"Chloe Does Lucifer" is the eighth episode of the third season of Lucifer.
Summary[]
"When a murder is connected to a celebrity dating app, Lucifer and Chloe question all they know about the world of social media in order to solve the case. Meanwhile, Ella tries to avoid Charlotte, and Amenadiel helps Linda deal with the death of her ex-husband."[1]
Plot[]
As the episode opens, Trixie, Chloe, and Lucifer are having their first game night; Monopoly, lollies, and face painting; a whole different kind of evening for the Devil, especially when he has to bargain with Trixie for the use of the top hat token, since he is clearly not a shoe. When Lucifer returns home, Amenadiel is waiting, saying he is there to check in on Lucifer. Lucifer responds, "I don't need love from you, I get plenty from naked strangers." The unicorn painted on his cheek, however, tells Amenadiel all he needs to know, he says it's great his brother spent a quiet night in, and wants to know Linda's opinion on his life now, but is told she is dealing with a death in the family. Amenadiel says he should check on her, then insults his brother, “I'm liking this new you. Boring suits you, Brother.”
The following morning, Lucifer and Chloe arrive at their latest crime scene, the victim is Kim Jones, a computer engineer. Still smarting from Amenadiel's comment, he points out what they know about the victim, she's boring, “Generic artwork, dull clothes, beige furniture. I mean, even her fruit bowl's so tragically safe...even if she's in the worst place, it'd be far more interesting than this, because this poor lady, definitely a shoe.” When he complains about his brother's comment, Dan says he has actually become “more normal;” Lucifer takes offense.
The dead woman’s roommate, Esther, is a shallow and superficial woman intent on taking crime scene selfies, including one with the “handsome cop,” Dan. She tells them Kim got into a yelling match the night she died - at 10:39 pm, because she remembers the photo she was uploading at the time, a Kombucha martini.
Ella traces the call Kim made to Top Meet, an exclusive dating service, so Lucifer and Chloe go to see the face of the company, Mack Slater, the man Kim had been fighting with. Chloe presses Mack on how he knew Kim, and he he didn't, but she wanted entry to the site but could not pass their vetting process, so she got angry and hacked in, “nobody joins Top Meet to hook up with some random nobody, and so we had to kick her off.” Chloe asks for a list of the users, but Mack says there are privacy protocols in place and she would need a warrant.
Back at the lab, Charlotte ambushes Ella, and wants to know about the darkness Ella claims to see in her. Charlotte tells her “I've learned that there are consequences to my darkness. Really permanent ones, as it turns out. And I was thinking you could help me avoid them?” Uncomfortable, Ella says she’s really too busy, and using Dan as a blind, ducks out.
Amenadiel arrives at Linda's office while she is on the phone threatening her candle supplier. She is clearly overwhelmed and then tensely asks Amenadiel his opinion on urns for the funeral. He helps her choose one, once she tells him which one to choose, and then she asks if he’s busy tomorrow.
Meanwhile, Chloe suggests the murderer is using the Top Meet site to find victims. The app had made only one match for Kim, someone calling himself forever29. There is a mixer at Top Meet that night, and Lucifer volunteers to go. Dan points out the target is male and straight so Chloe steps up, “Can't be that hard being frivolous and shallow. I'll just channel my inner Lucifer.” Ella points out that Kim was able do an unbelievable hacking job, and she should not have been able to manage it.
Back at Chloe's, Lucifer uses Trixie's dolls to demonstrate social skills. She talks Costco runs and offspring and Lucifer says that is not what Top Meet types want to hear, and tells her, “let's get the terminology straight; not 'fancy-schmancy;' Sophisticated.” Trixie suggests that Chloe not talk about her, and Lucifer agrees. They try role play where Lucifer plays the new Chloe, Lucinda, and Chloe tries to be “a be a randy single man.” It does not go well.
Back at the precinct, Ella is again confronted by Charlotte, who says she has been admitted into the “Forensic Shadow Program” and she’s going to be Ella’s shadow from now on, “I am going to stick to you like glue, so I can learn how to be good... at forensics.”
Chloe arrives outside the Top Meet mixer and Lucifer compliments her appearance. He offers her an ear bug and she takes off the necklace he gave her, giving him a twinge, but she says it isn't Lucinda's style. But she does take his pocket handkerchief and he approves of it's transfer to her pocket. Inside is well outside Chloe's comfort zone. She also has Lucifer in her ear micromanaging her. She blows her first interaction, nothing Lucifer tells her is working, so she drops the ear bug in the wine and goes off on her own. Lucifer can’t believe she broke protocol and assumes she will founder on her own so heads inside. Once there, he sees her talking to Benji and he walks up and tells her to replace the bug. Benji makes a break and Dan catches him. Benji isn’t worried that they’re LAPD, he’s more concerned that they might be paparazzi.
Benji admits that he went on a date with Kim a few nights ago, and they hit it off, but he wasn’t the last person to see her. He didn’t go upstairs with her because her roommate was home. He met Kim when picking up Esther for a Top Meet date, and really liked her because she was different from all of the other women on the app; she allowed him to be himself. Chloe wonders if Esther got jealous, but Lucifer thinks the idea of a “top hat” being jealous of “a shoe” is ludicrous. He demonstrates by showing Chloe photos Esther has uploaded, when Chloe notices something – a pink barbell in a photo that wasn't there when they searched the apartment, perhaps the murder weapon.
