Lucifer - 5.09 - "Family Dinner"

**The following is a detailed recap and review of the episode, which means it's full of spoilers. Please don’t read any further until you’ve watched it. You can also check out my (almost) spoiler-free review for the second half of the season if you prefer**

Netflix finally dropped the anticipated conclusion to season five of its hit series Lucifer less than an hour ago. In the last episode, Lucifer (Tom Ellis) was about to tell Chloe (Lauren German) how he felt when Amenadiel (D.B. Woodside) accidentally stopped time, not in control of his powers. Lucifer’s twin, Michael (also Ellis), had got into Amenadiel’s head, revealing that his son, Charlie, was human. Leaving a frozen Chloe, Lucifer joined Amenadiel to battle his brother, as well as Maze (Lesley-Ann Brandt), who had sided with Michael, believing that he could get her a soul. At the height of the battle, the brothers’ father, God (Dennis Haysbert), appeared, putting a stop to the fight. Season 5B picks up in that moment.

Following the recap is a review of the episode.

***The following review has slight spoilers for season 5B, though not really much more than the trailer***

Fans have been waiting with bated breath for today to arrive and Netflix to drop season 5B of the hit series Lucifer.

At the end of last season, Lucifer (Tom Ellis) was about to finally say those three little words to his girlfriend, Detective Chloe Decker (Lauren Graham), when Amenadiel (D.B. Woodside), accidentally stopped time after Lucifer's twin, Michael (also Ellis), got into his head and he lost control of his powers, crushingly to fans, halting Lucifer’s confession.

Leaving Chloe in the storage closet, Lucifer helped Amenadiel battle Michael, as well as Maze (Lesley-Ann Brandt), who had once again sold out Lucifer to get what she wanted. In this case, Michael had agreed to give her an audience with his father, who she believed could give her a soul.

At the height of the battle, their father, God, showed up in the form of Dennis Haysbert to break up the fight.

The back half of the season, which focuses on God’s arrival and how it impacts his sons, picks up right at that moment, and what follows is an intense episode called “Family Dinner” that forces Lucifer to deal with a lot of his “Daddy issues.” It gets the show off to a fantastic start. Haysbert has great chemistry with Ellis and Woodside and it was really interesting to finally see that family dynamic. Ellis is so flawless I constantly forget that it’s him playing both twins. He makes it easy to differentiate between the two.

Today the fantasy adventure series Shadow and Bone premiered on Netflix. The series, which is based on Leigh Bardugo’s young adult novel trilogy, takes place in the war-torn world of Ravka and follows Alina Starkov (Jessie Mei Li), a female mapmaker and soldier of the First Army, who is ostracized because of her Shu heritage. Back again with her best friend from the orphanage, Malyen “Mal” Oretsev (Archie Renaux), she is devastated when, as a tracker in the army, he is chosen to join a group of soldiers on a skiff across the Fold where her parents were killed. The Fold is an area of permanent darkness that separates East and West Ravka and is filled with killer flying creatures known as Volcra. Crossing it almost certainly means death. Unwilling to be separated, Alina burns the maps for the journey so the soldiers crossing require a cartographer and bring her along.

Things go horribly wrong when the skiff is attacked by the Volcra in the Fold. Many are killed; however, when the winged creature grabs and injures Mal, Alina gives off a great light that destroys it, and she and those left are spared.

When the general of the Second Army, Aleksander Kirigan (Ben Barnes), demands to see Alina, it is revealed that she is a Grisha, or can manipulate matter. She is a Sun Summoner and has the ability to create light, which could potentially destroy the Fold and reunite the country.

The Irregulars, which premieres the 8-episode season tomorrow on Netflix, follows a group of rag-tag teens in Victorian London. Orphan Bea (Thaddeus Graham), who takes care of not only her sister, Jessie (Darci Shaw), who tries to cope with terrible nightmares and sleepwalking, but also struggles to find ways to keep them and their friends Billy (Jojo Macari) and Spike (McKell David) fed and a roof over their head, often stealing so they don’t go hungry.

In the pilot, sleepwalking causes Jessie to almost get hit by a carriage carrying Leopold (Harrison Osterfield), a rich and privileged sickly teen who knows not of the outside world. When Bea comes to save her sister, he is fascinated by her and later sneaks out of his home to befriend the teens.

Later visiting her sister’s grave, Bea meets Dr. John Watson (Royce Pierreson), who offers her money if she and her friends, knowing the streets and having access to the more unsavory parts of London, will help him track down someone for a case he’s working on with the police. Thus begins the partnership of the teens working for the mysterious doctor at 221b Baker Street, who they later discover has a partner, Sherlock Holmes (Henry Lloyd-Hughes), who Watson goes to lengths to keep them away from.

