Lucifer 201 + 202 "Everything's Coming Up Lucifer" & "Liar, Liar, Slutty Dress on Fire"

And just early on , though , just the the the story that this , this guy is living , you know he's he's stealing from a jewelry store because he's in debt by debt . It's honestly like I don't know how much the show runners put into stuff , but like an indictment of our culture . And then the guy ends up in his underpants , yeah , with a tiara .

With a tiara , it's shoes tied together . So , yeah , you should not have been robbing the jewelry store .

And then Lucifer tries his mojo on Lee we don't know Lee's name yet , because he thinks that it's actually his mother , inhabiting the body of someone who died and and was resuscitated . Why would the mojo work on mom ? Why did he even like the moment the mojo worked ? He should have known it wasn't her .

In Hebrew , so it comes up in a couple of places . They where there are a couple of inscriptions in archeological , archeological inscriptions that say this is dedicated to . It says the name that I don't want to say you'd cave of K , the unsayable name out of nine the name . Name for out of nine , yes , yes .

So it says belongs to your K5 K and his Asherah . And there's , there seems to be consensus among the scholars that this was a female deity , a consort of sorts . What's fascinating to me is that that word Asherah lowercase a , although it's hard to say because Hebrew doesn't have any capitalization .

It shows up a lot in the Hebrew scriptures and it gets translated as sacred pole . So every time like one of the patriarchs like takes down the sacred pole , like of the idolaters that's on the high place or whatever the word , the actual word that's being translated is Asherah . Hmm , and it's also been associated then with trees .

So there are some who think that maybe actually the tree in the Garden of Eden had some sort of connection with this consort Asherah .

It does seem pretty clear that there was some polytheism among the early , early Israelites that then got expunged from the records when , when , during the Babylonia exile , we became truly monotheistic in the way that we think of it today .

And there are some textual scholars who think that there are moments when God is referred to in in motherly ways , when God is referred to as a mother within the text .

That some scholars think is sort of an integration of language that would have been used about Asherah , like into the person of Adonai during the textual , like Editing , yeah , the way that the text came to be over , yeah , yeah , over over time , so so anyway , I like it's really interesting to me , like historiography of it , right , that the that I know it came

from the source text , really for our Shana runners is a comic book as opposed to sort of Talmud talking about the Hasaitan or or the , that's the Satan or the story , and , and it's interesting to me , the actual original source text , right , so the Lucifer myth and the sort of rebellion is relatively late , and so asherah , and like a goddess , as the wife to

the creator God , is very , very early and that's . I find that just really , really interesting .

The way that , like doesn't matter , you know there's a saying in in , in Torah study , there's no before , after , it's all , it's all good , and so you know you can take , and then that's definitely what has happened here , which you know for someone who has a strict , I don't know , chronological , you know , understanding , that might bother some , but I just think

it's really cool , like , oh , here's a cool thing , mom . Yeah , the idea that mom was hated and sent to hell like that actually really resonates with what happened .

And also it's maybe not like if you think about the metaphor and the text , and , and and the way that the the literary life of this character , if I may be so bold , like the fact that she was sent to hell . You know , she was in fact expunged .

It feels like really appropriate that she ends up in the body of a Trisha Hulfer , basically Just considering , like the lushness of the idea of you know it's also like here I go overthinking again the cinematography too .

Yeah , I mean it looks like a tree but it's growing down from the ceiling with the lights and there are , I mean , I think , later episodes the director like spends a lot of focus on that tree , but it starts here in these two episodes where we come especially actually , especially as I think it's as we see , charlotte Richards body possessed by the goddess for

the first time and he's playing all along the watch tower . It's the camera shot , starts with that tree and then comes down to him playing , and so I don't know if the director knew about this tree connection .

So she's wearing Maze's dress because they don't have anything for her to wear , because she's covered in blood , and so there is this connection between both sexuality and death , because there's the man who mistakes her for prostitute and Lucifer sarcastically says you can go ahead and kill this one .

And so she immediately like , yeah , and that also , that feels very , that is what the goddess of all creation would be Like . The ability to bring life and the ability to destroy , all in one package .

