The tough thing about the series finale of Lucifer is that we hate it, but we don't hate it. We leave our celestial characters, for the most part, grown and changed in an organic and positive way. Maze is finally her own person, Amenadiel has balanced humanity and divinity, Lucifer has devoted himself to helping others. Our humans are doing ok too. The bones are there, but the mechanism to get there sucks. Still, Lucifer is a fun and rewatchable show, mostly silly, sometimes touching, overall an enjoyable experience.
On this week's podcast, we're discussing Maze and Eve's wedding and Linda's new book. The first man shows up to put a wrench in the ladies' plans, but he's dispatched with ease. Ella reveals her knowledge to team celestial in a move that really, genuinely feels earned. Not earned? Literally every storyline with Rory. We don't WANT to dislike this character, but there is just nothing there. Give her likes! Dislikes! Relationships! Anything for us as viewers to hang on to.
So, Chloe and Lucifer have a daughter. It's best if you don't question it, because the show is begging you not to. Lucifer and Chloe investigate the reasons Lucifer might take off and Lucifer later attempts to bond with Rory. In the second episode, A Lot Dirtier Than That, we revisit the racist cop from season 4, who is now a detective and has not changed his ways. Amenadiel and Harris stick their necks out to do the right thing for a young black woman, while Dan, Ella and Chloe consider their complacency.
This week on Lucifer, we're discussing season 6 episodes Yabba Dabba Do Me and Pin the Tail On the Daddy. Fair warning, the episode primarily focuses on the cartoons, hell loops and proper police procedure of the first episode and leaves Lucifer, Chloe and their maybe-daughter for a later episode discussion. Who can blame us, when the first ep contains one of the greatest things brought to a show? An Alias alum!
Must Be Tuesday is back to talk the last season of Lucifer--for real this time! These first two episodes serve mainly to summarize what happened in season 5 and to pull back and explore the developments of last season's finale. Is Lucifer God? Big fat no. Is Chloe his consultant? Also no. Is Maze queen of hell? Not so much. Dan's in hell? Not for long! And so on. There's a new big bad in town, but she's just a blip in these episodes so more on her next time.
This week MBT is busting out our questionable (and completely unspoiled) skills for Lucifer season 6. The main question is honestly: what will this season even be about? Are we really going to have god as a main character on a TV show? What would that even looks like? While we're on the subject, how would one even date god? All these questions and more discussed, plus the age-old Lucifer question: when will the season air? Who could know.
This week MBT is talking Is This Really How It's Going To End?! and A Chance At a Happy Ending. Things get wild here at the end of Lucifer season 5: Michael takes down Dan (RIP buddy!), Chloe pulls her head out of her ass, Lucifer resets his priorities, Maze is cool with Eve dying and Linda/Ella/Amenadiel are around, too. Emotional episodes, good character work, satisfying ending. We nitpick, but Lucifer's a great show y'all. Cheers!
This week on MBT we're talking A Little Harmless Stalking and Nothing Lasts Forever. It grieves me to yadda over a Linda-centric ep, but unfortunately she takes a backseat to functional Deckerstar and the return of Eve! Missed that peppy original woman. Later, Lucifer decides he wants to be God and Maze the Queen of Hell. Nice to have goals! Chloe wouldn't know, she's quitting the LAPD, which, good, but also ... ?
This week, Alli and Mary are discussing Lucifer season 5B's Resting Devil Face and Dan Espinoza: Naked and Afraid. First, God takes a page out of Lucifer's learn-from-humanity playbook and abandons his powers for a couple days. To his credit, he "gets it" much faster than Lucifer, and manages to fix most of his problems and relationships in one day. Good for you, God! Next up, we have one of the best filler eps in all of Lucifer featuring Dan and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. Xander wishes he could be as great as Dan!
Alli and Mary are back to talk Lucifer season 5B! This week we're getting to know the source of all of Lucifer's problems (or is he?): God! We're talking episodes Family Dinner and Bloody Celestial Karaoke Jam. As everyone recovers from their 5A-related trauma, new trauma in the form of trauma waltzes right in. Team Celestial has daddy issues, Dan has oops-I-banged-god's-wife issues, Chloe has doormat issues and Maze has soul issues. Linda's just happy her baby is human and Ella remains in the dark. Onto the singing!
We've made it to the end of Fringe season 2, and it is a jam-packed ride from start to finish. Olivia has finally Had It and is heading to the other universe to save Peter from certain doom, and if she has to sacrifice a couple of childhood friends on the way, well so be it. We also get to spend some time with the Alt!Fringe team, who are on the whole a more jovial and less damaged crew. Of course, this is Fringe, so it all goes to hell and poor Olivia is left holding the bag. We'll see you all in six weeks for more Fringe, 'cause in two weeks we're back to Lucifer!
First up this week, we're getting high with Walter and listening to him work out his issue through noir steampunk narrative. Brown Betty is a beautiful and fun episode, but in terms of plot and character development nothing much changes. We discuss once again the specialty episode gold standard that is Once More With Feeling. Next, Peter solos a case with Martha Plimpton, basically spewing is crazy all over her and then accidentally solving it. Most importantly, though, we meet Mr. Secretary: Walternate.
