Warning: SPOILERS for the Lucifer season 3/series finale, ‘A Devil Of My Word’ lie ahead…!
See! Even Daphne is here…!
Lucifer concluded its television run this week with the episode, ‘A Devil Of My Word,’ by falling on its angel-wing-shield with a closing moment that would have been a bellwether season 3 cliffhanger if not for the fact that Fox – three days earlier – had just cancelled the series. In what is, perhaps, a sure sign that the show’s final fate has been sealed, executive producers and co-showrunners Joe Henderson and Ildy Modrovich are now dishing on their nixed season 4 plans.
The finale saw the eponymous Lucifer Morningstar (Tom Ellis), arrive at a celestial epiphany about the season-spanning mystery of his (unwanted) re-growing angel wings and missing Devil Face, for which he blamed his omnipotently elusive father, God. The cause, as it turns out, was his own unprecedented sense of fulfillment from his crime-solving endeavours with Det. Chloe Decker (Lauren German). However, in Lucifer’s act of killing the scheming Lt. Marcus Pierce, a.k.a. the biblical Cain (Tom Welling), his monstrous self-perception causes his missing Devil Face to resurface, at which point his beloved Chloe – heretofore incredulous about Lucifer’s Devil claims – finally witnesses the truth. – The end!
Of course, that was hardly the intended crescendo for the series, and had Lucifer season 4 moved forward, it would have showcased a different dynamic. As Henderson and Modrovich explain in a post-mortem interview with Deadline about the direction of the unrealised season 4:
“As you saw in the finale, Chloe saw Lucifer’s devil face. Finally, proof that Lucifer really is who he said he was. No turning back. Chloe knows the truth. So that was the big thrust of season 4 – exploring Chloe dealing with those ramifications, and how it affected her relationship with Lucifer. Both professionally and personally. Can you work with the Devil? Can you LOVE the devil?”
Interestingly, it appears that Lucifer was going to be all-in on the premise of Chloe finally knowing the truth, and even seemed intent on pursuing the perpetually-teased romance between the hedonistic archangel and the straight-laced police detective. Indeed, Henderson reiterates the intended commitment to this new direction in a post-mortem with TV Line, stating:
“There’s no going back. We wanted to back ourselves into this corner, so there was no way we couldn’t stick with what we did. This is the end of an act, and the beginning of the next one is Chloe knowing the truth and having to deal with both the fact that her partner was actually the Devil, but also the man she has grown to love. That’s what we wanted to explore in season 4.”
Of course, a wrench was destined to fall into the proverbial works, with the game-changing arrival of a new character. As Modrovich explains in the Deadline interview:
“We also had an exciting character from Lucifer’s past who was going to come in and mix everything up. A very personal, intimate figure who we won’t reveal the identity of yet… until we find out if we get the chance to tell the tale on a new network.”
While these Lucifer season 4 details are fascinating, they’re also bittersweet and appear to be the closest we’ll ever get to knowing what happens in the television lore – even as the #SaveLucifer movement is still surging. It’s a shame, especially since Lucifer, unlike other crime procedurals, didn’t intend to rest on its laurels, with plans for major changes in its dynamic. At this point, we’re not likely to see result of the show’s “Chlucifer” satanic ship, or, (as one could have dreamed,) an appearance by the Sandman himself, Morpheus, the character whose Neil Gaiman-created DC Comics title served as the selfish-but-honourable martini-sipping piano bar-owning version of the Devil’s first appearance back in 1989.
Nevertheless, barring some kind of miraculous, Timeless-like, post-cancellation pickup, we wish Lucifer bon voyage.