Lightbringers: Illuminating the Deeper Meaning of the Crime-solving Devil TV Show

Send us Fan Mail “City of Angels?” and “All About Her” have us thinking a lot about tv writers’ short cuts and senses of humor. The first, a pre-season-1 prequel, provides some believable and some less-believable canon origins for show staples. On the plus side, we get some mostly-naked scenes of Amenadiel (DB Woodside), but there is no interaction between Lucifer and Chloe at all. Bonus: Emily re...

Send us Fan Mail Tracie and Emily agree that though there is some satisfying humor in “The Sinnerman” and “The Sin Bin,” these are not two episodes that either like to revisit.  Not only does the plot in both episodes fail to hang together, but Tracie has a visceral reaction to eye-related injuries, and the sisters struggle with the lack of accountability for Chloe, Lucifer, and Pierce breaking a...

Send us Fan Mail “Off the Record” and “Chloe Does Lucifer” provide a pattern interrupt, but keep things moving forward in season 3.  Emily and Tracie find that “Off the Record” hits some satisfying storytelling notes, including big reveals, dramatic irony, and some meta-commentary about hell loops from within a hell loop. And while “Chloe Does Lucifer” gives us some touchstones of the titular char...

Send us Fan Mail “Welcome Back, Charlotte Richards” and “Vegas with Some Radish” give us some interesting back story on pre-Goddess Charlotte and card-counting Ella. We also get a nice blend of physical humor and satisfying writing.  In the episode 305, We see our writers having their cake and eating it too as they critique the over-sexualization of consumer advertising while lingering lovingly on...

Send us Fan Mail These two episodes serve as a pattern-interrupt and then re-establishment of Lucifer’s dickishness in Season 3. Turns out there were very practical reasons for the pattern interrupt (they were filmed out of sequence) and also some storytelling beats that affected their reception (some of the choices and dialogue in 304 make sense only when looking back from later in the season). T...

Send us Fan Mail The first two episodes of many fans’ least favorite season have the Guy Girls meandering on a wide range of topics. We move from some straightforward continuity questions (How is Lucifer able to be sunburned? And how did he not lose Amenadiel’s necklace when he was kidnapped?) to observations about the treatment of faith and hope (Ella humansplains faith to an angel!).  In more ab...

Send us Fan Mail These final two episodes of Season 2 have Tracie and Emily taking long walks tangential from the episodes themselves. These include Tracie geeking out over the nature of divinity in the Hebrew scriptures, Emily waxing poetic about the fashion of the 1990s, and both sisters drooling a little over the Morningstar boys. They also spend some time thinking about how what the showrunner...

Send us Fan Mail An episode featuring a murder set in an exclusive private school sets off some OPINIONS from Emily about what really matters in education and the inherent classism built into mom-shaming. She also shares the surprising theory that children are really just three puppies in a trench coat.  Meanwhile, an episode in which an emanation of the Divine inhabits a bearded guy with intensel...

Send us Fan Mail In discussing these two deeply satisfying episodes Tracie and Emily have deep resonance with some plot points as well as moments of downright confusion. The delightfully complicated and not-who-she-seems Candy Morningstar (Lindsey Gort) makes it clear we should never underestimate women just because they fit into a stereotype. This makes the moment when Chloe (Lauren German) prete...

Send us Fan Mail Sometimes, Tracie and Emily have so much overthinking to impart, they make lists so as not to miss anything. This is one of those times.  “Stewardess Interruptus” and “Love Handles” have one of Lucifer and Chloe’s sweetest moments and one of their sexiest. These episodes force characters and audience rearranging mental furniture around Lucifer’s sexuality, and they have Tracie and...

Send us Fan Mail “Homewrecker” and “Quid Pro Ho” have us thinking about the inherent chaos of the goddess of creation and destruction, and the nature of chaos. How much of chaos is simple messiness, and how much of it is destruction? Or is it something else altogether? We’re also struck by how refreshing it is to see a competent woman on screen just being her badass competent self, and how Tom Ell...

Send us Fan Mail “My LIttle Monkey” and “Welcome to Stabby Town” offer both humor and pathos, and have the sisters deep in our feelings.  Lucifer continues to flail in these episodes after Dr. Linda’s reaction to his devil face in the last episode. Her reaction, which he reads as rejection, is confirmation of his own self-loathing, which Lucifer himself articulates when he tells the villain in the...

