Lightbringers: Illuminating the Deeper Meaning of the Crime-solving Devil TV Show

Send us a Text Message. With these two episodes we get some subtext about addiction and some supertext about racist policing. In “The Murder of Lucifer Morningstar,” the sisters realize on rewatch (especially in the context of our analysis of so many moments of mental health metaphors) that Chloe’s obsession with the super-strength the necklace provides is a stand-in for addiction. “A Lot Dirtier Than That” provides a big chunk of the story arc that serves as penance for the five seasons of copaganda that came before it. Though the storytelling is heavy-handed in both its visuals and dialogue, our conversation argues the heavy-handedness was necessary in the face of the power of the trope that cops are unequivocally good guys. Taken together these two episodes provide deeply meaningful moments around grief, loneliness, and regret, powerful social commentary around racism in policing, and seriously cringe-worthy second-hand embarrassment as Lucifer tries (too hard) to connect with the daughter he doesn’t yet have. Our theme song is "Feral Angel Waltz" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ To learn more about Tracie and Emily and our other projects, to support us, and join the Guy Girls' family, visit us on Patreon.

Send us a Text Message. As season 6 progresses, the Guy sisters have some moments of joy and appreciation and quite a few quibbles for the writers. Though the cartoonified episode is in some ways delightful (Tracie wanted to be an animator when she was a kid), there are moments in the writing that feel either ableist or rushed (or both). The sisters note that it feels particularly hypocritical that the episode seems to judge Jimmy Barnes for being less-than rational/typical when the whole show is a daydream from a comic book. In the second of the two episodes, Lucifer’s one-time lover, Esther, who is now a rabbi provides fodder for musings on the kinds of theological and cosmological God-wrestling the character of Lucifer Morningstar engenders. We also spend more than a little time (and intentional and unintentional double entendres) wondering about the seemingly misplaced erection jokes that pop up in the episode (see what we did there?). In the end, though there remains some good things to recommend even these season 6 episodes, the sisters are left with the sense that the whole enterprise would have benefited from a bit more time for reflection, review, and revision. Our theme song is "Feral Angel Waltz" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ To learn more about Tracie and Emily and our other projects, to support us, and join the Guy Girls' family, visit us on Patreon

Send us a Text Message. And so begins the Guy sisters’ rewatch of Season 6: Nobody’s favorite season. With these two episodes, the sisters spend considerable time lamenting the fact that there are no media role models for people who are childless by choice, including, it seems, Lucifer. We also are perplexed and perturbed by multiple details of these two episodes, from Lucifer’s assertion that he is a “wonder-seeker” to what the heck is sexy about all the broken furniture to how Ella Lopez could be at all attracted to vanilla, milquetoast, Carrol. On the other hand, there is a unanimous appreciation for the drag performers in the second episode and the writing that had one of those performers sharing she always aims to make people laugh to avoid having them laugh at her in the wrong way. We get a little bit ahead of ourselves in thinking about the storybeat that is Rory, and whether or not hers is the ending the show deserved, and puzzle over the inclusion of Michael in Hell, whose face we never see (because they couldn’t get the actor back? J/k Michael is Tom Ellis, too!), and close out the episode by sharing our own drag names. Our theme song is "Feral Angel Waltz" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ To learn more about Tracie and Emily and our other projects, to support us, and join the Guy Girls' family, visit us on Patreon.

Send us a Text Message. These two final episodes of season five pack and emotional wallup. With more than one major character death (though 2 don’t stay dead), the Guy girls both admit to shedding some tears, even in rewatch. The views we get of both Heaven and Hell have Emily and Tracie thinking deeply about the nature of punishment, the compatibility of justice with pain, and whether or not free will is worth the huge risk we face to have it. We help each other with head canon around why Michael behaves the way he does, how Lee managed to get out of Hell, and what’s going on for Chloe when she confesses to no longer feeling guilty on her death bed. As we often do, we speculate a bit around alternative storytelling paths the showrunners might have taken, and unlike our sometime-dissatisfaction with Lauren German, both sisters agree the actress rose to the occasion in this season. Our theme song is "Feral Angel Waltz" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ To learn more about Tracie and Emily and our other projects, to support us, and join the Guy Girls' family, visit us on Patreon.

