Lucifer Wiki
Register
Advertisement

I must find out why she has returned.
– Lucifer

"Welcome Back, Charlotte Richards" is the fifth episode of the third season of Lucifer.

Summary[]

"When a food chemist is found dead, Lucifer and Chloe's investigation pits them against an unexpected face - criminal defense attorney Charlotte Richards. Everyone is caught off guard when they see her back in the precinct. As Lucifer tries to understand her return, he makes a shocking discovery that helps solve the case."[1]

Plot[]

The episode opens with Simon Fisher, Senior Food Chemist at Performance Pudding Plus, heading in to work. He soon ends up head first in a vat of pudding, the victim of an apparent homicide.

At Chloe's apartment, she is dealing with Trixie who is experimenting with swearing, so a swear jar has been established. Lucifer approves, “You give your child money every time she swears? Oh, bravo, Detective!” When Chloe explains, he's even more impressed she extorts money from her own child, “what a ridiculous idea, 'bad' words, determined by a set of arbitrary rules.” He hands some cash to Trixie and tells her to swear away. Chloe intervenes, then she and Lucifer head out to the crime scene.

Ella is of the opinion that scuff marks above the vat of pudding indicate a struggle, and that the victim was scalded to death submerged in pudding as it cooked Pudding lover, Dan, is having a hard time, seeing as Pudding Plus is his favorite brand, it's selling point being, twice as much protein...or as Lucifer points out; “Now with twice as much dead guy.” Since security was tight and cameras covered most of the room, Chloe requests copies of the security tapes from Adrian Yates, the CEO of Pudding Plus.

When Yates arrives at the precinct, however, he does not have the tapes with him, but his lawyer – Charlotte Richards. Lucifer is startled to see her, but it is just Charlotte this time, not mum, and Charlotte informs Chloe that her client will not provide the security footage because it might show the company's proprietary recipe and cost them millions if it winds up in the public record. Mr Yates does say the killer does not appear on the tapes.

Charlotte, of course, has no memory of Lucifer or Dan whom she brushes by like she doesn't know him – because she doesn't, but Dan is confused and hurt by her behavior. Lucifer thinks her return is a bit too coincidental, and decides they must talk. Charlotte, meanwhile, is putting up a front, terrified about the months of memory that are missing, confused about the loss of her family, the purchase of an apartment; but if she talks about it, she is afraid she will be thought - or worse, proved – insane.

Chloe continues to follow leads, this time to Yates' former partner, Grace Foley, who left to start her own company. She and Lucifer go to see her on the set of her new commercial. Lucifer is distracted, however, still trying to contact Charlotte, telling Chloe her return must be one of his Father's grenades. Chloe points out, “I thought you were done being affected by your Father's 'shenanigans,' over him 'getting in your head.'” He agrees to focus on the case and the question Foley; she admitted she tried to steal Fisher, but that he offered to sell her the recipe just days before his death. Chloe then spots a tail, and sets up a misdirect so she can approach him. He is a fixer working for Adrian Yates, and Chloe takes him for questioning.

Dan, meanwhile, goes to see Charlotte at her office. He is hurt and confused by her behavior, “You seduce me, you hack into my phone, you become a suspect in a case, you tell me I'm your-your favorite human, whatever that means. You almost die, and then you ghost me for weeks. Nothing about any of that makes any sense to me.” She tells him it makes no sense to her either, so he tells he he is going to leave her for Lucifer to deal with since he was the only one who seemed to understand her.

After Chloe fields a call from Trixie's school, she has words with Lucifer about teaching her daughter “loop hole swear words” like cluster duck and mother flunker. He responds, “In my defense, 'mother flunker' was entirely the little deviant's creation. And very clever of her, I might add.” When they then enter interrogation, the fixer's lawyer is not Charlotte, so Lucifer leaves and heads back to Lux.

