Season One, Episode Nine — “A Priest Walks Into A Bar”
© Copyright 2016, Fox Broadcasting Company. All Rights Reserved.
By Shay Revolver. Last week on Lucifer everybody’s skeletons rolled out of the closet like an avalanche of birkenstocks. So it’s only fitting that this week’s episode has us sifting through all those bones. With “A Priest Walks Into A Bar”, we find that Lucifer and Maze are still on the outs, but Lucifer’s too busy to dwell on it because he’s searching for a friend… at least when he’s not busy shooting down an opportunity to foursome.
Lucifer finds himself becoming fast friends with Father Frank, a priest on a mission to save the soul of a wayward teen. Lucifer spends most of the episode trying to discover the priest’s true motives (and dark secrets, naturally), but when he realizes that Frank has none he becomes fond of the old fellow, and uses him as a sounding board from which he can contend with his faith.
Over in Supporting-Character Land, the back-from-the-dead Detective Malcolm has become Dan’s new partner. Malcolm’s setting up poor Dan to steal some evidence for him — a risk Malcolm is willing to undergo to avoid ending up behind bars. By the end of the episode we discover that Amenadiel didn’t raise Malcolm from the dead because he had a thing for Chloe (which, aw anyway), but because he needed Malcolm to kill Lucifer in order to send him straight back to Hell. Lucifer!
WHAT WORKED: The crisis of faith that Lucifer goes through in this weeks episode is brilliant. Lucifer is getting more and more human with each episode. Character’s motivations and the reader’s ability to relate to them is one of the galvanizing forces in comic books; this episode embraces that, and it was nice to be able to follow Lucifer on his journey. Even though the episode was a little lackluster outside of the interactions between Lucifer and Father Frank, watching our anti-hero go through a loss made this episode memorable and worth watching.
WHAT DIDN’T: The villain, or at least the casting of the villain. When “Spider” is caught he comes off more like that unfortunate camp counselor the kids used to play pranks on rather than a criminal mastermind. I’m not saying he had to be a huge, tattooed bad-ass, but he could at least have looked like someone who would know how to procure the drugs he needed to start his “empire”. He also didn’t strike me as the type to kill the priest himself, which made the stand-off scene seem quite unlikely.
BEST LINE(s):
“Attempt? I filled five voids last night.” – Lucifer, regarding loneliness vs. his sexcapdes.
“Shoot the altar boy… in the leg or something, obviously.” – Lucifer.
“Bringing down a priest is the only reason I ever would!” – Lucifer, after Chloe asks if he’s ready to go to church.
Father Frank: “God always has a plan.” Lucifer: “Why does everyone always think it’s a good one?”
Lucifer: “The Devil… friends with a priest? That’s absurd!” Chloe: “Absurdly adorable!”
“It’s a church. What am I going to do? Pray too hard?” – Lucifer.
BEST MOMENT: The opening scene is by far the cheekiest and best moment. Not that the episode wasn’t full of some interesting twists and turns, but watching Lucifer try to enact his own version of a real life porno by pushing together three willing, half-naked party goers with a pizza delivery boy was beyond priceless.
EPISODE’S MVP: Father Frank. Even though his character is a one shot, Frank is hands down this episode’s MVP. He brought out the light in Lucifer, he was his foil and counterpart. Lucifer and Father Frank’s interactions pushed the story along and his death will push Lucifer even further in episodes to come. Father Frank spent this week trying to do good — not only for the boy he’s trying to save from crime, but for Lucifer. Frank’s a true believer, and he tries to share his faith with Lucifer in order to get our Prince of Darkness on the right track. And, if all of that didn’t make Father Frank MVP worthy, the fact that he’s got a little bad boy in him makes him relatable (and knowing how to rock makes him pretty cool too).
© Copyright 2016, Fox Broadcasting Company. All Rights Reserved.
THE DEVIL’S DUE:
– Just come clean, Dan. It’s not going to be pretty when the dominoes fall!
– I love Lucifer getting close to another person. Father Frank and Lucifer will make good friends.
– Lucifer and Father Frank playing the piano has to be one of the coolest things ever!
– How can Chloe see Lucifer lift a man twice his size up off the floor with one hand and still not believe him?
8 out of 10
Next: “Pops”, soon.
Before: “Et Tu, Doctor?”, here.