Send us a Text Message. “A Little Harmless Stalking” & “Nothing Lasts Forever” are ripe for overthinking, and the Guy girls do. These two stories invite meditations on the reconciliation of adult children and their parents, a scene that has become common in contemporary pop fiction, and which Tracie & Emily dub psychological or family dynamic fiction: art that creates an aspiration that isn’t true, yet, but could be because of the art. As is often the case in Lucifer, upon deeper reflection, the overlapping lines of connection between the characters is a bit unsettling as we realize that Eve and Maze together means the latter is dating her ex-husband’s ex-wife’s daughter. Emily analyzes Ella’s “darkness” and names it intrusive thoughts, which she wishes the show itself had done. Tracie is disappointed in the off-brand nature of the joke of Handjobiel’s name, and both sisters linger over what it even means for God to retire from a universe that was made by God but also is God. Originally published as a YouTube show with different theme music. Our theme song is "Feral Angel Waltz" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ To learn more about Tracie and Emily and our other projects, to support us, and join the Guy Girls' family, visit us on Patreon.

Send us a Text Message. “Resting Devil Face” is a delightful romp the sisters want to revisit more often. “Daniel Espinoza: Naked and Afraid” may be both of their least favorite. In “Resting Devil Face,” the celestial siblings’ relationship digs in to the very human experience of realizing one’s parent is vulnerable. In a satisfying dovetailing of the case-of-the-week and the celestial story line, we see the unintended consequences of parenting choices and also receive the Hollywood trope that so many of us still need to hear: you already have what you need to be happy and/or worthy. “Daniel Espinoza: Naked and Afraid” provides quite a bit of fan service and clues to what is going on through campiness and subtext which neither Emily nor Tracie are particularly skilled at seeing on first-watch. The sisters agree that it takes a certain degree of cruelty to execute such an elaborate and emotionally taxing prank, and neither of them like to think of Lucifer as cruel. We realize that “a theological aside” could have been the subtitle of this podcast and take a moment to plug our other project, Deep Thoughts About Stupid Sh*t. Originally published as a YouTube show with different theme music. Our theme song is "Feral Angel Waltz" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ To learn more about Tracie and Emily and our other projects (including Deep Thoughts about Stupid Sh*t), to support us, and join the Guy Girls' family, visit us on Patreon.

Send us a Text Message. “Family Dinner” and “Bloody Celestial Karaoke Jam” deliver both some of the funniest and some of the most poignant moments of the whole series. With a general appreciation for the relatableness of so much of what happens between characters in these two episodes and a very specific appreciation for Tom Ellis’ collarbones, the Guy sisters overthink these two season five episodes. The sisters spend significant air time enjoying the Gen-X-appealing music, the commentary on parent-child relationships, and the elegance of metaphors made manifest in these two episodes. They also dig deep into the nature of shame and internalized oppression and the significance of Chloe having “faith” that Lucifer is capable of love. Originally published as a YouTube show with different theme music. Our theme song is "Feral Angel Waltz" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ To learn more about Tracie and Emily and our other projects, to support us, and join the Guy Girls' family, visit us on Patreon.

Send us a Text Message. On rewatch, the Guy girls were reminded just how much they compartmentalize their memories about these two episodes. “Our Mojo” and “Spoiler Alert” provide delightfully fun and funny moments intermixed with grim details of the serial-killer-right-under-our-noses storyline. The sisters spend time teasing out the phenomenological and metaphorical mechanisms behind the supernatural elements of “Our Mojo,” including Lucifer’s emotional immaturity and the consequences of having the drawer-of-desires finally achieving his own desire. Comparing and contrasting the three angelic siblings (as well as the two villains, Pete and Michael) captures their attention, and they agree that Pete is the most chilling of the killers in the procedural portion of the show. In the end, Emily longs for an encouraging gif of DB Woodside believing in her and Tracie refuses to believe that a hardboiled detective like Chloe Decker would drink a frou-frou coffee order. Originally published as a YouTube show with different theme music. Our theme song is "Feral Angel Waltz" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ To learn more about Tracie and Emily and our other projects, to support us, and join the Guy Girls' family, visit us on Patreon.

Send us a Text Message. “Detective Amenadiel” and “Blue Ballz” are the only two episodes in this whole experiment that the sisters watched while in the same room, and they contain some of their most beloved and most reviled of the whole series. In their meanderings, the Guy girls think about the metaphor of reflection as used both visually and rhetorically in “Detective Amenadiel.” They ruminate on the badassery of Maze bounty hunting the object of Linda’s angst and thereby come up with the premise for a new book series featuring Emily’s best friend Erika as a bounty-hunting priest. Tracie is also deeply bothered by the reverse engineering of the storytelling required to get Lucifer’s phone into Michael’s hands. The sisters try to find universe-complilant justificaiton for how some people see proof of divinity and are driven to distraction by it while the villain in one of these episodes is repulsed. At the same time, Emily loses her ability to word when thinking about the sexiness of the final five minutes of “Bule Ballz” and also the inadequacy of Jed’s nose (it’s simply too small). Originally published as a YouTube show with different theme music. Our theme song is "Feral Angel Waltz" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ To learn more about Tracie and Emily and our other projects, to support us, and join the Guy Girls' family, visit us on Patreon.

