Lucifer Gets Back in the Game in “The One With the Baby Carrot” 

Season Three is playing it fast and loose with banter and bad guys and it’s a lot of fun to just go along for the ride. From a little “premature unfurling” to some rather literal Rotten Tomatoes ratings, Lucifer is on a war path but having a grand time along the way.

Lucifer’s sense of fair play has always been uniquely self-centred. He does good deeds on his own terms and rights the wrongs done to others with an eye to correcting his own perceived slights. In this case, he is looking for a mysterious crime boss known as “The Sinner Man” who has started stealing Lucifer Morningstar’s role in the L.A. landscape.

So when a dead man turns up who had made accusations against a well-known comedian that he had stolen his material, Lucy is a sympathetic soul. Since Decker won’t let him pursue the Sinner Man case, he chooses to seek justice for the late J.D. Woodstock (Sina Amedson, Jeff Ross Presents Roast Battle).

Ella’s fan-girling over the alleged thief, comedian and star Bobby Lowe (Kevin Christy, Masters of Sex) is pretty cute although her outrage when he eventually admits to stealing the material is a bit over-the-top. Still cute, just intense.

Newly arrived Lieutenant Pierce starts to develop a character and backstory in this episode. After Lucifer makes a loud and public display in the precinct about The Sinner Man, Pierce spies on their investigation and then breaks into the penthouse to warn Lucifer to back off.

As he tells it, The Sinner Man isn’t the scapegoat boogie man Decker believes him to be. He’s a very dangerous underworld boss who killed someone close to Pierce back in Chicago. I’m not totally buying Pierce’s story. I think his connection to Lucifer’s current issues is more than coincidentally showing up at the same time as his wings.

Oh, the wings. I think Dr. Martin spoke for us all when she describes the bags of bloody, hacked off wings as gruesome. Her scenes with Amenadiel, lightened by her attempts to give him a shortened moniker, are well-spun, genuine moments of recovery for two people who are still suffering from past experiences.

Thankfully, by the end of the episode, Lucifer has agreed to stop hacking his wings off when they grow back. Whether or not identifying his little brother as his ultimate test helps Amenadiel get his wings and powers back will be interesting to watch as it plays out. How exactly does one pass a test who has spent every minute from the beginning of time annoying you?

It was a good episode for revelations. Beyond the A-Plotline reveal of warm-up comedian Sheila (Camille Chen, Bones) being the killer, Decker finds out about Espinoza’s recreational improv, Lucifer finds out The Sinner Man wasn’t the one who killed Sam, and we even find out who actually has the contentious micro-penis.

What’s truly lovely about catching this show every week is how the writers have managed to come up with really novel moments. Procedurals often fall into their tropes, especially by the time they’re launching their third season, but weaponizing a puppet and bringing his own tomatoes to throw at Detective Dan’s stand-up act are bits that cleverly surprise us into somewhat shocked laughter but are completely in keeping with the character and the show.

Good writing often coins catchy phrases that stick in your head and I’m interested to know if “chuckle bunnies” is an actual term for women hot to sleep with stand-up comics. Because Lord(!) knows that “LuciFans” are a real and active thing.

With Lucifer returning to form and holding “Favour Court” at LUX, we gotta expect to meet some really juicy characters in future episodes. What I truly desire is more wicked Lucy. Please and thank you.

My last word on this episode is on puppets. I’m as big a Muppets and Sesame Street fan as the next child of the 80s but, in general, puppets under the glare of TV lights are awkward. In dimly lit storage rooms, they’re down-right terrifying. Respect to the production for the moment Tiger Puppet Sheila moved off the shelf because I actually jumped.

Lucifer airs Monday nights at 9pm ET/PT on FOX.