In the lab, Charlotte wants to know why Ella is avoiding her. Ella decides to come clean, “Let's be honest here, you don't really care…. I mean, you're faking it, right? There is no Forensic Shadow Program, is there? Even if I had been tempted to help, and I'm not saying that I had...now that I know you lied? Poof! Temptation officially gone.”
Meanwhile, Amenadiel has joined Linda in a walk along the beach and Linda talks about funeral plans but admits that, “I'm functioning perfectly. I only feel terrible that I don't feel terrible about his death.” She is more concerned with her own brush with death, and how dealing with mortality was much easier when she was just “another clueless idiot,” and she is sorry she ever met any of the celestials. After she calms down, however she apologizes and says she doesn't mean it. Amenadiel asks her to lie down on the sand and they both regard the sky; he says it helps to gain perspective, a good reminder of everything you don't know. Then he asks if she has any fewer question know that she is in the know. She says she does not, just different ones. He smiles, “So you're still every bit the clueless idiot that you always were?” They laugh together and she says that helps.
Chloe and Lucifer go back to question Esther about the barbell, and Lucifer tries to cut to the chase by using his mojo on her; she's a phony; a poser and a liar. All her photos are fake, she has back drops on a roller in the door frame, and she's exhausted keeping up the facade, but she went to a gym, “With real equipment... not in my living room,” and the barbell belonged to Kim. She then let drop that Kim was expecting a “life changing” influx of cash for some reason. Chloe is ready to tackle that lead, but Lucifer is stunned he misjudged Esther so badly, and tells Chloe, “I think I've been spending too much time with you. It's turned my top hat radar rusty.” He heads off without her.
At the precinct, Ella tells Chloe she cannot find any trace of any windfall for Kim. Charlotte arrives with a file, however, and says that there is evidence. She found a contract between Kim and Mack, it appears Kim was the one to design Top Meet, and hired Mack as a front man, to be the face of the project, “Kim felt she wasn't fancy-schmancy enough, so she hid the fact that she was the creator, and hired pretty boy Mack here to be the facade, in secret. So Kim's insecurities allowed Mack to take the credit, and the money, which she wanted to take back." Charlotte tells her amateurs often hold on to the murder weapon, and thinks the barbell is at Mack’s house.
At Mack's house, Lucifer shows up and invites him on a Las Vegas jaunt. Mack says he likes the idea, but he’s busy, and Chloe appears behind him. Surprised, Lucifer enters and when Mack leaves the room, Chloe explains that Mack is a phony and that she’s there looking for the murder weapon. He suggests the toilet, freezer, or fireplace. Having tried the first two, Chloe finds the barbell is in the chimney flue. Mack returns with a gun, guessing that having two cops show up wasn't coincidence. Chloe tells him that they know he was just the face of Top Meet, and Kim the creator. He says he didn’t want Kim to make it more accessible, that would ruin it. Lucifer is disgusted, “Oh, please, Mack. What you are is a fraud. Which, unfortunately, makes you boring. And predictable,” he then tosses a bust of Mack at the man who drops the gun to rescue the ugly art.
Back in session with Linda, Lucifer confesses that “the shoe” turned out to be interesting and the “top hat” boring, but of course, “interesting” just come naturally to him. That aside, however, he wants to know how she is doing. When she tosses off an Oscar Wilde quote, he lets drop that he fed the line to Oscar in the first place. They then just sit back and talk as friends when she wants him to tell all.
Charlotte finds Ella, who thanks her for helping them to solve the case. Charlotte reluctantly admits that she stole the file. Ella points out that she did it for the right reason, and that being good takes practice. Charlotte tells her she was offered a job with the DA and she thinks she should take it, that there are more important things than money.
At home, over the Monopoly board, Trixie asks Chloe about her case and how she did as Lucinda. Chloe says that she had fun once she started to be herself. Trixie then notices that the shoe token is missing. The shoe happens to be sitting on Lucifer’s piano. Dressed only in a robe, he is playing when a woman in lingerie and a top hat emerges from the bedroom and asks if he is coming. He looks thoughtful, “How about a nice round of Monopoly? Little face-painting, I didn't think so.” And then he joins her in the bedroom.
Cast[]
Starring[]
- Tom Ellis as Lucifer Morningstar
- Lauren German as Chloe Decker
- Kevin Alejandro as Dan Espinoza
- Tricia Helfer as Charlotte Richards
- D.B. Woodside as Amenadiel
- Lesley-Ann Brandt (credit only)
- Aimee Garcia as Ella Lopez
- Scarlett Estevez as Trixie Espinoza
- Tom Welling (credit only)
- Rachael Harris as Linda Martin
Guest Starring[]
- Michael Rady as Mack Slater
- Mikaela Hoover as Esther
Co-Starring[]
- TBA
Trivia[]
- The episode's title is said by Ella.
- In this episode Linda refers to quote from the comedy, Lady Windermere's Fan, "We're all in the gutter, but some of us are looking up at the stars." Lucifer replied that "the stars are just gas bags" and "I never would have fed Oscar that line had I known how much I'd have to hear people quote it back to me," making it clear he was also visiting Earth during the era of Oscar Wilde (1854 - 1900).
- Lucifer said that Wilde was straight when he first met him, which feeds back to his previous statement in the episode, "I'm so good at flipping men, they call me the skillet."
- Splooshing is essentially a wet and messy fetishism such as rubbing food all over ones self or another for sexual excitement.
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