Send us a Text Message. The layers of meta-commentary in the episode about a TV show where the actual devil is a consultant with the LAPD is lots of fun, and has the sisters wondering if Lucifer would have been more offended on Chloe’s behalf by turning her character into a stripper-turned-detective who doesn’t seem to be particularly bright. And the return of Lilith in a 1946 black-and-white mystery episode invites some exploration of the mythology of Lilith, the first human woman who became a monster. The Egyptomania and Orientalism in the same episode lead to a long tangent about the ways in which humans tend to ascribe literal magic to anything they don’t fully understand (e.g. Ancient Egyptian mummies in the early 20th century, computers in the 1990s, or bitcoin in the last 10 years). As always there’s some breathless appreciation of the beauty of this cast (Tracie admits Tom Ellis is her sexual orientation) and the evidence of their skill when the same actor plays different characters. Originally published as a YouTube show with different theme music. Our theme song is "Feral Angel Waltz" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ To learn more about Tracie and Emily and our other projects, to support us, and join the Guy Girls' family, visit us on Patreon.

Send us a Text Message. In our conversation about “Really Sad Devil Guy” & “Lucifer! Lucifer! Lucifer!” we think a lot about the tropes and short cuts that come from soap opera storytelling. And we don’t hate it. Both sisters are impressed with Tom Ellis’s ability to make us believe he is, in fact, his own twin (even down to his butt cheeks!). Tracie picks apart a key plot point in the case of the week, and Emily uses some very graphic metaphors to describe her reaction to Ellis’ American accent as Michael. It is exceedingly clear that this episode was recorded more than a year ago, because though the angel-is-not-good and devil-is-not-bad twinning comparison to Good Omens is clear and obvious, we do not make it, raising Satanic Verses instead. We also spend some time appreciating Lee, aka Mr. Said-Out-Bitch (Jeremiah Birkett), and his charm and emotional intelligence, even if he never fully lived up to his potential in life. Originally published as a YouTube show with different theme music. Our theme song is "Feral Angel Waltz" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ To learn more about Tracie and Emily and our other projects, to support us, and join the Guy Girls' family, visit us on Patreon.

Send us a Text Message. “Save Lucifer” and “Who’s da New King of Hell?” allow the Guy Girls to overthink everything from acting vs. directorial choices, to the nature of sin and guilt, to the possibility of a “happy ending” for an immortal being in love with an all-too-human one. Tracie couldn’t wait to start the episode with her frustrations with Lauren German’s delivery of the emotional range required for Chloe’s (good, not great) dialogue, and we also spend significant time pondering the in-universe veracity of souls going to Hell immediately post-confession. We wonder over the seeming paucity of therapists in Los Angeles (is Linda really the only one?), and Emily is really into Kevin Alejandro’s beatboxing. These two episodes were meant to be the final of the series when they were produced. Have a listen to the Guy Girls’ overthinking of whether or not they stuck the landing. Originally published as a YouTube show with different theme music. Our theme song is "Feral Angel Waltz" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ To learn more about Tracie and Emily and our other projects, to support us, and join the Guy Girls' family, visit us on Patreon.

Send us a Text Message. “Devil is as Devil Does” and “Super Bad Boyfriend” give some hints that the writers were wrestling with their copagandistic vehicle. However, there were also moments in these two episodes, especially in Chloe’s voice, that oversimplify the “rightness” of human justice. That they made these explorations around the death of a Black teenager is all the more topical (and will be returned to in season 6). These two episodes also tackle the experience of self-hatred that both sisters find heart-breakingly relatable. From Lucifer’s bat-like wings, to Dan’s attempts to externalize his self-loathing in a beating from Maze, to Maze reacting to a would-be date who is remarkably like she is, our writers invite us to think about self-perception again and again. As always, the sisters investigate the story structure and writing, lingering over the ways the dialogue and the acting communicate the story, and teasing out the meaning of specific glances and blocking. Mentioned in this episode: Helen Rosen “ How Apples Go Bad” https://www.newyorker.com/culture/annals-of-gastronomy/how-apples-go-bad Originally published as a YouTube show with different theme music. Our theme song is "Feral Angel Waltz" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ To learn more about Tracie and Emily and our other projects, to support us, and join the Guy Girls' family, visit us on Patreon.