Like that just fits for me , because that is what you know , ultimately nature is to me , and like the idea of creation , within it it lies the idea of destruction .

And so that particular moment which , again , I'm overthinking it they were just thinking this is going to be funny because it was , it was and like how skeaved Lucifer is , which is , I mean , is understandable . At the same time , I'm thinking of like the original , like polytheistic belief systems had a lot of incest .

Not necessarily this , but I'm like Greek mythology , like everybody was marrying their sister , their mother , their head , their consorting with you know , uncles , children , grandparents , I mean just for sure , our patriarchs there was , like you know there was , there was .

But like there was the episode with Tim Dunlear , when he's he's trying to to be charitable and he's like I'm going to get his pants too ? And she's responses . And he's naked . She's like you're not getting in my car like that . I was reminded of that because he lets her in the car , right , right .

I watching season one , I sometimes , like when I think back one season one , I forget that she wasn't there sometimes just because she seems like such an important part of the the cast , yeah and of the the the way that they tell stories and we were talking offline about why , and so yeah , well , I think what we said , one of the things that I think that she

brings , that the character brings , is she's the first character that we have that is a genuine believer , and I think that the introduction of her as a true believer it helps keep it grounded and it helps keep the show grounded and respectful of the fact that , you know , lucifer is this over the top crazy character and his dad is God and it's all about family

drama . But they're playing with fire , right , they're playing with the core symbols of belief systems that are thousands of years old and that people hold very , very dear . And so I think , by introducing a character who is so endearing and so I don't know , I just wanna give her a hug , I want her to give me a hug , really , and it'll be a good one too .

Right , because she gives good hugs . Right , like she's just so , not that she's not , not that she's perfect , I mean , we see her flaws , but she is good and having that goodness also be the representative of belief , I think helps keep us keep sort of the elusive , the elusive or universe from being too flip or too I don't know disrespectful of their core .

Just cause it feels really weird to her , which I know is partially because I think she's just like that's just outside of her the way she lives , Like she doesn't know people who pray , like particularly not in the middle of a busy , Not in the middle of the day .

Ella's response is so gentle . It's like , you know , like it's okay , you know I get it . You know he like I keep waiting for him to call to hear back too . But it's a one way intercom , you know , I know he hears you . And like that is just that's exactly what a person of faith would need to hear if they were feeling overwhelmed .

And that's not what's going on with Lucifer , but she just is putting sunshiney faith into the world in a way that is just very positive .

Yeah , and I also I do wanna talk about how , when Chloe asks her about her faith which I thought was actually pretty good use of exposition there Like I mean , they had a tough needle to thread with introducing this character and they got her , like they found a way to have her do an exposition dump , like moving from Detroit for brothers but no , you go

straight for them , and like that's not easy to do , and it felt natural . Like the first time I watched it . This time I was like , oh , that's a lot of exposition , but okay , so anyway the fact that so when Chloe asks her about it and Ella's like might be a metaphor , might not , I don't know and Chloe says don't know if there's more faith .

And Ella's response being like no doubt is an important part of the process , and my aunt , who's a nun , told me that I really appreciate that , and in part that's because I am often overwhelmed by a certain type of religiosity that we get , especially here in America .

Where faith is required is like the barrier to entry , which means that you cannot ever be questioning , you cannot ever have doubt , because that means that you'd be done Like that's You've failed in some way You've failed , and I think a lot of people who are not people of faith themselves think that's what religion is , because that brand of religion is often very

loud yeah , that's the word . They're not very necessarily numerous , but they are loud , and so this gives an example of what it means to be a person of faith without being someone who is going to be judgmental or require things from people who that they're not willing to give , or proselytizing or any of those .

It's not that I one could imagine a non-religious writer sort of using this to poke fun , right , and to imply that the believers are somehow stupid or duped or I don't know , but somehow I can imagine writing it such that the believer is condescended to and by saying like no , wrestling with it is part of it , it is part of it .

It allows a more fully formed faith and a more fully formed character , I think , to inhabit that space and to me that feels like another level of respect and tells me as well that someone in the writing team is in some way a believer , like struggles with it , wrestles with it , has doubts . But this is not a bunch of atheists writing this , I don't think .

