The episode title "#TeamLucifer" tells you all you need to know about where Fox's devil-themed crime show Lucifer wants your sympathies to lie. Yes, they are literally pushing a hashtag that glorifies being on the same side as the devil.
Some may say I am "reading too much" into a comic adaptation. But I can't believe it is just random chance that the devil is shown to be good, and the angel bad in Lucifer. Or that there is absolutely no meaning or intention behind portraying Satan in a sympathetic light. I'm sorry, but it is no coincidence that the following statements Lucifer makes in this episode directly contradict the Bible:
- “The whole worship thing is more my father's bag," he says when Satanists are worshiping him. Meanwhile, Satan told Jesus to worship him while tempting Him in the desert.
- “A senseless murderer I am not,” he says when Detective Chloe Becker begins to suspect that he was involved. John 8:44 says the devil was “a murderer from the beginning.”
- He pleads that none of this was his own choice, “Trust me, I didn't choose [to be the devil]” but Isaiah 14:13 says he wanted to be higher than God.
- He even protests, “I’m not evil, I punish evil.” Oh, ok, “Evil One.”
If you still think, oh, it’s “just” a harmless tv show with no deeper meaning, then I hate to break it to you, but you’ve been had by the liberal mainstream entertainment media. You really need to check out Paul Harvey’s poem “If I Were the Devil.” It’s been said, “The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist,” and now they’re pulling the same trick.
They’re trying to make viewers question if evil is really evil. Maybe Satan isn’t such a bad guy after all, maybe it’s all God’s fault and the devil is a poor victim. That’s certainly how Lucifer makes it sound in the last scene, with his “woe is me” soliloquy when Chloe asks what happened to him.
Lucifer: Where do I begin? With the grandest fall in the history of time? Or perhaps the far more agonizing punishment that followed? To be blamed for every morsel of evil humanity's endured, every atrocity committed in my name? As though I wanted people to suffer. All I ever wanted was to be my own man here. To be judged for my own doing. And for that? I've been shown how truly powerless I am. That even the people I trusted-- the one person, you--(sighs sadly) could be used to hurt me.
Poor little devil!
Now, I’m not saying that just because the show uses subtle tricks to manipulate our culture that you can’t watch it or be entertained by it. I enjoy Tom Ellis’s performance and find the season ending storyline compelling. Just be aware of what they’re doing. As they say, the devil’s in the details.
Lucifer has been renewed for a second season on Fox.