Send us a Text Message. “Expire Erect” (Die Hard, get it?) and “Orgy Pants to Work” turn out to be fantastic fodder for the Guy Girls’ particular brand of overthinking, and we did not hold back. Tracie had some THINGS to say about the mythology of Lilith (Maze’s mom), which led to some questions about who (and how) Lilith even is, and whether or not Lucifer could have been Eve’s “first time.” To answer those questions, we actually got a copy of the Bible off the shelf to check the chronology of what happened in and after the garden of Eden. Also in this episode, we dig into what’s going on with the writers’ manipulation of our feelings by making the bad guy super reprehensible. We unpack the use of female archetypes of maiden, mother, crone, whore, and witch (and why Eve can’t be maternal because Chloe’s got the lock on that one), which leads to Emily reassuring her sister, “oh honey, you can still be a whore if you want to. There’s also some speculation as to whether or not “punchable face” is an acting choice and the stamina-inducing powers of acai. If you only ever listen to one episode of LIghtbringers, this should be the one. Originally published as a YouTube show with different theme music. Our theme song is "Feral Angel Waltz" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ To learn more about Tracie and Emily and our other projects, to support us, and join the Guy Girls' family, visit us on Patreon.

Send us a Text Message. “O, Ye of Little Faith, Father” and “All About Eve” bring some of Emily’s favorite moments of the whole series. The first provides deeply satisfying dramatic irony through Father Kinley’s (Graham McTavish) web of deception, the whole of which, only we the viewers see. The second gives delicious comfort to a devastated Lucifer (Tom Ellis) who fears he is unlovable but is embraced–in his devil face–by the biblical Eve (Inbar Lavi). There are also significant opportunities for overthinking, from Eve’s name (with a correction and apology from Tracie at the beginning of the episode) to just how much the murderer knew of the whole plot to reveal Lucifer’s face, to how and when Linda acquired her house. As always the storytelling, including visual storytelling, gets the sisters’ attention. In what might be called a theme, Tracie spends a little time complaining that Lauren German’s delivery as Chloe somehow doesn’t sell the dialogue, and both sisters get a chuckle over Maze’s condolences over the sex of the baby. Originally published as a YouTube show with different theme music. Our theme song is "Feral Angel Waltz" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ To learn more about Tracie and Emily and our other projects, to support us, and join the Guy Girls' family, visit us on Patreon.

Send us a Text Message. “Everything’s Okay” and “Somebody’s Been Reading Dante’s Inferno” contain one of the sexiest scenes in the whole series, some really comprehensible character behavior, and some mediocre delivery of that behavior. The sisters spend a disproportionate amount of time gushing over the first several minutes of “Everything’s Okay,” only to ease into an almost grudging appreciation for the task the writers set themselves by requiring the details of the cases in the procedural to map to the drama of the central characters. Because of Chloe’s (Lauren German) instance to Father Kinley (Graham Mctavish) that “you just don’t know him like I do,” Tracie has the painful realization that Lucifer (Tom Ellis) has been (arguably?) emotionally abusive to Chloe. In a series of duck-related tangents, the sisters reference the Marx Brothers (Why a duck?), a song about a duck who wants a grape, Duck Tales, and Darkwing Duck (the latter of which may show up on a future episode of Deep Thoughts about Stupid Sh*t). CW: Abstract discussion of abusive, co-dependent relationships. Originally published as a YouTube show with different theme music. Our theme song is "Feral Angel Waltz" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ To learn more about Tracie and Emily and our other projects, to support us, and join the Guy Girls' family, visit us on Patreon.

Send us a Text Message. “Boo Normal” & “Once Upon a Time” interrupt the flow of the Deckerstar storyline. These two episodes, though both boasting solid storytelling, tend to get skipped, fast-forwarded, or otherwise maligned by fans who cannot wait to find out what happens after Chloe unequivocally learns the truth in “A Devil of My Word.” Tracie and Emily take some time to investigate and overthink these two “bonus” episodes. The sisters spend time overthinking in what proto-Semitic language the Angel Azrael might have first coined the phrase “Smell you later” and unpacking the need for both Death of the Endless (who removes the soul from the body) and the angel of death (who escorts the soul to its final destination). They lament the adolescent behavior of a Lucifer who uses the forensics camera to take dick pics, but appreciate the hero worship that Ella displays toward Chloe. In Once Upon a Time, both sisters swoon over Neil Gaiman as the voice of God, laugh at the idea of Amenadiel circling Los Angeles waiting for Lucifer’s prayer, and blush about the scene in which Lucifer is overheard with a witness, “pumping her for information.” In a deep overthinking of celestial biology and physics, the sisters decide that bullets must crumple against Lucifer’s skin and then fall into the waistband of his trousers. Heads-up, Emily had the wrong mic selected when we recorded, so her voice is a bit under water. The content remains insightful and hilarious. Originally published as a YouTube show with different theme music. Our theme song is "Feral Angel Waltz" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ To learn more about Tracie and Emily and our other projects, to support us, and join the Guy Girls' family, visit us on Patreon.

