the illusion that the ending isn't so bad and to shut them up.

By choosing against any logic and consistency a sad ending only for the sake of a sad ending, the writers betrayed and insulted the characters, the show and the fans. Such an ending is not what deserved the characters, the show and even less the fans. The fans deserved an actual closure. I deserved an actual closure. I deserved to say "goodbye" to what once was my pleasure, my comfort and my happy outlook on life, I deserved to say "goodbye" and to move on, relieved and at peace. Instead, I am stuck forever, too disappoited to ever get over it, in a mind-shatteringly horrendous nightmare of pain, loss, regret, incomprehension, disbelief, anger and resentment that is now the only memory that I will keep of what used to be my favorite show ever...

Lucifer: A Chance at a Happy Ending (2021) Season 5, Episode 16

And to think it could have been even better!

[9/10 · 22 August 2021]

And to think it could have been even better... Since there is a season 6 anyway, after all, I think we can forever blame Netflix for first forcing the showrunners to close in 5 seasons a storyline planned for 6: YES, this thrilling ending was indeed the planned conclusion for the whole show and could have served as it without blushing, but NO, Joe and Ildy didn't have enough time to bring it logically and smoothly. For this is the (only) reproach we can make to this episode: it doesn't give us quite enough time to completely get emotionally involved in its twists and turns.

On the other hand, the said twists and turns are uninterrupted, all crucial and enthralling! Just the very ordinary, completely human scene of Dan's flat move, between sadness and tenderness, is already terrible to watch because of the old memories of previous episodes that catch us off guard, especially the T-shirt from Dan and Maze's first encounter in episode 1x06 that strikes the demoness down with sorrow... this is what will make her decide to live life to the full and declare her love to Eve; if you suffer the death of a loved one, it's because the time you spent with them was valuable. It is this time that Maze wants to live with Eve. The evolution of the demoness is complete, finally this character who too often infuriated me has become fully human: we realise that EVERYTHING she has done since the beginning of the show, all her angers, all her betrayals, has ALWAYS been out of fear of ending up alone, and today she has overcome this fear, and it is with a real tenderness that we finally see her in a couple with the one she loves as a reward for this beautiful step forward.

Lucifer and Chloe's relationship, on the other hand, is very clearly put on hold at the beginning of this episode. Dan's death has opened a chasm between them. Each feels responsible, and the argument, verbal and even physical!, that breaks out between them when HE, the being the most immature and unable to control his emotions, asks HER to control her emotions, is the most shocking, the most chilling scene they shared... and as always, it is through their fight against evil that they will reconcile when it is she, a simple human, who will decide the devil, the angel and the demoness gathered on poor Remiel's grave to confront Michael even if it is lost in advance, showing then that even when Lucifer exasperates her, Chloe still loves and supports him, and even when Chloe opposes him, Lucifer is completely gaga over her. My babies... did I mention how much I love them...?

In contrast to their nobility, Michael has become a true villain, completely turned to evil; it's almost a pity for this character who I initially thought was more complex than that and capable of being moved, but in the end he's very simply a monster, who doesn't hesitate to kill humans as well as angels, his own siblings, which should show the latter his cruelty... but angels are sheep! The moment when they all laugh like idiots when they learn that Lucifer wanted to become God out of love, as if they despised this sentiment which is the most beautiful of all, makes sick!

And yet, this is what will decide Zadkiel to finally take Lucifer's side; cooler and funnier than we thought, the Angel of Righteousness immediately becomes part of our team of heroes, making us really want to see him again in season 6, and their opposition to Michael's coronation leads to several hilarious scenes... until Maze and Eve make their entrance into the lavish setting of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum followed by a battalion of demons who possess the prisoners who died at the beginning, a pay-off we didn't see coming to the scene the episode cleverly made us forget, and the final fight can break out. A one-on-one fight at first between the two pretenders, mesmerising, Tom as gorgeous to watch in one role as the other, but which was merely a diversion to isolate Michael from his army to allow Chloe to snatch the piece holding the flaming sword together from him by surprise.

And it is there that the unthinkable happens. A moment we thought we would never see. That we prayed we would never see. Before Lucifer's helpless eyes, Michael pierces Chloe through. Yes, you read that correctly. Michael kills Chloe. Her death on a last "I love you" in the arms of a Lucifer devastated by grief who can only repeat endlessly "no, no, no, no, no..." while crying like a baby, shaken with sobs, leaves literally suffocated. Yes, the scene is a bit too short, but Tom puts everything he has into it, and when you think about it, you realise the enormity of this moment: the one Lucifer loses in this moment is not just a partner, not just the one he loves, but his reason for living, the one who opened him up to others and to himself, the one for whom he would do anything and did everything he has done since the beginning of the show, everything he has and everything he is... And there's no trickery, Chloe is really dead, already picnicking with her father by a lake in a green field in Heaven... but Lucifer won't let us mourn her death. Yes, the scene is a bit too short, but that's because Lucifer won't let it happen.

He is banished from Heaven and will he be burnt to ashes if he gets in? He doesn't care. He chooses to be burnt to ashes, chooses to die rather than let her die. He flies to Heaven to retrieve her. There, only kept alive by Lilith's immortality locked in his ring, a detail giving a semblance of usefulness to episode 5x04, and guided by Lee, the only soul to ever make it out of Hell, proving the good Lucifer does all around him to those who cross his path, it is in what is well and truly their marriage, dammit!, yes, their MARRIAGE, fallen to his knees and putting the ring on a finger of her left hand, that Lucifer gives life back to Chloe by giving her his and, as he catches fire and disintegrates, finally sure of himself, finally sure of his feelings, finally, FINALLY tells her to her face, straight up, because it's the truth, "I love you". Excuse me for a moment, I'm going to go die in a corner... wow... my God... Coming back to life with the necklace of strength still in her hand, Chloe, mad with grief at having seen Lucifer die, gives Michael the beating of his life and is about to finish him off... when a sweet voice with a British accent comes down from the sky to stop her hand, stopping the battle between the angels and the demons in the process.

Yes.

Lucifer is resurrected.

Dead for love, he is resurrected precisely because he died for love. And when all, angels and demons alike, bow to him, it becomes clear: he is God. Lucifer is God. Because he was able to forgive and because he was able to love, Lucifer is God. The episode ends there, and it's a bit abrupt, but incredibly satisfying and above all very promising for season 6!

Lucifer: Is This Really How It's Going To End?! (2021) Season 5, Episode 15

The end of the show as we've known it...

[10/10 · 22 August 2021]

My God... It's been a long time since I've cried so much, a long time since a fiction has moved me so much... This episode, which doesn't shy away from dealing openly with loss and grief, is the end of the show as we've known it.

And to think that Chloe's huge, overwhelming decision is just one detail of it! Imagine that. The Detective is no longer a detective. Despite the melancholy and the heartbreak and despite the vibrant emotion in her farewell speech, even though it's hard, and even though Lucifer is totally ready to accept that she might change her mind, Chloe doesn't back down, she does it, she leaves the police force, this work that is a calling and a second nature, that empowers and defines her, to the point where even her lover calls her "Detective", she leaves her career for her couple. For Lucifer. That's how much she loves him. Sorry, I can't... and that's just the beginning!

What about, indeed, Lucifer's real motivation, the real reason why he wants to be God, that he decides to confess to prove his good faith to Zadkiel? We've suspected this since episode 5x13, but hearing him say it out loud is simply overwhelming: for love. He wants to become God for love. For Chloe. Because he feels like only a god is worthy of Chloe. That's how much he loves her. I'm dying... Yet he himself is well aware that this is a bad reason, which will even blow up in his face when he reveals it to Chloe, probably not at the time or in the way he should have, causing their first argument as a couple... In fact, all along this episode, everything goes wrong for a Lucifer who symbolically hits rock bottom: neither divinely beautiful nor very likeable, plagued by vices, the other angels are losers, Lucifer is by far the most beautiful and brightest of them all, the only one worthy of being God, so it's heartbreaking to see them looking down on him, to see him forced to bribe them, grovel and humiliate himself to no avail.

With no hope of becoming God, it is as the devil that he will give everything to try and save Dan by demanding payment for all the favours he has done in the hope of learning where his friend's kidnappers are hiding, symbolically winding up all that he has accomplished since he arrived on Earth.

Too late.

In spite of his courage and his desperate attempt to escape, Dan is alone against an entire team of armed killers, and when the first detonation sounds, then when we see bullets hit him one after the other in a silent scene inhabited only by a shrill tinnitus and the beating of his heart, we know with the horrible taste of irreparable in our mouths that it is over.

Daniel dies.

