Lucifer Season 5 Review: Michael, the Romance and God's Arrival

Lucifer season 5 review: a season about how the characters see themselves

Lucifer has always been a series about desire. Its Devil, Lucifer Morningstar, is a charming tempter who gets people to say what they want out loud, and Tom Ellis plays him with a polished, Bowie-tinged swagger. The show was developed by Tom Kapinos from characters created for DC Vertigo by Neil Gaiman, Sam Kieth and Mike Dringenberg, and it began on Fox on January 25, 2016. Fox canceled it in May 2018 after three seasons. Netflix picked it up in June 2018 after a fan campaign, and seasons 4 through 6 ran from May 8, 2019 to September 10, 2021.

Season 5 is the middle of the Netflix run, and it is the one split into two halves of eight episodes each. The first half arrived on August 21, 2020, and the second on May 28, 2021. Joe Henderson served as showrunner, with Ildy Modrovich as co-showrunner. The review covered the first half only, written when the cliffhanger was fresh, and called the season a step back toward the show's early formula: more case-of-the-week plotting, lower stakes and less of the provocation that season 4 had pushed toward.

A quick orientation for readers who skipped ahead. The main cast in season 5 includes Tom Ellis as Lucifer, Lauren German as Detective Chloe Decker, Kevin Alejandro as Detective Dan Espinoza, D. B. Woodside as Amenadiel, Lesley-Ann Brandt as Mazikeen, Rachael Harris as Dr. Linda Martin and Aimee Garcia as Ella Lopez, with Scarlett Estevez as Trixie in a recurring role. Brandt also plays Lilith this season, and Ellis, as noted, plays two brothers.

That is the right place to begin, because season 5 is a weaker season than the one before it and a more interesting one than its reputation suggests. It begins with the Devil alone in a self-made hell and ends, in its first half, with a visit from his father. Between those points it is by turns lazy, funny, sweet and strangely sharp about what guilt does to people.

Guilt is its own punishment

The opening episode, Really Sad Devil Guy, sends Lucifer back to Hell, where Chloe and Maze work a murder on Earth while Lucifer investigates from his own hell loop. The review pointed to an idea the season raises and then drops: that Hell is largely a self-imposed guilt trip. Lucifer tries to escape a torment that he has built himself, and the case he picks up, a murder involving a friend named Lee Garner, serves mainly as an excuse to look at his own problems.

There is a good version of the season hidden inside that idea. If Hell is a place people build for themselves, then every character who walks around Los Angeles feeling unforgivable is living in a small version of it, and the show could have used the case-of-the-week format to say so. Occasionally it does. Most episodes wrap their stakes up within a single episode, and the personal guilt returns only in the closing scenes, which gives the season a gentle, episodic feel that sits oddly after the serial momentum of season 4.

The review wished the season had stayed with that thought. It did not. By midseason, the writers had moved on, and the thread about how each character's guilt shapes their behavior mostly turned into a series of individual crises. Dr. Linda is over-parenting Charlie, Amenadiel is trying to make the world safe for him, Maze is lost without Eve, Ella is hurt that Lucifer ghosted her and Dan has gone full self-help. These are small, believable character moments, but they do not connect to a central story.

Michael, the villain who never quite lands

The season's antagonist is Michael, Lucifer's twin brother, who comes to Earth and impersonates him. Tom Ellis plays both roles, and the second episode, Lucifer! Lucifer! Lucifer!, reveals that an impostor in the middle of an isolation-experiment murder case is Michael. In the review's reading, Michael is Lucifer's personality counterpart: slouched, insecure and American-accented where Lucifer is poised and British, and focused on people's fears where Lucifer reveals their desires.

The brothers are written as opposites. Lucifer reveals what people want and Michael exploits what they fear, which makes the confrontations between them a clash of methods as much as of temperament. The most effective moments are the smallest ones, such as a posture change or a shift in accent, where Ellis makes clear which twin the audience is watching. That is difficult acting, and it is easy to take for granted.

The performance is a technical achievement, and the contrast works. The writing around it is where the review had doubts. Michael is a more interesting concept than he is a threat, and his plan, as it unfolds, feels thinner than the setup promised. The doppelganger premise, in which someone with Lucifer's face ruins Lucifer's life in Los Angeles, was abandoned too early. The review called him rather boring, with intentions more brattish than menacing.

The meta middle: the best of the season

The review's favorite stretch is the high-concept middle of the first half, and the episode list backs it up. In the third episode, titled ¡Diablo!, the show pokes fun at itself through a fictional TV production, and the review described Lucifer and Chloe on the backlot of their own show, solving a murder while actors play distorted versions of the main cast. Episode 4, It Never Ends Well for the Chicken, is a noir-style flashback explaining how Lilith's ring came to Lucifer, told as a story for Chloe's daughter, Trixie.

Episode 5, Detective Amenadiel, has Amenadiel and Chloe attempt to copy her partnership with Lucifer on a murder at a convent, and the nuns cannot keep their eyes off the angel. Episode 6, BlueBallz, is a DJ-murder case at Lux that increases the romantic tension between Chloe and Lucifer. The review called these episodes filler compared with last season's story, but also the funniest and best parts of season 5. The show is at its most confident when it is willing to be silly.

