Chloe dealt with the pain of her father’s old murder, Dan and Lucifer bonded, and Maze found herself with a new job on this week’s LUCIFER. As Chloe investigated the murder of her father’s killer (which eventually led her to a conspiracy), Lucifer turned his attention to Dan. Convinced that he only drove people away after showing Linda his true face, Lucifer decided he wanted to be more normal and concluded that “Detective Douche” was the most normal person he could emulate. By the end of the episode, Lucifer and Dan had forged a tentative friendship, Maze had gotten herself a job as a bounty hunter, and Linda and Maze patched things up, despite Lucifer’s revelation to his therapist last week about his true identity.
During a recent visit to the set of LUCIFER in Vancouver*, the cast sat down to talk to journalists about Dan’s new hobby, where Dan and Lucifer go from here, and how Linda’s horror about Lucifer will turn into something else.
The Improv Group. Perhaps the most amusing part of an otherwise serious episode was Lucifer’s discovery that Dan had joined an improv group — and was using it as an opportunity to act like Lucifer. Kevin Alejandro (Dan) said he was surprised by Dan’s new hobby. “[The producers were like] ‘we’re going to give you some sort of talent, some sort of secret thing that we want you to do’ and I was like ‘ok, they’re going to turn me into a secret tap dancer or something like that’. And then it comes out as [an improv group] and it kind of makes sense, you know? As you know, I’ve played a lot of cops throughout the years and a lot of police officers do take improv classes because they have — especially the ones that go undercover and stuff like that — because they have to learn how to just sort of have the gift of the gab. I don’t know how much more you’re going to see, but it’s definitely one of his little things now….. It’s a form of therapy for him. It’s a way to sort of deal with, you know, the next phase in he and Chloe’s and Trixie’s life. And instead of going to a therapist, he just sort of uses that outlet. I think the audience will appreciate that. We all try to find a way to express ourselves and that’s just his.”
Dan At Work. After his actions in season 1 of LUCIFER landed him a demotion, Alejandro explained that Dan is willing to be the department’s lacky….as long as he has a chance to prove himself again. We’ve seen him do this throughout the early episodes of season 2 and it will continue in the future: “One of the cool things about this character in general is that he does thrive to be the best. So he’s going to do whatever he can to be the top again. So that’s why he’s — for lack of a better word — everyone’s bitch in the department. He will go and work on any other case just to get to the top. But he’s also flawed and, again, he makes decisions throughout this season that are for morally the right reasons but technically the wrong way to do it. He’s definitely so flawed. He can’t catch a break, basically, is what you’ll learn to realize a bit more….. I think because of the choices that he’s made he can definitely be persuaded to go down the wrong path. To go down a dark path. But morally he wants to do the right thing.”
Becoming Friends? Meanwhile, both Dan and Lucifer’s actions in the most recent episode means that their relationship is “slowly thawing, I think is the best way of putting it,” Tom Ellis (Lucifer) hinted. “Until [this week’s] episode I don’t think Lucifer had ever put himself in Dan’s shoes. And I don’t mean, like, metaphorically. It’s not like Lucifer to do that — to emphasize, to think from someone else’s point of view. Certainly with Dan, you know, he’d made up his mind about him and that was his point of fun and this person really didn’t have an awful lot of validity in Lucifer’s eyes. But through the episode, Lucifer gets to experience the reality of Dan and Dan’s life. And I think that, kind of, lands on him a little bit. And then he spends the next episode trying desperately not to call him ‘douche’, but it’s almost like a reflex action for him…… As part of kind of Lucifer’s humanization, it’s another kind of layer stripped away when he has this sort of realization with Dan that Dan is someone who has his struggles in life and he isn’t this perfect, nice guy. Fundamentally, everyone is flawed. And for that to be pointed out to Lucifer — for him to get a grasp of that situation — really helps thaw that relationship.”
Returning to Therapy. Lucifer’s last session with Linda may have ended in disaster, but their professional relationship is far from over. In fact, according to Ellis, the “immediate sort of fall out is that Lucifer, being Lucifer, goes back to therapy with Linda assuming it will be alright to not talk about the elephant in the room. And, of course, you know, that doesn’t work out. He realizes that this revelation to Linda has sort of created this kind of babbling lunatic. And he finds himself in [a future episode] becoming the therapist almost and she becomes the person in therapy and it’s quite a fun sort of thing that we have with that.” Ellis also explained that “I think he believes he can trust that information with Linda and it won’t go any further. But I don’t think he really has thought through what the repercussions are for her personally about that revelation. Again, like all things with Lucifer, it comes from a very selfish point of view.”
Maze’s New Job. Maze may have finally discovered her purpose on earth which, apparently, is being a bounty hunter. And this will be an opportunity to get her into the field more with the cases of the week. Lesley-Ann Brandt (Maze) explained that “It’s a fun job for Maze because I think she’s found her new purpose, you know, it’s like ‘hey, if I’m stuck on earth and I can’t torture like the demon I am, and how can I hunt’ — which is essentially like what the bounty is like for her. Any person who gets a new job that they’re really good at — she’s very proud to be able to bring bad guys in. Her new job is also “sort of a way to seed her into one of the scenes with Dan and Chloe and Lucifer and the police. She’s not all of a sudden helping the cops, do you know what I mean? This is for her personally. She gets paid. She doesn’t really care if the guy’s done a horrible thing — she’s, like, ‘I have fun, I get to hunt human beings and bring them in’. It makes me feel like my old self.”
Maze and Linda. Despite the troubles these two women had in this episode, there is hope on the horizon for their friendship. Brant explained that “I think that it takes an adjustment and it takes time to understand the idea……It’s a fun friendship. At the end of the day, if you take the supernatural element out of it, it’s two friends who had, like, a stumble in their friendship and they’re trying — but they care about each other — so they’re trying to work through it as best as they can with whatever tools they have. And I think if you’re going to try and like work through something, a therapist is probably the best person you can befriend in order to do that.”
Don’t miss an all new episode of LUCIFER on November 14 at 9:00 p.m. ET/PT on Fox (U.S.) and CTV (Canada).
(Note about the video below: the interviews took place the week of October 30, so when someone asks about “next week’s episode” they are referring to the November 7 episode)
*Travel and accommodation provided by Warner Bros. Television