After spending the whole episode doing good around him, a good father and friend who spends hours playing with his daughter, supports Amenadiel's application to the police academy and wants to introduce Ella to a good man, Daniel dies, this character who has been present since the very first episode, funny, touching, the embodiment of humanity and whom I loved so much, dies.

Seeing him bleed to death in the arms of Chloe, the woman who loved him, who was his wife and to whom he gave a child, arrived too late and devastated, is already suffocating, seeing Trixie enter the hospital waiting room asking where her father is, refusing to believe that he didn't survive until the moment when Lucifer, who never lies, gives her without pronouncing it the horrible answer to her question is unbearable, painful to scream. That's what makes it real: Dan is dead.

And even in death he continues to do good, his last word giving the solution to the current case: what the mercenaries are looking for is Amenadiel's necklace, which he had placed on his friend Caleb's body in episode 4x08, and which the morgue employee stole and which the fence now holds. Dan is dead because Michael is trying to put the pieces of the flaming sword together... His funeral is a long scene, probably longer than it is customary in a show for this kind of scene, but it had to be, to fully immerse us in the grief of those who loved him: the friend Dan wanted to introduce to Ella is present, Amenadiel's speech touchingly sums up their friendship and all that it has brought to his journey from the narrow-minded God-fearing fool he was at the beginning to the man and father he is today, and the ceremony ends with a beautiful song that Lucifer and Ella sing as a duet in Spanish and English.

And as it continues as the background music, the scene shifts to Lucifer and Mazikeen's punishment of the murderers, brutal, savage, the devil and the demoness not hesitating for a moment this time to slaughter every last one of them, perversely saving for last their boss Vincent, Dan's murderer, mentally destroyed and now aware he is going straight to hell... But for Lucifer, that's not enough, pain is too hard; it is what will make him decide to confront his brother in spite of everything: he will be God to stop Michael from causing such a pain again...

Lucifer: Nothing Lasts Forever (2021) Season 5, Episode 14

Lucifer's greatest step forward ever

[10/10 · 22 August 2021]

I'm dying... Here it is, the most rewarding episode of this season. The one where the most important page of the show and of his entire life is turned forever for our beloved hero... Yet, when this episode begins, nothing suggests it, as Lucifer seems to have fallen back into his bad habits from early seasons, only preoccupied with himself and his latest whim, doing one inanity after another without listening to Chloe; his conception of the role of God as he exposes it at the beginning dangerously reminds of a dictatorship, and we can understand that his beloved is not thrilled; these understandable doubts do not, however, mar their lovely complicity: seeing them arrive at work in the morning together in a single car, which implies that they live together, kiss and touch each other affectionately, or hint at their sex life is not much, but it is priceless to us.

And what about their dinner at the fancy restaurant, where Chloe makes her entrance with her crimped hair and little black dress, the first one she's worn since season 2, breathtaking Lauren, greeted with a glass of champagne and a kiss by her man, impeccable hair, sumptuous three-piece suit and fiery gaze... it's definitely a date, their first real official date!

Too bad that this big dork spoils it all by inviting his Father too... and Chloe's mother!

I screamed with joy when Penelope arrived; she's a character I love deeply, for her trust and affection for Lucifer and her insight into her daughter's feelings for this man, a character I would have liked to see a lot more of in the show and who, in my opinion, has been sorely lacking in Chloe's characterisation and development as a woman, as a mother and as a lover; how many painful or inane moments in the unbearable love triangle of season 3 would have made sense if they had been put into perspective by Penelope's maternal experience and advice to her daughter?!

But awesome as she is, it is not an affair with a mortal woman that God imagines for the future; and in their search for what that future might be, all the characters involved in this plot, personally or together, take a beautiful and decisive step forward on the inner journey that leads them straight to that turning page.

Thus, through their bickering between an overbearing mother and an overly serious daughter, Penelope leads Chloe first to make clear her fears about her place with Lucifer if he is God, and then, in an overwhelming conversation about the plans she herself had with her husband before he was killed, to put love before career and leave the police force to become a true wife to Lucifer.

The latter, showing how much he happened to grow and mature, shares with Maze what is maybe the first scene in the entire show where they speak to each other as equals like true friends, when he unhesitatingly, without condescension or mockery, agrees to appoint her as Queen of Hell once he is God.

As for God himself, having set straight Ella so frightened and ashamed of her fascination with death that she sees herself as a bad person, whereas He knows her faith and goodness, it is with peace of mind that He can finally leave the universe for the future that He really wants: a future of happiness with the love of His life.

Yes, you read that right. The love of His life, His wife, the Goddess, mother of angels.

I nearly fainted with joy as I watched Tricia, back one last time but this time for a real reason, walk down the Lux stairs. With the help of his sister Gabriel, the messenger who hears everything and can deliver a message everywhere, Lucifer has found the universe of his Mother, this Mother he had agreed to lose forever to save her life and whom he sees again today for the first and last time for one scene, the strongest, the most poignant, the most meaningful and the most beautiful of this show: the one in which this torn and unhappy family is finally reunited in forgiveness and love.

God could have stayed, He didn't have to retire, He hadn't really lost control of His powers: it was Michael who had manipulated Him into believing it, and He knows it; but He still feels that the opportunity is too good for His children to fly on their own.

And while Amenadiel gives his Mother the farewell they were deprived of the first time, after a lifetime of misunderstanding and resentment, after eternity of claiming to be enemies, God takes the devil in His arms, the too cold and too hard father takes his sad and afraid little boy in his arms and tells him, finally, FINALLY, that He loves him; finally, FINALLY the wound is closed, finally, FINALLY the suffering on which Lucifer has built and defined himself flies away in those words he needed to hear to rebuild and redefine himself; a curtain of light that Father and Mother pass through, and that's it, the two sons are alone. Orphans. But adults. Ready to live their own lives. Sorry, I can't even write this without crying.

The page is turned, and that evening it is snuggled up to his beloved Chloe that Lucifer comforts himself with the loss of his parents and considers his future with her by his side... when Remiel bursts in with dramatic news: Michael has applied to become God too!

The trap is set: in their Mother's universe, Gabriel has found the Blade of Azrael, the weapon that can kill angels, and to Michael she gives it...

Lucifer: A Little Harmless Stalking (2021) Season 5, Episode 13

Therapy never worked after all!

[8/10 · 22 August 2021]

Lucifer's spur-of-the-moment decision, which catches us off-guard at the beginning of the episode, his first one since his infuriating childishness in season 3, contrary to the latter is this time the most wonderful surprise this show could have had in store for us: without any unnecessary drama or umpteenth bad excuse to separate them, Lucifer and Chloe are FINALLY together for good!

The scene is beautiful, between Chloe, a strong and independent woman but a woman in love, who takes the initiative and, at last!, says clearly what she wants, and Lucifer who wants it as much as she does despite all his other worries and answers "yes" without hesitation, and after that, seeing them display themselves in public as a couple, kiss each other and hold each other by the waist in full view of everyone, is a form of accomplishment for us, who have fantasized about it since the very beginning!

Or at least should be... except that Lucifer insists so much on his happiness that we quickly come to think that he's not that happy. To be honest, the fact that he decides to stop thinking in an episode dedicated to Linda, his psychiatrist, the one who pushed him to think for 5 years, doesn't fail to tickle us, the question then arising of their unethical friendship and the way it has distorted their therapist-patient relationship.

Indeed, each of them needs the other as a friend here but their habit of interacting as therapist and patient makes them lose sight of this. Thus, Linda terrified for her daughter's fate would like her friend to help her clear her name instead of her patient to try to extort a free psychoanalysis session from her, but Lucifer preoccupied by his relationship with the woman he loves doesn't expect his psychiatrist to throw into his face the anxieties he is trying to bury but rather his friend to listen to him and reassure him.

In the end, it's pretty clear: Linda no longer has the role of psychiatrist in the show. Her role now is that of a friend, and not for the first time I feel that her friendship is a better therapy for her friends than her therapy itself, and of a mother, to Charlie, of course, but also to Adriana who discovers the truth and accepts it happily. At last Linda has found her daughter and enters into a relationship that ends a lifetime of guilt and, when the time comes, could save her from hell to which her soul was destined until then... Because this episode is hers, it is for all the characters around her the one of self-reflection and awareness, psychology leading to emotion and head revealing heart. Thus, Amenadiel prepares to become God, and it is as in season 3 when he was fallen a dialogue with Ella that will give them both the trigger: if he gives her back her self-confidence, she makes him realize that he loves humans and life on Earth too much to become God! Similarly, Eve realises that she loves Maze... but Maze realises that she can't bear the idea that Eve will die one day, and it's with tears in our eyes that we see them break up when we thought they too were finally together.