Or Church of Darwin or whatever the spaghetti monster thing is , yeah , or actually , I think they tend to be pretty respectful .

Oh , that's right , and it's so reductive and unfair and unreasonable . That's a flattening yeah , yeah , it's a flattening of what faith is and what it can do .

I saw Tom Ellis talking about how we're open to all types of sexuality on this show and sadly there's not as much gay male representation as one would like , but there's a hell of a lot more than there would have been if they made the show in the 90s and we talked about how they show so many different strong women who are strong in different ways .

It's not one type of strength , there's many types of strength , including , I have to say , when Linda confronts a man-a-deal , when she confronts him .

That was awesome and I was thinking about how , like , revolutionary is a little too strong , but I'm just in a lot of shows they would have just , oh , that , a man-a-deal , everything's better now , and would have just expected her to just accept like , well , this is what happened , this is who he is .

But she got to have her moment of what you did was wrong and harmful and it is unacceptable . And she said to him you're gonna get karma .

And because this is how the show works , he takes it very literally like , oh , maybe that's why I'm losing my wings and apologizes to her , in part for selfish reasons , which is , I think , part of the reason also why it doesn't fix things . Yeah , but he does , from her point of view , offer a sincere apology .

That allows her to move on from it rather than it just being . She accepts .

What we're talking about here with the introduction of Ella and the way that characters are treated throughout this show is part of the reason why so many people love it so much , because we can see ourselves somewhere in the show and we can see that there's a place for us and that we are deserving of respect , that we have , that we have something to offer and

that's . You know , relationships may be hard , but we can work at them together .

The very final moment of that episode is , first of all , looking up at the sky and smirking , and so that is now like one of many times that on that balcony , someone usually looks over , looks up at the sky and like engages with God , and I just think that's really interesting and like I don't know , it's kind of cool , like the , the whole idea of God in

the heavens above is , you know , certainly from that source material we're talking about before , but still like they're just like looking up as if you're looking someone in the eye . You know , like I don't know , trisha Helfer , really , she pulled it off .

balcony , so I don't know , it's a pregnant place , it's pregnant with possibilities . Yeah , and .

Uh-huh , after everything that happened with Malcolm and yeah , and this is one of those like you and I have talked offline a little bit about like sometimes the aftermath of stuff is just like wait , no , you can't just and that was actually Latoya Ferguson , the , the reviewer on AV club was saying she's like I can like suspend my disbelief on , like when you got

angels and you know the , the goddess of all creation , habitting a body . I can't suspend my disbelief , and I think that's the reason why I'm saying that Like this is all that happens unless they're actually actively trying to make a statement about policing , which I really don't think .

No , and so and it like , as a viewer I was glad to see Dan , like I liked his character . Even when I hated his character , like I like I never Actually hated him I was always rooting for him and I was like I don't know , I don't know , I don't know , I don't know , I don't know .

Even as terrible things he did , you could see , he came from , in general , a place of trying to do the right thing and sometimes getting it over his head . So , like gaslight and Chloe Came about because he was trying to , he was trying to protect her .

That's why he shot an outcome , and then he didn't know how To come clean , and so path of least resistance was to gaslighter , and so that's why I was so happy to see Dan and we were trying to get him to stop , to get him to be as responsible as possible , so , anyway .

So , as a viewer , I was glad to see Dan and I don't think that they've made the wrong decision in , in , in , in doing that , but that is something that I feel like . If these episodes has been made , of 2021 instead of 2016 . Even though you'd think by 2016, . We knew You'd think by then , many of us did , but we didn't . But enough didn't that ?

There , there was no sense and , as you said , like you , you mentioned , and we'll get to it eventually but in in season six , there is a , an episode that really takes on the issue of policing and DB Woodside had to make himself a nuisance to make sure that that episode was made .

So , and that's like that's what it takes and that's a shame , but I just wanted to to to mention that and I think that's a good thing . You know that's a good thing . I think that's a good thing . I don't think that's a good thing . I think that's a good thing . So we don't end on a like bumper note Cheesy noodles , this goo , this child is .

Are you watching porn Just the amount of cheese In the car .

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