This week on Fringe, Walter's doing the hard work of being the first person to forgive him on "White Tulip" and Peter finally freaking finds out in "The Man From the Other Side". Poor oblivious Peter is truly living in his own world this week as Walter and Olivia clumsily "play it cool" with their life-altering news. We do get some dope time travel and truly excellent SFX, though, so for once the non-character moments truly shine for MBT!
This week's we're watching Peter and Olivia. In the Lab. With the Revolver and... oof. "Peter" is a masterclass from John Noble, who succeeds in doing what should not be possible in the middle of two episodes revealing Walter's most heinous crimes: forcing the view to empathize with him. Meanwhile, in present day, poor Peter is truly baffled as to what the frick is going on with his little family as Olivia and Walter struggle in their own ways to do the right thing. When Fringe is good, it is truly excellent.
After a rather rote and distasteful Nazi episode, we finally, FINALLY get there. We've talked about it all season. At Last. It's Jacksonville! We finally get to the other side of the Olivia's Trauma coin this week, as we take a trip to the Florida Center for Scientifically "Necessary" Child Abuse. Poor Olivia has to pull out all the repression stops this week, and that's before she gets the final blow of Peter's otherwordly glimmer. Things can always get worse!
This week on Fringe, it's some hardcore "the X-files did it category" with a mutant town, and then we get a little too close to home as our second episode is all, hey guys, isn't it crazy to have a rogue virus? The eps are trope-y as hell, but still fun in their own ways, and our heroes get to save the day, which is always nice. Then Walter drops some accidental super-secret info on Astrid, who continues to have her life taken over by general Fringe drama.
This week we've got a gross but fun squid-alien bursting through the mouth episode of the week to start off. Although it doesn't have much meaningful impact, it's full of horror and good character work. After that, we've remembered we're dealing with a major problem: frozen head guy is back and causing trouble. He's going around de-braining people in order to re-brain Walter, which he ultimately does. He plays Olivia because he knows she's got a heart of gold, even after she straight kills his whole team.
Fringe treads a bit of water again this week as we claw, slowly, to when the show kicks into gear. Broyles gets a chance to shine, but unfortunately the whole thing plays out in a bit of a dull cliche. After that we get an angry sociopathic kid with superpowers who turns out to be a clone. Finally, we get a peak into Observer society and their month-themed names. A rogue observer interferes with the course of events in a robot-learning-to-creepily-love story that ends with some ominous Olivia's-life-sucks chatter.
This week on the podcast, Alli and Mary discuss that maybe by the time this episode goes up, Lucifer 5B would be out... JOKES. Man alive, did Netflix delete the film for those? What is UP with that? But anyway, back on Fringe, we've got a group of a couple decent episodes surrounding a truly good one. Momentum Deferred contains all sorts of goodies: shapeshifters, Olivia vs. Fake Charlie, and a truly fantastic guest star. Cheers!
This week on Fringe, Olivia is laid up in the hospital post-universe-hopping, so we welcome the once and future princess, Meghan Markle, to the cast! Don't get too attached, she's not long for the show. We say RIP to Charlie, who's been unceremoniously ganked by a shapeshifter. Olivia's commitment to intense repression goes into the overdrive, and she almost shoots Peter instead of the weird monster baby they're chasing. Just another day on Fringe!
We're finally entering the ZFT endgame, which ends up being a bit of a bust: Nina is shot, but she's fine. Everyone is looking for William Bell, who we now think is the ZFT leader. Walter yoinked by the Observer, mostly so he can reminisce on the """something""" he lost and check out the grave of ... Peter? ZFT is stopped and Olivia is off to meet Belly, who's taken up residence on a parallel earth.
This week on Fringe we knock out the required mid-2000s animal rights episode, which is meh at best, but then we get back to the real shit: Olivia's messed up childhood! We meet with Nick Lane, who is like Olivia but less functional, which is saying something since Olivia spends a large portion of this episode convinced she's dream killing people. After that we move into a little ZFT and vampire action; also, Rachel's getting a divorce.
This week on Fringe, we're going through another big chunk of season one. We reminisce a bit on the benefits of a weekly schedule vs. binging, and how a "see what sticks" mentality can lead to awesome, discussable benefits but also frustrating dead ends. Back in the Fringe universe, we get Fringe's first really great overarching plotty episode in Ability, which explores Olivia's past (and implied future!). We also get a bit more Observer content, and we say a not-so-fond farewell to JOHN SCOTT. Cheers!
Things get meta here on MBT's Fringe 4, as we discuss not knowing when to release Fringe and also guessing Lucifer might not be out until... February, gasp! Lol forever, what optimism. Anyway, back on Fringe, Peter's got some dull issues because his character hasn't been totally figured out yet and Olivia is still focused primarily on our pal JOHN SCOTT. He basically gave her a consciousness STD and she's infected with his memories, so we have some more tank fun. Happy days for Walter!
This week on the Fringe, we've electromagnetism, RF bursts, heart parasite monsters, and Britta from Community. Additionally, we're still working through the mystery of JOHN SCOTT and he and Olivia's special merged consciousness bond. Was he good? Was he bad? Once you get past season one will you even remember him? Meanwhile, we finally get some real plot going as we meet David Robert Jones and his shady FBI-traitor crew. #LittleHill