As for Lucifer, definitely more concerned than he wanted to appear, his lucidity about himself shows how much he has finished growing up and doesn't need a psychiatrist anymore: he didn't lie, his "yes" was completely sincere, being in a couple with Chloe is really what he wants... but he still doesn't feel like he deserved it.

This is what will push him to make the biggest, heaviest decision, a decision that seems crazy at first but that finally makes complete sense from a being who needs so much to prove himself that he is good at something: he will be God!

Lucifer: Resting Devil Face (2021) Season 5, Episode 11

A father and a son (and his stepdaughter...)

[8/10 · 22 August 2021]

As expected, this episode is much less emotional than the previous one; however, it is often very funny!

It has to be said, indeed, that God says and does an almost uninterrupted succession of nonsense as he discovers the limitations and needs of a human body. Which has the effect of embarrassing Lucifer to no end and makes all their scenes together hilarious; we see that Dennis is having a ball, and Tom is clearly delighted to play opposite him.

Their best moment together is when God unwisely spills the beans during the sting at the Colonel's hideout: despite all the bad things he may have said about this overly invasive and supposedly hated Father, it's like a real son and without even a split second of hesitation that our devil spontaneously takes the old man's defence and beats up the Colonel's henchmen who dared to hurt his daddy! Frankly, isn't he adorable...?

I have one criticism, however, about this plot: I know that he has now found true love and no longer fornicates left and right, but Lucifer is still the devil, the tempter who arouses desire... so what a pity to confront him with a criminal who is woman if she doesn't even feel the slightest attraction for him! The seductive side of our hero is sorely lacking this season... On the other hand, it should be pointed out that he's not really the main character of this episode. This episode, indeed, is Trixie's, and I won't complain because it's been far too long since she had a role to play in the show.

Yet, when we see her impertinence towards Linda who is babysitting her, we think that it's going very badly and that her character has really been ruined, but immediately the therapist's benevolent insight reveals what's really bothering the little girl, thus making some sense of her incomprehensible and inexcusable behaviour in episode 5x04: yes, she still loves Lucifer, but she's hurt that he disappeared for months without saying anything!

This whole plot around her is interesting, because she's the one who helps the other characters open up and realize things, not just Chloe, who admits she's not infallible or as strong as she lets on but doesn't have to keep her daughter in the dark about who she really is and how she really feels, in one of those lovely mother-daughter scenes like the ones in the first two seasons, but also God, encountered in His search for His misplaced powers, who realises on hearing what Trixie blames Lucifer for that it's His fault because He failed to raise His son!

Until now, this assertion had always been considered bad faith from Lucifer, but to hear his Father admit that it's true is huge.

So is the implication he slips to Maze afterwards, which the demoness understands with a hiccup of surprised happiness: God couldn't give her a soul, because she already has one!

As I've thought since at least season 3, she herself has grown a soul, by dint of loving, caring, avoiding evil and wanting to do something useful, and that's a wonderful reward for her and an idea I deeply love!

Once this is said, and after even making peace with Dan, God can finally leave Earth with peace of mind... but not without dropping one last bomb on His sons: He has decided to retire! How promising is what happens next!

Lucifer: Bloody Celestial Karaoke Jam (2021) Season 5, Episode 10

Well, it does work after all!

[10/10 · 22 August 2021]

The showrunners had been saying for a while that they would like to do a musical episode, so when they announced that there would indeed be one in season 5, it first scared me: don't get me wrong, I don't hate musicals, far from it, they're even usually very entertaining, but I didn't feel like it was in keeping with the spirit and atmosphere of Lucifer... how wrong I was, and how glad I am to have been wrong!

From the first minute and this perfect cover of Wicked Game on the piano by a disheveled and shirtless Tom, back to the beauty and talent we expect from him, finally back to the Lucifer I love, I was captivated!

It must be said, though, that choosing a song by Queen, my favorite band of all, as the first number of the God-induced show could only put me in the right frame of mind, but the rest is just as good: well-known and loved songwriting staples, many of which I particularly love, and a perfect mashup for the Maze and Ella duet, with lyrics slightly modified as needed to fit the circumstances and emotions they evoke in the characters even better, physically top-notch choreography, all brought to life with superb photography, lighting, camera movement and visual effects, and sung and danced entirely without tricks by the actors themselves, which deserves respect. I can't even imagine how much work it must have taken. Really, hats off to them!

But for a musical to work, beyond the fact that there has to be a credible explanation for people to start singing and dancing, the songs and dances themselves mustn't be gratuitous! The aim must be to highlight feelings and moods that the characters would not normally express.

Well from this point of view, the contract is fulfilled beyond all my expectations: this magnificent episode is by far the most moving, the most emotional of the season!

If Amenadiel is disappointed that his son is mortal and Linda, offended that he has so little regard for mortals, if Maze plays the demon for spite of not being able to become human and if Dan is crushed by guilt and fear since he realized he slept with God's ex-wife, the one who finally reveals the emotions she seemed too devoid of in part 1 and finally looks like the woman in love she actually is, is Chloe.

First she refuses to believe that Lucifer is incapable of love, showing that she finally knows and understands him well enough not to doubt him, then as she stands before God himself for the first time, she literally dismantles him, taking the defense of a Lucifer whom we can see blissful in love and pride for her, and finally, she pushes her beloved to explain himself to his Father, with an open heart and without detours, instead of pushing Him away, because she really wants to be with him and knows that he will never be able to do so until he has made peace with his past... This plot, as it happens, is the most present and, inevitably, the most interesting of the episode. First of all, God shows a facetious side which we understand that His son inherited from Him, and then we laugh a lot to see them bickering, Lucifer pushing back the awkward compliments God gives him and God taking offence at Lucifer's reproaches, exactly like a doting father and his big teenage son who finds his old man embarrassing. As such, their therapy session with Linda, which is very funny, is particularly interesting, since it allows, probably for the first time in their lives, these sworn enemies who are in the end only a father and a son, to say to each other's faces everything they reproach each other for, the therapist smashing them, too, by pointing out then how ridiculous they are for not having taken advantage of their immortality to discuss things centuries before!

Only Chloe, ultimately, trusts her beloved and has no doubt that he will succeed in making peace with this painful past.

Their two storylines come together at the end in a heartbreakingly beautiful finale, where Chloe recalls all her lovely moments of closeness and tenderness with Lucifer on Smile while Lucifer finally admits that he is devastated by the grief of losing Chloe on I Dreamed a Dream, ending the scene in tears at his Father's feet, admitting defeat and begging for mercy, a momentous and incredibly powerful step in the relationship between these two beings, Tom and Dennis very simply stellar... and this is when the last moment of the episode gives us a shock that leaves us speechless, when distraught God confesses that He can do nothing for His son because He has lost control of His powers!

Lucifer: Family Dinner (2021) Season 5, Episode 9

AT LAST emotion and psychology are back!!!

[10/10 · 22 August 2021]

That's it! Now THAT is a real good episode, that is real Lucifer! Where were all this psychology and emotion in the frustrating part 1? I've already seen more of them in one episode than in the previous 8!

But with the arrival of God, the biggest event of the show and the one we've been waiting to see since the beginning, it was to be expected.

I would have preferred a British actor who looks like Tom, for the nod, but Dennis Haysbert, radiating bonhomie and quiet strength and possessing the deepest voice I've ever heard, is impeccable in the role. I was a bit worried that the vision of God in the show would be blasphemous, but instead we are faced with a being of great kindness, who doesn't get angry, doesn't accuse or judge. That's why, when he sends Michael back to the Silver City, it's not a punishment but a wise advice from him, or, when he replies to Maze come to ask him for a soul that there is nothing he can do for her, I'm sure it's not a refusal but rather that he knows something about her that she doesn't know!

His relationship with Linda, marked by a great mutual respect, works very well, He being very much above material things but at the same time very serene, calm and smiling, and she, constantly freaked out by the smallest things but precisely down to earth enough to anchor Him in the present.

As for him, Amenadiel, already a better father to his son than his Father was to him, plans to swap immortality with Charlie so he'll never die, while Ella, traumatised by having opened her heart to a sadistic monster, comes to hate herself, and Dan, ever kind, comforts her despite his own trauma, showing again the lovely relationship and affection between them.

As for Chloe, it's delightful to see her finally act like a true girlfriend to Lucifer: finally she realizes that she's been too pushy and apologizes for it, brushing aside, and so much the better!, the inept plot of the three words that spoilt the previous episode, perceives that something is bothering him and encourages him to project his worries onto their investigation to better solve them. How nice it is when a writer gives her a brain! And even if she was wrong about what is bothering her lover, it's still what makes him decide to confront his Father.

