Lucifer: A Priest Walks Into a Bar

Review by An Honest Fangirl

"A Priest Walks Into a Bar" sounds like the start to a really bad joke. Or the start of some deep, philosophical discussion. The latter is especially true when a priest walks into the Devil's bar.

There is some humor, of course; Lucifer excels in snarky one-liners. But this episode really delved into the relationship that's been hovering over the show without ever being really explicitly addressed, and that is the relationship between Lucifer and his father. We never saw God directly, but he had a very persuasive stand-in with Father Frank. Colman Domingo had a tough job. Not only did he have to make us care about Father Frank, but he also had to sell the idea that maybe Lucifer was wrong about his father. And he did so beautifully. I actually got a little teary when Frank got shot. I wanted to see more of him, wanted to see his relationship with Lucifer develop.

Although, his death did lead to my favorite scene of the episode. Watching Lucifer rant at God was heartbreaking. He genuinely couldn't understand what God wanted from people. My favorite moments with Lucifer are the ones where he drops his public persona. Here, we got to see Lucifer in all of his doubt and vulnerability. Tom Ellis knocked it out of the park this episode. Lucifer's emotions ran the gamut of fury, grief, determined annoyance, and his usual snarky self. And each emotion felt real and earned.

This episode contained a great parallel between Frank and Lucifer playing the piano and Chloe and Lucifer playing the piano. At the beginning of the episode, Lucifer admitted that he didn't know what his relationship with Chloe was. That question was answered in that last scene: Chloe is his friend. She cares about him, and wants to be there for him when he's in trouble. She might not be as good at piano as Frank was, but those two scenes clearly showed that Lucifer does have friends, that he does have people who care about him and that he can rely on.

Disconnected from the rest of the episode was Malcolm, Dan, and Amenadiel. Amenadiel brought Malcolm back in order to kill Lucifer. I wish that I could say that that was a surprise, but it really wasn't. I'm slowly growing less interested in everything involving Malcolm as time goes on. And since he's drawn poor Dan into his schemes, that also means that I'm losing interest in Dan. This is not a good thing if the show wants me to be evenly remotely worried that he's going to be separated from his family somehow.

Random Thoughts

Note from the end of Season 2: Frank's insistence that God has a plan seems especially poignant now.

I think that Malcolm was eating in every scene that he was in.

If I had a favorite line, it would be Lucifer asking why everyone thought that God's plan was a good one. It was very clever.

Did Chloe not think that it was weird that Lucifer could just lift the Spider up one handed? The Spider was not a small dude.

I loved the different reactions that Chloe and Lucifer had to Frank's life story. It's a small detail, but I appreciated it.

Lucifer playing "Knocking on Heaven's Door" was beautiful.

Maybe Dan should go make a deal with Lucifer. That would be a fun scene.


Lucifer had a case that, for once, had me emotionally invested in the characters involved. If you have to have the Case of the Week format, this is how you do it.

8.8 out of 10

~An Honest Fangirl

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