In the penthouse, he discovers Charlotte waiting for him, and gloatingly assumes he was right, that she is back for a reason. She then swoops in and kisses him deeply, much to his shock, “What in Dad's name are you doing? No, no, no, no, no. No!” Charlotte is more confused than ever, hadn't he tried desperately to get in touch with her, “For the first time since I woke up on that beach, I thought, 'Finally, something that makes sense. Of course I'm sleeping with Mr. Tall, Dark and Handsome.'” Lucifer assures her he never has and never will sleep with her, that they were more like...family. She breaks down and tells him what she's been going through and he is sympathetic, calling her an innocent caught up in games not of her making. When she explains she felt like she was in Hell, he tells her she now has a second chance, “So perhaps avoid doing devious and dastardly things from now on,” like knowingly hindering a homicide investigation.

Back in the lab, Ella discovers the victim had “kidney stones the size of golf balls... Dude was suffering from intense renal failure. I mean, even he hadn't been pudding'd alive, he would have died within days from urinary sepsis.” Chloe then discovers that as of a month previously, Pudding Plus and Heavenly Pudding decided to merge, so all the suspects were working together with no reason to kill Fisher. The fixer was merely following her to follow the investigation, couldn't let Fisher's death threaten the merger.

Lucifer then arrives with Charlotte and the security tapes, as they watch, they can see no murderer, but Ella sees something else and slaps a cup of pudding out of Dan's hands. She points out that the pudding additives, though harmless separately, when combined eventually lead to “a hard-to-detect toxin that, over time, can cause...renal failure!” The company was willing to use the hazardous chemicals to fake the appearance of more protein, their main selling point, because as Charlotte points out,“If you have hundreds of millions of dollars, and you get sued for a couple of million, you still have hundreds of millions of dollars.” Charlotte now realizes that everyone has a motive to silence Fisher, and she now represents all of the potential killers.

Chloe goes back to the security guard, Lalo, who tells them that he and Fisher went out drinking a month previously and Fisher said he was going to die, how things were his fault, how Yates wasn't listening, and maybe he should end it. This leads to speculation that Fisher killed himself to expose the toxic pudding. They discover that the day before he died, Fisher donated everything he had to charity and gave away his pet turtle. Lucifer tries to call Charlotte to tell her, but she isn't picking up.

Charlotte has called a meeting of all the pudding people and demands that they tell her which one of them killed Fisher, and pulls a gun to encourage cooperation with her efforts to clear her sin ledger, “I'm pretty sure that my sin was a lifetime of defending known criminals and murderers. Apparently nobody bothered to tell me that all the blood that they shed is on my hands, too.” They all swore they had not killed Fisher, that they were going to make record profits, “despite Simon's nitpicky safety concerns.” Lucifer arrives and tries to talk Charlotte down; Fisher really did kill himself in hopes of exposing the company's crimes. She gives up the gun, and he has recorded enough of their discussion to arrest everyone at the table. Dan steps forward and tells Charlotte that he is sorry she is struggling, she smiles and apologizes for the way she has treated him and asks him out for coffee sometime. Lucifer then offers her a ride home.

At her apartment, Lucifer apologizes to her, and she tells him he isn't responsible for her lost time, “Yet I can't help but feel somewhat accountable.... this strange, inexplicable compulsion to make sure you're okay....I look forward to getting to know the real you. Welcome back, Charlotte Richards.”

Cast[]

Starring[]

Guest Starring[]

  • Suzanne Cryer as Grace Foley
  • Ian Reed Kesler as the Fixer
  • Matthew Yang King as Adrian Yates
  • Omar Leyva as Lalo Vasquez

Co-Starring[]

  • LaFonda Baker as uni
  • Troy Blendell as Larry
  • Jeff Bowser as Simon Fisher
  • Justin Chu Cary as Benson Reeves
  • Chelsea Gilson as blonde model

Trivia[]

  • The titular line was said by Lucifer at the end of the episode.
  • The episode makes references to Breaking Bad, from the lab setup to the melamine, secret formula, etc.
  • In his talk with Charlotte, Lucifer implies that people's own guilt, rather than their actual deeds, is what condemns them to Hell. He later confirms this in "Off the Record".
  • Pudding Plus must need a LOT of consumption in order to harm someone. Dan eats regularly but is perfectly fine.

Gallery[]

Videos[]

Links[]

Season 3

References[]

Advertisement