Their family dinner is an anthology scene: at first stilted and awkward, with a little discordant music and the camera at table height filming the faces one by one in a low-angle tracking shot, it turns into a suffocating settlement of scores in which Lucifer, in whom we perceive a very keen intelligence for once that the writer doesn't hide it behind his childishness, played breathtakingly by an extraordinary Tom -especially since he plays not one but two characters in this scene-, throws all their faults and failings in the face of his brothers and his Father and destroys them with his words, Michael letting his jealousy of him explode and God appearing to be hurt for the first time... but when his Father is unable to say out loud that he loves His children, while the father of the suspects in his case sacrificed himself and was ready to go to prison in their place, for Lucifer things become horribly clear: his Father has made him incapable of love.

We who watch the show and see him for 5 years change and grow up, make the hardest but the best decisions every time out of love know that he's wrong, but for our two lovers, the harm is done: it is with a broken heart and tears in our eyes that we hear him announce to Chloe that he doesn't love her... What a shock of an episode...

Lucifer: Daniel Espinoza: Naked and Afraid (2021) Season 5, Episode 12

Good, but I don't like it

[6/10 · 5 June 2021]

Let's start by setting the record straight once and for all: I hate episodes where it turns out that the entire plot was a prank set up to trick and ridicule a character into learning a lesson. The laughter and "if you could see your face" of the characters who set it up and the shock, disbelieving confusion and chagrin of the character who is the victim of it, when the deception is revealed, make me feel like I've been taken for a fool through him and spoil any pleasure I might have had in the subtlety of the script. Okay. That said, this episode is undeniably inventive and very funny, but in my opinion a bad idea. Indeed, no matter how much I love Dan, no matter how human and endearing this character is, and this I've been saying since the beginning, I've always defended him, still he's a secondary character, linked from too far to the main plot for devoting a special episode to him alone to be really indispensable. It's a pity, because this story can be followed without displeasure, with a cleverly staged smart scenario punctuated by Dan's successive awakenings lying on his back and filmed from above in close-up on his face. Far too underrated, Kevin is definitely excellent, playing to perfection Dan's irony, latent anger and annoyance, but also extreme clumsiness and panic attacks as the situation gets out of hand, which make us smile and make this character so endearing. On the other hand, Lucifer is having the time of his life whenever he is called upon to intervene, Tom at the height of his charm and flamboyance, and his delight is so visible that he almost gives himself away! In fact, when you rewatch the episode afterwards, knowing that it's all a prank, you realise that everything let guess it: there are far too many references to old episodes, the improv class from seasons 2 and 3, the Russian mafia like in episode 2x07, the severed head like in 2x10, the same Mexican gang as in 4x03, for it to be a coincidence, and the reactions of the characters, notably the hilarious group therapy of the Mexicans with Lucifer, too implausible for them not to be acting! It would have been completely improbable that each step of Dan's mission would have gone so wrong and that each of his decisions would have had such disastrous consequences if someone hadn't consciously seen to it; it is therefore with a mixture of amusement and annoyance that leans more and more towards the latter that we see Dan fail again and again, even though he makes the best possible decision every time. Obligatory step in this kind of episode, the farcical climax, where all the characters kill each other without leaving any survivor in a deluge of bullets and blood spurts in slow motion on a joyful music and where Maze dies in the arms of a bitterly crying Dan, is also a moment that I don't like and that straight-out got me out of the episode the first time I watched it; and finally, the fateful moment when everyone gets up alive and cheerful, revealing the deception, which I've already said what I think of it. There however it looks like we're heading for a happy ending, since, by explaining that his prank only worked because he knew Dan would try to be good, save lives and keep everyone happy, Lucifer shows his affection for him, and after his near-death experience, Dan remembers the value of life and finds the desire to live it to the fullest... until Lucifer, dismayed by this reaction, reveals that it wasn't therapy, but his revenge: let's not forget that if he hadn't become invulnerable unexpectedly, Dan would purely and simply have killed him! Thus, one has just undergone an indescribable moral torture but the other gets no satisfaction from it, both are the losers, and this fizzling out ending is deeply disappointing...

Lucifer: Spoiler Alert (2020) Season 5, Episode 8

From one shock to another to another

[8/10 · 15 September 2020]

Oh. My. God. What a hell of an episode! Too bad that the lack of psychology that spoils this season 5 prevents it from the faultless performance! It is no less than 3 plots that follow one another, underpinned by the one of Lucifer's powers fluctuations. Turned back to invulnerable, carrying out a rigorous work of investigation and examination of the elements at his disposal, and discovering in the course of an interrogation that his mojo has returned, both entire devil and now an accomplished police officer, our hero seems to have become infallible, almost perfect, which makes his helplessness all the more poignant: Tom's decomposed face when Lucifer discovers a new victim of the Whisper killer, during the few moments when he doesn't see her face and thinks, with the heaviest heart, that it is maybe his beloved, will haunt you... Never since episode 2x13 the stakes had been so high and the tension so palpable, because this time, in a season initially written to be the last, Chloe could really die... Instead, it is an even more dreadful surprise that the resolution of this investigation reveals: one at work studying the clues and the other while dropping by her boyfriend's house in his absence to find there what she shouldn't have seen, Lucifer and Ella discover that the real Whisper Killer is none other than Pete, a twist which I admit that I didn't see coming and which breaks the heart of poor Ella, who had finally dared to open up; their face-to-face once Pete arrested makes blood curdle... and makes us understand with fear that the young reporter never kidnapped Chloe and that all this first plot was only a feint to knock us out with the real one punch of the episode: of course it was Michael who held Chloe! From there, Tom finally going back to his best reminds us how good an actor he can be: his Lucifer is already magnetic, with an imposing physical presence and charisma, his Michael is a pure delight of sarcasm and smarmy cruelty, so repulsive that he becomes fascinating; no matter how proud and strong she is, it is easy to imagine how Chloe must feel: under the scar, this sadistic monster who could do anything to her wears the face of the man whom she loves and who held her in his arms only two nights earlier... Thus it is broken that he gives her back to his brother. While we were dying to see their reunion, it is with tears in our eyes that we see them heading towards an inevitable break-up, because Chloe can't overcome the fear born in her when Lucifer ceased to be vulnerable and that Michael woke up: that Lucifer doesn't love her. This is where this episode misses the faultless performance. Umpteenth tantrum from the fans who seem to think that "I love you" must necessary be said, it breaks our hearts that Chloe still needs a proof we know she doesn't need. After all Lucifer has done and endured for her, after having killed for her, having died for her and having given up on her for her, it is three words, the three words he never said, that seem useless facing how his love for her is obvious but that become her obsession, which break their relationship. Three words that he will not be able to pronounce this time again, since at this moment, the episode ends us with its last plot: mad with terror because of Charlie's cold which made him understand that his son is a simple human who will age, suffer and die, answer to the question the fans were asking, Amenadiel lost control of his power and stopped time on the entire Earth, making the frozen police precinct the battlefield of the final confrontation between the four celestial beings. Ever since meeting her mother, indeed, Maze had been obsessed with the idea that she had no soul; a horrifying pay-off for this clever set-up, Michael has made her his ally by promising her one. Kevin is directing an episode for the first time since 3x26, and we feel that he did his best: on an epic music that exudes urgency and in a setting as if out of space and time where shards of glass from windows shattered by the punches remain suspended in the air, the two-on-two, interminable, suffocating fight that unfolds is of an unseen brutality, each punch being accompanied by a shake of the camera to underline its inhuman power, and would probably have ended in the death of one of the three brothers... if it had not been suddenly interrupted by the arrival of a man of good stature with a deep voice and suffused with light, that Lucifer dumbfounded, breathless, greets with a look misted with emotion and a single word: "Dad"...

Lucifer: Lucifer! Lucifer! Lucifer! (2020) Season 5, Episode 2

Michael is the Lucifer we needed!