Send us Fan Mail In really good television this season, we meet some new folks and new relationships. The Weaponizer/Body Bag franchises become a pillar of background ideas and images–and the initial basis of Lucifer and Dan enjoying one another’s company. The short arc of Uriel the angel/villain leads to a reflection on what makes a “good” villain, what a fantastic super-power pattern recognition...

Send us Fan Mail These two episodes of Lucifer prove to be the jumping-off point for intense conversations. Recorded not long after Kyle Rittenhouse (the white teenager who crossed state lines and killed Black Lives Matter protesters) was acquitted, Tracie and Emily are thinking about punishment, justice, and the ways in which inherited paradigms can sometimes obscure other ways of thinking. We th...

Send us Fan Mail The first two episodes of season two we meet new, key characters: the Goddess of Creation (in Charlotte Richards’ body) (Tricia Helfer) and Ella Lopez (Aimee Garcia). We also get the first appearance of Lee Garner, a.ka. Mr. Said-Out-Bitch (Jeremiah Birkett). As we dig into these two episodes we go deep into the source material for the notion of a Goddess as consort or wife to the...

Send us Fan Mail In these beautifully paired episodes, we get to relish in the villainy of Malcolm (Kevin Rankin), aka “Detective ‘Stache,” giggle at the caricature of Lucifer the Satanists present (there’s a lot of goat imagery!) even as we feel for the bereaved in the case-of-the-week procedural story-arc.  Betrayal is a key theme in these two episodes, with many of the central cast experiencing...

Send us Fan Mail In episodes 110 + 111, the devil’s ‘daddy issues’ are made much more human, and we get titillating glimpses of naked Lucifer. We commiserate about our shared vulnerability for untrustworthy narrators, especially when they happen to make us say “hominah hominah,” and follow a side thread into the depths of Gehenna (a sort of not-Hell afterlife).  These episodes provide several beau...

Send us Fan Mail There's a lot to unpack in two of the most beloved episodes of the Lucifer canon. Lucifer grapples with unfamiliar feelings of jealousy and we posit that his emotional immaturity makes sense from someone who's lived the existence he has. We also appreciate the seemingly authentic connection between Lucifer and Father Frank, and music as the anchor of that connection.  Th...

Send us Fan Mail In this conversation about episodes 6 and 7, we talk about the subversion of expectations in making the angel, Amenadiel (DB Woodside) an untrustworthy character. The sisters dig deep into details revealed in these episodes, investigating the meaning of the Hebrew names, and the dos and don’ts when meeting someone who doesn’t resemble their family members. Tracie geeks out over th...

Send us Fan Mail This week Tracie and Emily discuss episodes 4 and 5 of season 1. In "Manly Whatnots," we see the first instance of Lucifer's physical vulnerability in Chloe’s presence–which happens to follow his first instance of emotional vulnerability with her–while in "Sweet Kicks," we enjoy the unexpected alliance between Amenadiel and Maze. From big thoughts on long-...

Send us Fan Mail This week, Tracie and Emily take a look at the second and third episode of season 1. In Lucifer Stay, Good Devil, we learn more about the tragic coda to Chloe’s Hot Tub High School film debut, and in The Would-Be Prince of Darkness, we get some of the very first glimpses of Lucifer’s self-loathing.  We also begin to peel back the layers of the show, asking “What if the devil wasn&...

Send us Fan Mail In this very first episode, Tracie & Emily discuss their rewatch of the Lucifer pilot. Originally aired in 2016, the pilot is how the world was introduced to the handsome devil, Lucifer (Tom Ellis), and his hard-boiled, reluctant love-interest, Chloe Decker (Lauren German). With attention to details small (Tom Ellis' chest hair) and large (the nature of Lucifer's pow...

Send us Fan Mail Lucifer is more than just an escapist TV show. Join sisters Tracie and Emily, as we unmask the unique allure of this series. Based on Neil Gaiman's comic book, Lucifer offers captivating storytelling, a blend of humor and gravitas, and an intriguing mix of celestial beings and everyday humans.  In this teaser episode, learn how each of us fell head-over-heels for this show, f...