Love is in the air, and then it drags

Not every ensemble thread works, and the review had a mixed reaction to how the supporting cast was used. It welcomed the fact that the ensemble got more airtime and story arcs of their own, even where those arcs wandered. Ella's storyline, with its turn toward a serial killer case, was the one the review found most contrived. Dan's trajectory, and Maze's drift toward an easy villainy, felt steered by what the plot needed.

The central relationship finally moves forward. After years of will-they-won't-they, Chloe and Lucifer become a couple in season 5, and the review welcomed the decision while criticizing how it was stretched. The two spend a lot of time expressing love through action without saying it, and when they do get together, the show returns almost immediately to the insecurity and trust problems that kept them apart.

The review's sharpest complaint is that the romance does not feel romantic enough. A subplot that swaps Lucifer's powers to Chloe, so that he can try her detective skills, ends with the conclusion that loving her makes him vulnerable, a sweet idea the season repeats for hours. The first half also ends with the story rushing. A serial killer is tracked down in a way the review called contrived, Dan steps toward darkness, Maze is steered into conflict with Lucifer, and the first half finishes with a major fight scene that the review ranked among the best of the series.

Lucifer season 5: episode guide

Titles, parts and directors as listed in the Wikipedia list of Lucifer episodes.

Lucifer season 5 part two, season 6 and how the series ended

The first half closes with Spoiler Alert, in which Michael kidnaps Chloe and the fight between the brothers is interrupted by the arrival of God, played by Dennis Haysbert, who says that he hates it when his children fight. The review thought the most interesting thing about the cliffhanger was that God finally appears in the show at all, and the second half is built around what that means.

Part two opens with Family Dinner, in which God invites his children to dinner and Michael is banished from Earth shortly after. The following episodes are looser and stranger than the first half. In Bloody Celestial Karaoke Jam, God's presence makes people burst into song. In Resting Devil Face, God becomes human and gets hurt during a sting. By episode 14, Nothing Lasts Forever, God retires and leaves his choice of successor to the angels, and Dan is killed in the penultimate episode. In the finale, A Chance at a Happy Ending, Chloe dies and is revived at the Coliseum, and Lucifer cuts off Michael's wings before the angels kneel to him.

Season 6 followed on September 10, 2021 with 10 episodes, and it was announced as the final one. Brianna Hildebrand joined the cast as Aurora, known as Rory, who is revealed to be the daughter of Chloe and Lucifer from the future, and Eve marries Maze. With that, the series ended at 93 episodes. The audience numbers were strong: Wikipedia reports that after the second half the series sat near the top of Nielsen's streaming ratings, with 1.8 billion viewing minutes from May 31 to June 6, 2021.

Tonally, part two leans into spectacle. A story about God coming down to Earth lets the writers play with divine whimsy, and the musical episode is the obvious example. The cost is that the emotional drama sometimes gets lost in the noise, particularly around Linda and Amenadiel's argument over Charlie. The best moments of part two are the ones that go back to character: Maze and Dan in a standoff, Chloe and Lucifer facing what loving each other costs.

Viewers who only want the Chloe and Lucifer relationship can follow it through the finale of part two, where the question of whether they can stay together is answered under pressure. Those who care more about the family can follow God, Michael, Amenadiel and the angels across the same stretch. The season gives each audience something, though not always in the same episode.

The series is a case study in survival. It was canceled on a broadcast network over ratings, revived by a fan campaign and completed on its own terms, which is rare for a show of its kind.

Verdict: is Lucifer season 5 worth watching?

For fans of the show, yes, and it is easier to recommend as a whole than as two halves. The first half is uneven, with a villain who does not threaten and a romance that spins its wheels. The review's frustration with those points is fair. The second half is bolder and more chaotic, and it gives the God storyline and the Michael plot the payoff the first half promised.

It also helps to remember what the season was working against. The first half was released in August 2020 and the second in May 2021, and a gap of nine months in the middle of a season is hard on any serial story. Watching both halves in one sitting, as new viewers can now do, smooths over a lot of the first half's pacing issues.

For newcomers, the advice is to start at the beginning. Season 5 depends on four seasons of relationships, and the emotional beats around Chloe, Maze, Amenadiel and Linda land only if you know where they came from. The meta episodes, in particular, are funnier when you know the show they are mocking.

One more consideration is how the season changes the series. Before season 5 the central question was whether Lucifer would stay on Earth or go home. By its end, the question is what the Devil's role in the universe should be, with God stepping aside and the angels forced to choose. That shift sets up the final season and explains why the show treats this season as a hinge. Even viewers who find the Michael storyline thin should see it through for the structural payoff.

The review ended on a note of cautious optimism, saying that it was okay so far and that there was promise in the second half. That turned out to be accurate. The second half is the better half, and the show finished with the ending its fan base had campaigned for.

Sources

• Lucifer (TV series), Wikipedia — Network history, season dates, cast and ratings
• List of Lucifer episodes, Wikipedia — Season 5 episode titles, directors, writers and summaries