[8/10 · 15 September 2020]

This time, we get down to serious business: this episode is undoubtedly the most exciting of this beginning of season 5! It works even better as Michael is exactly the Lucifer traumatized and changed by his thousands of years away from his beloved alone in a hostile environment that we expected to discover upon his return. Visibly very excited about this new part after 4 years as only Lucifer, Tom delivers to us a striking performance where we exult to see the false Lucifer, too perfect with his exaggerated British accent and his sweet words and puppy eyes for Chloe, become Michael within one look, one smile; despite the same performer, Michael is not Lucifer and we could almost believe that it is not Tom who embodies both but two different men: Michael doesn't have the same mouth or the same eyes, not to mention his thick American accent and his hunched posture with his dislocated shoulder, or the fact that he is left-handed! Logically, whereas the power of nice and charming Lucifer is to arouse desire, the one of deceitful and ominous Michael is to arouse fear, in a new inversion of the image that we traditionally have of the devil and angels; a fear that he instils throughout the episode in the minds of those who bother him to get rid of them, making a disturbing secret about Linda surface, and turning Amenadiel to the baby's sugar daddy, even though it is what ends up betraying him. Ultimately, his only weakness is Chloe, whom he intended to break her heart, arranging for her to catch him having sex with Maze before he plays for her the act, gripping by the way, of the confused lover in need for love and complete disarray, but that we can see very obviously that he falls completely under her spell! The scene where she straight-out turns him on while they make coffee in the precinct's rest room, brushing his hand as if by accident with every gesture, languidly sucking her spoon or seeking money for the vending machine directly in his pants, on a swaying and suggestive music, is maybe the hottest of the whole show! Giving up for her on his plan to attract Lucifer to Earth in order to discredit him, Michael decides to leave him in hell and take his place, including in his beloved's bed; we have there to underline the attitude of Maze, a character in great progress, when she understands it: yes she is furious with Lucifer and had even agreed to help Michael to punish him, but not if it is Chloe who must suffer for that, and the demon will not let her friend become a collateral damage... but Michael, unable to beat her by force, gets rid of her by ruse, and when Chloe comes to join him that evening at the penthouse, visibly ripe and ready to be harvested, hardly do we still dare to breathe... and it is the moment when she shoots him in the leg, proving that he is not Lucifer! She had understood from the start! Which makes the whole episode even more exhilarating in retrospect! Lauren being definitely brilliant, Chloe reaffirms her love for Lucifer and shuts Michael up as she did to her father's murderer in episode 2x07; unfortunately, an archangel is something else than a simple rogue bureaucrat, and it's well and truly as the winner that Michael leaves, not on yet another lie but on the horrible truth: the revelation to Chloe that she is a puppet artificially created by God especially for Lucifer... Since season 2, the threat of this discovery was hanging above her head like a sword of Damocles; now that it did fall down, how on earth is her relationship with Lucifer going to survive it...? What an incredible episode!

Lucifer: Our Mojo (2020) Season 5, Episode 7

They are one

[8/10 · 14 September 2020]

Oh my God... this opening scene... I've been waiting for it all my life! Yes it's true, knowing who they are, where they came from and what they've been through, we expected to see Lucifer overwhelmed and for the first time almost intimidated at having made love and not just had sex, and Chloe ecstatic and fallen into worshipping him after the indescribable pleasure of the best night of her life; instead the screenwriter chose to show them as a normal healthy and comfortable couple, quite simply happy, in love and good together, and it is ultimately even better: seeing them cover each other with kisses, tickle each other, joke, tease each other, snuggle up against each other and stroke each other, Chloe's fingers on Lucifer's lips and these same lips in Chloe's neck, as we didn't even dare to hope anymore and as they have been so cruelly prevented so many times, makes me deeply happy. However, less simplistic than that, this episode is a reflection on what it means to be in a relationship and the compromises that it requires. Thus, more and more obsessed with the idea that she cannot find her soul mate since she has no soul, Maze tries to rekindle her past fling with Amenadiel; and if they ultimately won't come back together, their beautiful chat later, where the angel says he has nothing to blame her for, shows once again the long way the demon has come. Likewise, Ella becomes more and more attached to Pete, delighted to have so much in common and passions to share with him, which Lucifer begins by not understanding. Quite intelligently, it is precisely because he is withdrawing into himself and already threatens their barely formed couple that he and Chloe look more like a couple than ever: beyond all the moments when they openly talk about their life together, including sex, beyond this crazy scene where she walks home (their home, damn it!) to find him waiting for her on the bed completely naked in a suggestive pose, even if we can regret not to feel more desire for him from her, Chloe does everything to show him that sharing is not losing and that being two is not ceasing to be oneself, insisting on everything he brings to her, everything he can do and she can't, his superhuman strength, his gift for languages, and even letting him carry a gun to make up for the loss of his power. This is what will save them from the Whisper Killer. The scene of his hunt in a sprawling, seedy public housing with hideous wallpaper, filmed from above with camera following them from room to room, looks like an endless nightmare, where Lucifer, who was attacked by surprise, received a muscular relaxant which prevents him from emitting a sound, and it is by following the look in his eyes that Chloe avoids the stab of the killer and with Lucifer's weapon that she shoots down her attacker; as if they were one... And after a last dialogue with Pete about their ladies, this is what Lucifer finally understands too, in the evening, back home, when he tenderly smiles at the idea that he passed his power on to Chloe simply because he gave himself completely to her. And that's when the last minute of the episode turns drama. Distraught since he discovered the truth about Lucifer, in a scene at Charlotte's grave where Kevin moves us, Dan was visited by the Archangel Michael, who has come with a mission for him to earn his salvation; and tonight, it is in the name of God and to deliver the world from evil that Dan coldly kills Lucifer with a bullet to the heart...

Lucifer: BlueBallz (2020) Season 5, Episode 6

Even more frustrated after than before...

[5/10 · 14 September 2020]

Despite humour, important twists and the long-awaited ending, this episode is a disaster, that ruins forever Lucifer and Chloe's first time together. Yet it starts off very well, with our lovers openly together as a couple, holding hands, brushing each other as if by accident, exchanging looks and smiles, a view worth melting with tenderness, and talking half-word about sleeping together... But as soon as Jed character is introduced, everything spins out of control; if jealous-to-death Lucifer, defending his lady and stating their relationship, is the funniest, loveliest and sexiest thing you'll see, on the other hand Chloe's behaviour is incomprehensible: she who is madly in love with Lucifer and wanted so much to get into a relationship with him, why does she ruin everything when they finally got there? Why does she betray Lucifer?! Frankly, bringing back a previous boyfriend in Chloe's life instead of delving into her relationship with the current one was the worst that the writers could do at this point of the show, every single decision they took about this episode is the wrong one, and makes it get bogged down in precisely what we didn't want to see. All of a sudden, it feels like we're back to the worst moments of Season 3's unbearable love triangle, and we hate Jed almost as much as Pierce; the moment when he gives Lucifer the spiel about the big commonplace of "will they-won't they" and the relationship losing interest after acting out almost made me stop the video and let go of the season. Yes, the episode where Lucifer and Chloe finally have sex together almost made me stop the show. Because the premise it is based on is precisely the unbearable false excuse that has always been brought out to me since I discovered the show to justify that Lucifer and Chloe are constantly deprived of the right to be happy together and that I can't bear anymore to hear. But Lucifer, manipulated and completely confused by Jed, will stupidly believe it and come to withdraw from the case and ignore Chloe to spend the episode petting his nephew! I hate and am disturbed by how a dishevelled average fop in a motorcycle jacket, not especially charismatic or handsome nor in a particularly prestigious profession, is presented to us as the ultimate villain, a kind of ruthless, deceitful and cunning womanizer, against whom the devil himself is no match for and who can steal Chloe from him whenever he wants, to the point that he's the one making Lucifer lose control of his devil face for the first time this season. Even if the scene where it turns out that the devil face is precisely the one thing that calms baby Charlie, showing us a Lucifer downright ripe to be a dad, is funny and cute, it is also a problem since it turns what was one of the most dramatic features of the show into a joke; fortunately, it is the occasion of the biggest twist of the season when Dan, called back to Linda's by a phone call from Michael, witnesses it and discovers the truth about Lucifer... The scene of the girls' night at the bar, clamoured for by the fans, is not more interesting than those of seasons 2 and 3, but allows Maze to understand that she must remain herself and Ella to make up her mind to ditch the bad boys to give lovely Pete a chance; and when the culprit of their case of the day comes there to try to kill Jed because he slept with his wife (what a surprise...), the speech by which Chloe convinces him to surrender is in fact for herself, the one where she finally confesses to herself that no matter how complicated their story is, all she wants is Lucifer. And this is precisely where I have a issue: seasons 3 and 4 in their entirety were already dedicated to this, she already knew it, for God's sake!, and they already were together in the previous episode! This one tries to make us swallow that Lucifer and Chloe needed this umpteenth delay to be completely sure, he that he can trust himself about being worthy of her, she that she desperately wants him, including physically, but all I see is that they spent the episode apart and almost split up! Of course, it's right, the long-awaited moment happens at last, finally, after the shameless harassment and barely polite refusals, "I find you repulsive", "I will never ever sleep with you", finally, after 4 years of denial and hesitation, finally, FINALLY Lucifer and Chloe consummate their love, not in dreams, not almost, but really, with all their hearts and all their bodies, and of course, I admit it, with the sweet, rocking, haunting "Tether me" playing, the almost insane passion of their full-mouthed kisses, Chloe pressed against the wall, the hand that Lucifer holds out to invite her to join him on the bed and that she takes with a sparkling gaze and a hungry smile, her palms on Lucifer's body, Lucifer's lips on hers, and the way she moans his name made my heart pound furiously... ...but because this moment happens after an episode they spent apart and almost split up, without having dated or flirted, without tenderness and rise of the desire, almost without anything to justify or even announce it, and because it will remain very innocent, the camera pulling away just before it shows too much while they are still clothed, it feels like a sort of meaningless accident, deeply frustrating and disappointing.