Tonight season two of A Discovery of Witches, based on novels of the same name by Deborah Harkness, premieres on Sundance Now and Shutter. The new season picks up where the last left off: Diana (Teresa Palmer) and Matthew (Matthew Goode) have timewalked in order to hide from Gerbert (Trevor Eve) and Knox (Owen Teale) somewhere in time. They arrive in 1590 Elizabethan London where they continue to search for The Book of Life while also trying to find Diana a powerful witch willing to teach her how to control her magic.

While Diana struggles to control her powers, Matthew must enter his old dangerous life as spy Matthew Roydon, while not losing himself to his darker past. Can Diana accept his darkest secrets, and can Matthew control his jealousy and reawakened rage?

The limited series, The Third Day, premiered Monday on HBO. The first arc of three episodes, “Summer,” follows Jude Law as Sam. After being drawn to the mysterious island of Osea, Sam saves a girl (Jessie Ross)’s life which leads him down a path that will change everything when he meets a group of mysterious islanders with secret rituals and their own traditions and religion. With the island separated by a causeway from the mainland, Sam is unable to leave until the tides are down. The longer he stays, the more entwined he becomes and learns that there may be connections to his past that will force him to deal with painful memories and loss. As reality starts to blur, his quest will lead him to a shocking discovery.

After “Summer,” a live theatrical event will be broadcast online, following a single day in real time. The episode will be filmed in one continuous take. This will bring viewers deeper into the mystery.

On Friday, Netflix drops the first eight episodes of season five of the fan favorite, Lucifer, with all the main cast returning.

Based on the character created by Neil Gaiman for the Sandman series, the show follows Lucifer Morningstar, played by Tom Ellis, a fallen angel, who in defiance of his father, abandons his throne in Hell for LA where he owns a nightclub, Lux. After an acquaintance is murdered, Lucifer finds himself in the presence of Detective Chloe Decker (Lauren German), and he eventually becomes her partner as a consultant for the LAPD, where they battle angelic, demonic, and even human threats.

Over the course of the series, Chloe discovers that Lucifer is actually the devil. At the end of season four, she accepts Lucifer and admits to him that she loves him, making him realize that it was she who was his first true love and that the prophecy will come to pass, unleashing evil on the Earth. After a kiss, Lucifer leaves to send the demons back and once again rule over Hell.

Based on the novel of the same name by Joe Hill, NOS4A2 returns to AMC June 21 with all new episodes. The series follows Vic McQueen, played by Ashleigh Cummings, a young woman with the supernatural ability to travel anywhere and find lost things.

In the first season, when immortal Charlie Manx (Zachary Quinto), who steals children’s souls, lures a child into his Rolls-Royce Wraith to take him to Christmasland, a magical place where everyday is the holiday, Vic uses her abilities to go after him and the other kidnapped children.

Eventually, Vic kills Manx by lighting the Wraith, which keeps him alive, on fire. She is saved by Lou Carmody (Jonathan Langdon), who takes her to the hospital where she finds out she is pregnant.

Based on a character created by Neil Gaiman, Sam Kieth, and Mike Dringenberg and taken from the comic book series The Sandman and the subsequent spin-off, Lucifer, the television series Lucifer originally aired on FOX for three seasons. After its cancellation, it was picked up by Netflix for a 10-episode fourth season, which arrived today on DVD and Blu-ray (via the Warner Archive Collection).

The series follows Lucifer Morningstar (Tom Ellis), who came to Los Angeles and bought a bar after deciding to take a vacation from Hell, but who now works as a consultant for the LAPD with partner Detective Chloe Decker (Lauren German). The two work together solving murders, with Lucifer sometimes using his powers of being able to force people to admit their true desires to help the cases along.

During the course of the three seasons, the two became closer and Lucifer started to change his ways.

At the end of season three, the two finally kissed, however, Chloe later saw Lucifer’s devil face, proof that he was really who he claimed to be.

Thursday the new sci-fi thriller miniseries, Devs, premieres its first two episodes on FX on Hulu. The series comes from Alexa Garland, the creator of Ex Machina and Annihilation, who also writes, directs, and serves as an executive producer on the series.

At a cutting-edge tech company called Amaya, Sergei (Karl Glusman), who’s been working in the AI department, is invited by his boss, Forest (Nick Offerman), to join the highly secretive Devs team. When he doesn’t return from work, his girlfriend, software engineer Lily Chan (Sonoya Mizuno), investigates the mysterious development division of the company and the man behind it, who she thinks may be behind his murder. In doing so she uncovers more than she expected.