Send us a Text Message. “Quintessential Deckerstar” & “Devil of My Word” are so packed full of goodness to unpack we had to make notes for our conversation to make sure we didn’t miss anything. When it comes to storytelling, these episodes provide some deeply satisfying (and tear-jerking) character development, especially for Dan (Kevin Alejandro), Charlotte (Tricia Helfer), and Maze (Lesley-Ann Brandt). When it comes to performance, they absolutely convince us that Tom Ellis actually has wings which can stop bullets, but only with great pain to their owner. And when it comes to female characters’ badassery, these two episodes deliver over and over again with Charlotte, Chloe (Lauren German), Maze, and Ella (Aimee Garcia). In keeping with our own fascinations, we spend some time talking about mental health and cosmological implications of the storytelling. For the former, we note the comfort these episodes can provide when Lucifer’s devilishness is seen as an allegory for mental illness, truama, or other circumstances one might want to hide or be ashamed of. For the cosmology, we question the veracity of even hardened criminals opening fire on a literal angel and double down on our own shared head cannon that there are ways for Hell to hold on to souls that caused harm and acted badly even when those individuals do not feel guilt about their actions. Tracie was recovering from a chest cold, and never did remember the final thought she mentioned. CW: discussion of gendered violence (compliant with that depicted in the show), including a serial abuser holding a knife to his girlfriend’s throat. Mentioned in this episode Mr. Snuffalupagus (who everyone can see now) Originally published as a YouTube show with different theme music. Our theme song is "Feral Angel Waltz" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ To learn more about Tracie and Emily and our other projects, to support us, and join the Guy Girls' family, visit us on Patreon.

Send us a Text Message. When you aren’t binging, “Anything Pierce Can Do I Can Do Better” & “All Hands On Decker,” are painful episodes to watch. Lucifer’s obliviousness is torture to Chloe Decker, who simply wants to be seen and loved. Tracie gets her Toms mixed up, Emily cannot abide the notion of a 20-min delay in Los Angeles, and the incongruous hair texture of actor and character are once again noticed. We think about #MeToo vis a vis the male water polo team who show up at Chloe’s bachelorette party and agree that undergraduates are basically toddlers. As always, the sisters spend some time appreciating the beauty of Tom Ellis, especially as he portrays devastated Lucifer, and as always, they find ridiculousness to make one another laugh (the Pierce/Chloe Decker ship will forever be known as Pecker). There’s also no small amount of brain space devoted to the exploration of what mortality provides humanity and why art so often imagines immortals losing it when faced with the truth of death. Mentioned in this episode: Scythe series by Neal Schusterman The Good Place Memento Mori Originally published as a YouTube show with different theme music. Our theme song is "Feral Angel Waltz" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ To learn more about Tracie and Emily and our other projects, to support us, and join the Guy Girls' family, visit us on Patreon.

Send us a Text Message. “Orange is the New Maze” and the “Angel of San Bernadino” provide some interesting character development for Maze and some reminders that Lucifer is, in fact, the devil. Emily explores the ADHD-esque behavior of both Lucifer and Maze (hyper-fixation, missing social cues, etc) while Tracie appreciates Lauren German’s acting (for once). In true Guy Girl form, the sisters crack one another up talking about Pierce’s TERRIBLE pick-up lines and speculate on whether Chloe and Pierce are never-nudes. On a more serious note, Tracie and Emily question the effect of having two immortal beings fall in love with Chloe Decker. Does that make her more special, or less special because she is quite simply a trophy and not a person? We also unpack the rare use of split screen and the tendency of Maze and Lucifer to literally and psychologically pummel one another. But lest you worry we’re too serious, you should know there’s also considerable time spent discussing the realistic response to having one’s sandwich rudely snatched. Have a listen and overthink with us! Originally published as a YouTube show with different theme music. Our theme song is "Feral Angel Waltz" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ To learn more about Tracie and Emily and our other projects, to support us, and join the Guy Girls' family, visit us on Patreon.