Lucifer: Detective Amenadiel (2020) Season 5, Episode 5

At last a truly moving episode!

[8/10 · 14 September 2020]

Here we have a good episode, original and funny but loaded with emotion at last! All the characters play a role and grow up in it. Thus, on the sidelines of the main plot, Linda's terrible secret, that Michael made surface, is finally revealed: when she was still a teenager, she had a baby which she abandoned! And if Maze, who suffers so much from being abandoned by her mother herself, is at first furious with her friend, as a sign that she has truly matured the demon finally agrees to hear the whole story, tough but beautiful scene, and to help Linda find her daughter, a young real estate agent named Adriana; unfortunately, when Maze understands that through them it is her own relationship with her mother that she tries to recreate, it is already too late: in a scene of great sadness, she arrives at Lilith's apartment only to find it being emptied and to learn that her mother died a few days earlier... Finally after 5 seasons Maze character looks like a human being, like a real person that we can understand and like; she will never be able to make peace with her past, and we're sorry for her... As for him, clearly set backward but paradoxically back to his usual sassy and sexy as we like him, even if we regret that he looks like a secondary character in his own show, it's with Dan that Lucifer teams up, even wearing the bracelet that the detective made for him, and, we're not going to lie, it's really a great pleasure to see these two finally reconciled, especially since through contact with this man flawed but who does his best, the devil ends up agreeing to make an effort and to provide real work to help Chloe's investigation advance. Chloe, as it happens, is at the centre of this episode's most gripping plot. Lucifer's gesture towards her in the opening scene, offering her to burn a gift box as a sign of rejection of her gift nature on the very beach where he burned his wings as a sign of rejection of his angel nature, is a clever and sweet idea and shows how Lucifer is maturing, even if it is not enough to relieve her. Definitely excellent when given better than rom-com parts to play, Lauren shows very well Chloe's mix of shame, anger, grief and confusion at the thought of being just a toy given to someone else (the sentence "I'm not even a person, I'm just a thing", very harsh, is even pronounced) and on several occasions we have tears in our eyes to see her reject Lucifer. Her duo never seen before in the show with Amenadiel works very well, the two having in common wisdom, quiet strength, gentleness and kindness, all their scenes with the nuns are hilarious, and what they will experience and discover during this investigation together will bring the angel to an overwhelming revelation: it was not him that the nuns saw, but their own faith; which means that, in the same way, it is not Lucifer that all these one-night lovers unable to resist his charm see, but themselves, their own selfish desires... and Chloe has never been sensitive to his charm! Yes, it's the man who he is that she sees and loves, their love is real! There is no celestial magic whatsoever between them after all, which also means that it is not she who makes Lucifer artificially vulnerable, but he who has chosen, sincerely, to open up to her, out of love... It is a simply wonderful idea, which even Lucifer, far from digging his heels like he would have done before, approves with undisguised happiness when Chloe slips into his house that night to talk to him about it, and that's what finally reconciles them: if he loves her enough to surrender to her, then she is ready to surrender to him; all reluctance defeated, they kiss at last, at last!, their first real kiss as a couple, and it is with tears of joy that we leave them embraced when this nice episode ends...

Lucifer: It Never Ends Well for the Chicken (2020) Season 5, Episode 4

An irreparable waste of an episode that should never have existed

[1/10 · 14 September 2020]

No less than ten months before it was released, when the cast and crew proudly and stupidly disclosed, an interview and photos by dozens to support it, that there would be a special-issue episode in the film noir style set in the 1940s and in black-and-white, I've been appalled, to the point of not sleeping for weeks: for me, it was the sign that my beloved show no longer knows where it is going... I was not entirely right, given that it does have a relation to the main plot, but for all that, this boring digression far away from the spirit of the show was totally dispensable. Indeed, where one long well-written dialogue or a couple of flashbacks would have been enough, allowing the rest of the footage to be dedicated to make the plots of this season move forward (for example, I don't know, Lucifer's post-trauma stress disorder after hell, maybe? Or his horrible, poignant disarray at the idea that Michael manipulated him from the beginning? Or maybe his attempts to make it up with Chloe? I don't know, USEFUL AND INTERESTING THINGS, for example...), the team took the unjustifiable option of wasting the entire episode for a bombastic and vain styling exercise where form completely ruins content. The black-and-white and the original characters embodied by the regulars regardless of their gender are processes that immediately mark this story as a fiction, and automatically prevent us from believing and getting involved in it; the return of my beloved Tricia, called back to play neither Mother nor Charlotte, is completely wasted and her kiss with Lauren supposed to play her husband(!) is the heights of embarrassment, Aimee as a mustache mafioso caricature is the most pathetic thing I've seen, and the scene with DB as a false magician was so irritating that, I am ashamed to admit, I simply skipped it. I am aware that all of this was intentional, that this is the way the film noir movies of that time were shot, with dark serious heroes and, on the contrary, stooges of a deliberately exaggerated ridicule and grandiloquent villains, but here's the thing, I have no interest in the 1940s or in film noir, I don't watch Lucifer to see that but to actually see Lucifer, so I felt held hostage by a story that was not the one I wanted to see and didn't care about. Even the 75 years younger Lucifer is not endearing, being not softened by mankind yet and hence acting like a self-centered jerk. All his remarks about how humans are uninteresting and he would never love them were so ridiculously shoehorned! And, what?, Tom can't sing anymore?! And all this is a real shame, because the character of Lilith, nothing less than Maze's mother, who abandoned her as a child and whom she is so mad at, had the potential to be essential for the rest of the show, and finding out that she's still alive somewhere on Earth and Lucifer hides it is a huge revelation, but the way it's done, the whole story to Trixie just for her to go reveal to Maze that her mother is alive, 50 minutes without interest for 2 minutes that Maze spends with her at the end, ruins her completely. And to think that the worst part of all this is that the episode comes there by soiling the character of Trixie, my darling child, so nice and that I loved so much, who becomes here a liar who betrays Lucifer without scruple... How bloody sad...

Lucifer: ¡Diablo! (2020) Season 5, Episode 3

I feared the "meta" episode, but it's fine

[7/10 · 14 September 2020]

What is a pity in this episode is that Lucifer and Chloe's reunion doesn't happen: Michael's vile manoeuvre had already inevitably deprived them of it before Lucifer even returned... Hence no emotion, again, which appears to be this season's flaw so far, no tenderness, effusions or hugs, their couple not yet formed is already separated and Lucifer is only there as the millstone around her neck that follows Chloe everywhere to be forgiven for his umpteenth blunder... On the other hand, this episode completely faithful to the classic formula of the show and which wouldn't have looked out of place in seasons 2 or 3 is addicting and often very funny. Usually I don't really like these episodes called "meta", where a show uses a mirror image of itself to make fun of itself, an exercise in which Supernatural, for example, didn't convince me, but here, the fictional Diablo show is different enough from the real Lucifer in every way, carefully picking up the smallest details but systematically distorting them, not to feel like it's our show which is ridiculous and for us not to feel insulted as fans. Never named otherwise than by the names of their characters, as if they really were a second duo devil and detective, the actors playing Diablo and Dancer are the reflections of the state of mind of Lucifer and Chloe at that moment: he, living in his own fantasy world but not so stupid, has indeed guessed the identity of the culprit (does that remind you of anyone...?), and she, forced to play his stooge for a living and hating this situation, immediately becomes a role model for Chloe who sees in her the answer to the questions she asks herself about her free will, what depends on her will or not, what is her choice and what is not. Throughout the episode, the question of whether or not her love for Lucifer is real or not arises, tirelessly: the term is never uttered, but Lauren, once again excellent, makes it clear to us that Chloe feels like a prostitute that God paid for his son to have a good time, and her shame is palpable. No matter how hard Lucifer tries, nothing he can say makes her feel better. Michael has reasons to gloat: he hurt his brother even more than he initially expected! The long-awaited face-to-face between the twins is suffocating, their exchange of sarcasm and provocation gradually revealing a horrible truth: everything that Lucifer has ever done against the will of God, which cost him so much but offered him at least the illusion of being free, was put into his head by Michael! Lucifer never had free will! The prospect is dizzying... it is a pity that the director did not dwell longer on Lucifer's horror and dismay at the idea (hence no emotion again), but after such a revelation, the explosion of rage is understandable! The brothers grab hold of each other like two bickering teenagers, a scuffle like cats and dogs that makes us smile at these two dorks... at least until the moment when Lucifer puts an end to it with a brutality that leaves us speechless by picking up the blade that Maze, who came to attack him earlier, forgot there to cut Michael's face! The devil then believes that he has won and everything will be fine, but the harm is done: when he joins Chloe, believing that he can discuss with her and finally express his pain at having been deprived of free will by his brother, she can't accept that he once again brings everything to himself, and it is with tears in our eyes for the first time this season (emotion, at last!) that we see their dialogue turn into an argument and Chloe state in a blank voice that their love does not exist... But for Michael, that is not enough, not now that his brother disfigured him for life; and when Maze comes intending to apologize for her attack earlier, a further proof that this character is really moving in the right direction, it's not the devil that she finds but the archangel, who makes her a disturbing revelation about a certain object that her former boss always wears on him... rather thrilling!

