Lucifer

About the series

Contains story spoilers.

Los Angeles is Lucifer Morningstar’s chosen retirement from Hell, and Lux, his upscale piano bar, makes the change look like a permanent holiday. That plan breaks when pop star Delilah, someone whose career he helped, is shot outside the club. Detective Chloe Decker questions Lucifer at the scene; he insists on helping her find the killer. Their first investigation leads to record producer Jimmy Barnes, Delilah’s former fiancé, whose jealousy and resentment culminate in hiring a drug dealer to kill her. The case gives Chloe a culprit through police work while Lucifer draws out people’s desires and tests the idea that they choose their own actions. At the same time Amenadiel arrives to press Lucifer to return to Hell. The murder connects the show’s two tracks from the outset: one follows evidence through Los Angeles, the other asks what the Devil’s refusal of his assigned role means.

The next case makes Lucifer’s unofficial partnership formal. A paparazzo confesses to causing the car crash that killed actor’s son Robbie Russell Jr., but Chloe is recovering and the apparently open-and-shut account does not satisfy Lucifer. The investigation points from the photographer Nick Hofmeister to his intern Josh Bryant. Josh has taken Nick’s lesson about always being first to an extreme: he instigates events and murders to secure pictures. Dan’s police work helps Chloe identify Josh, whose confessed desire to beat everyone to the story explains the pattern without excusing it. Lucifer considers staging a preview of Hell’s punishment, but Chloe insists the men should face the justice system. Their decision establishes a recurring disagreement: Lucifer wants punishment to be immediate and personal, while Chloe insists on evidence and lawful consequences.

A murder at a football celebrity’s party turns the third investigation into a test of Lucifer’s own sense of justice. The victim, Ali Thornton, is found after a night involving quarterback Ty Huntley; phone footage makes Ty look guilty, and Chloe arrests him. Lucifer doubts the case because the recording proves an encounter, not murder, and keeps following leads while an attempt on Debra, Ty’s ex, points toward fixer Ronnie Hillman. Lucifer uses a sting to get Ronnie, who reveals that Ty’s agent Joe hired Ali. Joe had accidentally choked Ali and then used the footage to blackmail Ty into staying with his agency. Once Lucifer understands that an innocent man is being punished, his anger at a counterfeit version of himself in Los Angeles takes on a new target. The case links his identity crisis to a concrete demand: the guilty person must be held responsible.

The fourth episode’s missing-person case draws Lucifer’s attraction to Chloe into the investigation. Lindsay Jolson appears to have been kidnapped, and her boyfriend Carver Cruz, a pickup artist whose advice treats women as targets, says he wants her back. Chloe and Lucifer follow the apparent ransom trail, only to discover that Lindsay staged the abduction with her brother. She had once been used as research for Carver’s book and has now made him fall in love as revenge. When the siblings threaten Carver, Lucifer rejects killing as a fitting punishment. Kevin orders Lindsay to shoot Carver and Lucifer, but Lucifer intervenes, strikes Kevin and confronts Lindsay. Chloe arrives, sees Lucifer’s devil face reflected behind Lindsay, and questions what he is. At his urging she shoots him in the leg, expecting his claim of immortality to protect him. Instead he bleeds and feels pain. The result unsettles both their working relationship and his self-image.

In “Sweet Kicks,” a shooting at designer Benny Choi’s runway show kills art student Paola Cortez, who is trampled in the crowd, and risks igniting conflict between Los Angeles gangs. Dani and Diego Ramirez identify Yellow Viper, Benny’s former graffiti partner, as a likely suspect: Viper went to prison after taking the fall for a break-in that helped Benny and is now teaching art to young people. Chloe and Lucifer’s attempt to question him is interrupted when the Ramirez group arrives armed. Lucifer distracts them long enough for Viper to move the teenagers away, and Maze disables the armed attackers. The police arrest Viper after finding a gun in his bag, but Chloe’s suspicion turns to Benny. She and Lucifer discover that Benny staged the shooting to frame Viper and damage a rival, while Marine veteran Hector fired into the crowd. Benny’s plan went wrong when Paola was trampled; he is arrested for her death. The case shows how Lucifer’s earlier favor to Benny helped set consequences in motion, even though Benny chose the deception and Hector fired the shots.

These early cases give the supernatural premise a practical counterweight. Lucifer can provoke people into voicing desire, but Chloe checks those claims against what happened, who had access and what can be proved. Jimmy’s hiring of a killer, Josh’s manufactured violence, Joe’s blackmail and Lindsay’s staged abduction are different uses of other people as instruments. The cases do not make Lucifer’s authority equivalent to a police investigation; instead, they repeatedly put his instincts beside Chloe’s methods and show where either can fail. When he pushes Joe through glass in anger, Chloe treats his strength as a danger even while recognizing that he helped expose the killer. The partnership is built through friction, not because either character simply adopts the other’s view.