Lucifer: Really Sad Devil Guy (2020) Season 5, Episode 1

Not the most thrilling season-opener in the history of the show

[4/10 · 14 September 2020]

We can't exactly say that this is the most thrilling season-opener in the history of the show. Non-event that basically makes fall flat everything that season 4's finale built up, it arouses nothing and feels like season 5 hasn't begun. Its flaw is that it is singularly devoid of emotion: indeed, while Chloe has lost the man she loves with the certainty that he will never come back, yes, of course she busts herself at work and drinks to forget, but at no time is she seen expressing her sorrow or how much she misses Lucifer, slipping into the penthouse in the evening and crying there rolled into a ball on the bed, a shirt still impregnated with the smell of her man pressed against her, as her extreme pain at the end of season 4 let us expect it; paradoxically, it is Maze who will be the first to crack! Even on Lucifer's side, though the blues, the nostalgia, the temptation to return to Earth are present, Tom plays them with an unusual restraint, which makes this more withdrawn than really sad Lucifer a little less endearing than the open book unable to hide his emotions that we have always known until then. In addition, even if it gives us an opportunity to better understand this universe where he controls space and time according to his will and where, of course, it is the remorse of damned souls that generate their hell loops, but it is the demons that play the roles of the characters who torture the dead in the loops, Lucifer does not seem really to be pitied in hell where everything seems to be going very well. Not the nightmarish war zone previously implied. Last, and this is not the first time that we can see it but it is still true: when there is no interaction between Lucifer and Chloe, the show has a hard time working. What does work very well however is the Chloe-Maze duo, the detective and the bounty hunter understanding each other within a glance with no need to finish their sentences, infiltrating dodgy areas, fooling criminals and kicking ass after ass, Chloe also appearing much more badass than in the past. If the subplots of Linda who stuffs baby Charlie's head with knowledge because she believes him to be superhuman, Amenadiel who hunts down every delinquent he can find, or Dan who has taken to self development are dispensable, the real highlight of the episode is how Chloe's investigation on Earth and Lucifer's investigation in Hell intersect, with every place visited and suspect met by Lucifer in the virtual reality turning out to be a lead actually followed by Chloe on Earth, and every criminal the detective is forced to kill immediately landing in Hell to give the devil news of his beloved. This is how he will save her life, warned just in time to return to Earth to incapacitate the armed gang that cornered her; and the passionate kiss she greets him with as soon as her eyes fall on his tall, slim and athletic figure in a suit says it all: they love each other and are finally together. This is why, when the last image reveals that Lucifer has made the weighty but noble decision to remain in Hell to fulfil his duty, it is with a start of astonishment (or it would be if Netflix hadn't spoiled it in the trailer...) that we realize that the man whom Chloe is hugging with love is not her beloved Lucifer!

BuzzFeed Celeb: Tom Ellis Reads Thirst Tweets (2019) Season Unknown, Episode Unknown

Maybe not the tweets, but definitely the man!

[8/10 · 6 January 2020]

The first time I watched this video on YouTube, I hadn't even got a Twitter account yet and had no idea of what happens on this social media, thus I've been truly shocked by how vulgar it is; I mean, most of these tweets although explicitly sexual are tolerable and somehow funny, but some are straight-on coarse and even weird, brutal and frankly sick. I feared that Tom, who I deeply admire and appreciate and find as talented as gorgeous, felt ill-at-ease or insulted and I felt very bad for him... ...but once registered on Twitter and a little more used to it, since I saw other users repeatedly quote this video and look like they had a lot of fun with it, I came to re-watch it, and re-watch it again, and gradually, I found it ever more and more hilarious... and finally understood why: not for the tweets, but for Tom! Once again awesome, as self-confident as smart and witty, almost naughtier that the tweets themselves, Tom manages to point out what each tweet has that is particularly odd or absurd, and builds up on these elements genuine little sketches, so over-the-top that you can't avoid to laugh out loud at their cheeky and naughty craziness. It is visible that Tom Ellis is a healthy, good and intelligent person, become a sex symbol in his late 30s hence mature enough to appreciate it and be grateful to us his fans for it, and that it is as a gourmet delight that he enjoys playing with us, teasing us, compete in sex hints and bad jokes with us. Now that I am myself a proud writer of thirst tweets (but soft ones, Tom is not a piece of meat even so), I fully have fun with this video and love how this handsome, smart and talented man reacts to what he arouses in us. In short, the video is so good because the man is. And, don't forget: TOM ELLIS IS DADDY! ;-)

Lucifer: All Hands on Decker (2018) Season 3, Episode 22

Another unwelcome episode

[4/10 · 23 December 2019]

Without being absolutely awful, this episode drags like a millstone around its neck the wedding proposal of the previous one. Fortunately the deadpan British humor is in Tom Ellis's blood to help him make Lucifer funny and endearing no matter how stupid he is, because this time our devil is actually stupid as heck, posing as Chloe instead of having a real relationship with her, trying in vain to guess how she feels instead of asking her... ...except that we are no longer in season 1, at this point! Where on earth has disappeared Lucifer's evolution from a teen-like partygoer to a responsible man? For that reason, secondary characters are almost the best part of this episode, whether it's Maze, trying her best to be the opposite of herself to make her project work, until the said project becomes pointless by itself when she understands that Pierce is lying to her, Amenadiel and Charlotte who brilliantly manage to manipulate him Pierce and her Chloe, or Dan, probably the best character in this episode, who tries to shake Lucifer up and finally does so to himself and finds the guts to ask Charlotte out. By the way, in an episode of Lucifer that talks about Chloe's wedding with another man than Lucifer, this scene involving neither Chloe nor Lucifer being the best of the episode shows how serious is the problem! The bachelorette party which is supposed to be the core of the episode, indeed, is almost unbearable, with its party-bus, its team of naked swimmers and, what is worse, the gang of girls' friendship about to be smashed to pieces. Their night out in episode 2x04 was so much more interesting when compared to this showcase of bad taste. This plot being the sign that the love triangle story arc as a whole doesn't work, at no point and in no way do we ever understand why, after all this, Chloe suddenly decides to not marry Pierce, even her chat from the heart with the nice old lady who drives the party-bus doesn't manage to make it clear for us, we literally don't understand her anymore, the writers altogether mangled this character. And when Lucifer in the meanwhile thinks he finally understood why Chloe chose Pierce and not him, his so-called realization that he is fickle and unreliable makes me yell in rage: no! NO! Fickle and unreliable, whereas he killed for her, died and went to hell and back for her, gave up on their relationship and his own happiness for her? Come on, stating this amounts to spit on everything he did and all his character development! In short, it was more than time that the forced fling between Chloe and Pierce finally ended, because it did an irreparable damage to this season 3...

Lucifer (2016–2021)

Probably the best thing that happened to my life in decades!

[6/10 · 23 December 2019]

When my dark-fantasy fan friend suggested me to watch Lucifer, I first was reluctant, since I feared a violent and sick show with a cruel and immoral hero. I finally watched, and... how wrong I was, and what a wonderful surprise! I love Lucifer precisely because it is the exact opposite! For a show initially aired on a mainstream public network, it is the most enthralling thing I saw in years. The most brilliant concept and the best idea it was possible to ever have. In principle it is just yet another procedural cop-show where an eccentric but useful character is accepted as a police consultant like in Castle or Mentalist, except that... ...this said character being the actual devil changes everything! Since we are precisely not in yet another procedural cop-show, but in the fantastic. The hero is a man who is the devil, the real one, with all the prejudices that we have about him, but the devil is a fallen angel, with the whole divine, celestial and religious thematics that it suggests, but an angel is a son of God, with all the Oedipus complex and father-son conflict that the rebellion of an angel against God involves. Lucifer is a good being condemned to embody evil by a father from whom he never got the esteem, pride and love he needed. This is the essential point to understand in order to appreciate Lucifer: the devil is not bad. The devil is good, he does no evil, since he punishes evil. Lucifer is therefore such a rich and complex character and his evolution, his inner journey from the devil to a man, so deep that I am sure that all the watchers who stopped watching and made FOX cancel the show did not understand anything about it. Throughout the show, I have been constantly fascinated to see him systematically misunderstand what he feels before getting flabbergasted when understanding it afterwards, often too late. He is as hilarious when he plays the role of the tempting and seductive devil whose irresistible charm of which he is acutely aware and incredible sass which is natural to him predispose him, as moving when he leaves his comfort zone by accepting to stop playing and to let his true emotions speak. But probably never this sassy scoundrel would have become such an endearing hero if not portrayed by a real awesome actor. Tom Ellis is perfect in this role. Funny, charming, playful, able to scare or to show the most touching vulnerability within a simple look, as talented as he is handsome, with his singular face and dark eyes, he radiates an insane charm, which his delightful accent, his tall slender stature and his chic suits only emphasize. The devil is supposed to be tempting? Well this one definitely is... His relationship with his partner Chloe is certainly the best love story I have seen in decades in a show, a hidden, unavowable attraction, impossible to admit but impossible to hide, moving to an almost insane point, because it's not another will they-won't they between a tough female cop and her goofy civilian consultant, but the impossible yet finally happened love beyond species between the Devil and a gift from God, the being condemned to embody evil to the point that he thought himself bad and hated himself, and the only woman who saw the good in him behind the prejudices and re-opened him to his humanity. Beyond their police investigations, and even beyond the conspiracies of angels and supernatural beings behind Lucifer's back, this is a show about what it is to be human. Chloe makes Lucifer human, but the angel Amenadiel questions himself and his blind obedience to God, the demon Mazikeen learns to love and make friends, the crooked lawyer Charlotte Richards seeks to redeem herself and become a better person, everyone, in one way or another, seeks to become more human. In front of the benevolent though often perplexed and dismayed eyes of their human relatives who are just as endearing secondary characters, Trixie the mischievous little girl who accepts the devil and her demon without prejudice from the first meeting, Linda the shrink who helps them to mature while also offering them a sincere friendship, Ella the exuberant and always positive scientific expert and Dan, compromised cop and not very good ex-husband who strives to be a good guy. Their interactions too are often funny and touching. Because we don't just laugh or feast our eyes on sexy scenes: a show that talks about what it is to be human is a show that moves, of course. Bright and positive, this smartly-written and brilliantly-acted show deals with being good and punishing evil, free-will and responsibility, consent, dignity and self-respect, tolerance, acceptance and forgiveness of oneself as of the other with loads of humor and emotion. Its only weakness, if really we have to find one, is its 3rd season where FOX ordered way too many episodes, that the writers found themselves forced to fill with a love triangle which felt forced and dragged out and didn't work, but the show has been able to pick itself up from it on Netflix and turn out better than ever. And, yes, it's full of swear words, sex, jokes, puns, cheeky humor and vaudevillian situations. It's frankly a big breath of fresh air in the overly formatted universe of formula shows. Thoughtful, funny and moving, with endearing characters I can totally relate to, Lucifer makes me laugh out loud, get soft and cry my eyes out, it is the only thing in years that managed to make me reconnect with my emotions and feel alive again.

Lucifer: Anything Pierce Can Do I Can Do Better (2018) Season 3, Episode 21

The big mistake of this season 3

[4/10 · 10 March 2019]

This episode is the fatal mistake of season 3: it is the one that drags and makes last the love triangle to the point that it comes to take place of the show's mythology. I understand that it had to be Chloe who does leave Pierce, but how badly it is brought! A competition to show Chloe which one of her two lovers is the best?! Really?! But love triangle and competition between two lovers for the same loved woman are probably the lamest plots possible! Even the title of this episode sounds like a sulking 5 year old kid, it says it all! The relationship between Lucifer and Chloe is simply ruined, the tears of embarrassment of the young woman here reduced to a simple object, the trophy of a cockfight, make sick, and Lucifer behaves so childishly and stupidly that he's infuriating. This moment, during an overpriced dinner of which they won't taste a bite, when Chloe asks him bluntly with whom he thinks she should be in a relationship and he answers "someone better" instead of answering "me", instead of finally declaring!, manages to insult both their candlelight hamburger-and-fries of episode 2x10 and the beautiful dialogue of their first kiss in episode 2x11. The characters and their relationship, as the series patiently built them for two and a half seasons, are literally trampled by the writers in this arc! Why these childishness instead of talking to her?! Even the utterly flawless resolution of the uninteresting criminal case of the day has no other use than to make Lucifer understand it... Since what he really desires, as he ends up confessing it to Linda in the only truly beautiful and moving scene of the episode, is that Chloe chooses him, realization as overwhelming for him as for us, why the hell doesn't he tell Chloe and see what she answers?! And when he finally decides, it's too late, he arrives at the window of the woman he loves only to see her accept (we wonder why...) the marriage proposal of his rival, a man she has known for less than 6 months and with whom she has shared nothing, in a scene that makes you want to slap Chloe, to kill Pierce and to cry with rage ...

Supernatural: Bloodlines (2014) Season 9, Episode 20

At last fun is back

[8/10 · 10 August 2014]

At last I spent a good time watching Supernatural this year!

I found in this episode, come back for once, all the fun and originality that were the core of this show in the past, and it did a big good among this dark and dull season.

I read that some viewers considered this episode like a sort of '90210 with monsters'; I don't think so. Rivalries and love stories among rich people don't necessarily mean soap-opera and uninteresting storyline: on the opposite how each family will try to wage war and how war could be avoided may be interesting. And, NO, it doesn't mess with Supernatural, as it is the pilot for another show: Supernatural actually won't be like that every time.

I'm OK to see further how will evolve the relationships between monster families, and on the other hand continue to watch the classic Supernatural too.

In short, this 'Bloodlines' episode was a good surprise to me and I liked it.

Smallville: Finale (2011) Season 10, Episode 21

Superman, at last!!!

[14 August 2011]

Three months after it was aired in the US, I in France just came at last to see Smallville's finale and... oh my God! I was screaming and laughing and crying in front of my screen: at last I was seeing the true Superman live again! Tom Welling was meant to wear the blue suit and red cape, he was made to be Superman; for the first time since the 1978 movie with regretted Christopher Reeve, I saw this symbol of hope, flying with his red cape in the wind and the mythical music theme of John Williams as a bonus. This final double episode was really satisfying, with beloved guest-stars and many brilliant ideas to link together the series with the universe of the comics. Of course, not everything was perfect, for example Lois and Clark's relationship was not quite as bubbly as usual, but they're cute nevertheless, and I believe that every fan found what they expected. I think we can congratulate Smallville's writers and producers for the coherence and inventiveness of the universe they created and its respect for its model. They took the stand for 10 years and they can be proud of their work.

The X-Files: How the Ghosts Stole Christmas (1998) Season 6, Episode 6

If you love Mulder and Scully, don't watch this episode

[6/10 · 27 September 2010]

Let's be clear: this episode is NOT bad, actually it is even one of the best, but I really don't like it. I think that people who occasionally watch X-files and love Mulder and Scully characters shouldn't watch this episode, as what disturbs me most in it is that it completely ridicules them. Story is clever, acting is excellent, directing, picture and visual effects are impressive, but I hate the image of the series it shows. It is too wordy, demonstrative, exaggerated, off-board, out-of-character, light-hearted, without an investigation, without suspense, without darkness, without thrills: not X-files. I can't believe in ghosts shown and given for real, these ghosts are very unpleasant to me, I don't like the way they torment Mulder and Scully and the harm they say and do to them, and I don't like the way Mulder and Scully behave and react. So, it's clear, this episode that is not an X-files episode and in which Mulder and Scully are not Mulder and Scully could not suit me.

The X-Files: Orison (2000) Season 7, Episode 7

A disappointing sequel

[5/10 · 27 September 2010]

As this episode was said to be the best loner of season 7, I have been quite disappointed. First, it was far too obvious that Pfaster would try to catch Scully again, and that Scully would escape and not be killed or wounded. No suspense. What is more annoying is all the religious good-against-evil stuff, that had nothing to do in such an episode and is particularly clumsy and badly dealt here: faith is constantly depreciated, as Father Orison's leads him to do evil and Scully's seems to be a source of doubt and suffering for her. What the song and all the supposed signs mean is not clear, and to make it even less clear the ending seems to contradict everything that was said before: so those signs were sent by the Devil? Or not? It is particularly incomprehensible... All this makes a rather boring and irritating than thrilling episode.