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

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The first two episodes of many fans’ least favorite season have the Guy Girls meandering on a wide range of topics. We move from some straightforward continuity questions (How is Lucifer able to be sunburned? And how did he not lose Amenadiel’s necklace when he was kidnapped?) to observations about the treatment of faith and hope (Ella humansplains faith to an angel!). 

In more abstract overthinking, we use comedy as an entree to think about “theft” (not plagiarism!) as essential to creativity, muse on how penis-size jokes are fundamentally trans-phobic, and commiserate around the sex appeal of emotional brokenness and/or unavailability. 

We also spend a good amount of time bemoaning just how silly “Sinner Man” sounds when you say it out loud: instead of striking fear in our hearts, the moniker makes us crave sticky buns…

Emily’s book is Stacked: Your Super-Serious Guide to Modern Money Management

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
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To learn more about Tracie and Emily and our other projects, to support us, and join the Guy Girls' family, visit us on Patreon.

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These final two episodes of Season 2 have Tracie and Emily taking long walks tangential from the episodes themselves. These include Tracie geeking out over the nature of divinity in the Hebrew scriptures, Emily waxing poetic about the fashion of the 1990s, and both sisters drooling a little over the Morningstar boys.

They also spend some time thinking about how what the showrunners do (and don’t) bother to think all the way through contribute to the copaganda aspect of the show.

Referenced in the show:|
The Lottery by Shirley Jackson

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.

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An episode featuring a murder set in an exclusive private school sets off some OPINIONS from Emily about what really matters in education and the inherent classism built into mom-shaming. She also shares the surprising theory that children are really just three puppies in a trench coat. 

Meanwhile, an episode in which an emanation of the Divine inhabits a bearded guy with intensely blue eyes has us overthinking names (again), and the relationship between Lucifer and Amenadiel has us thinking about what it means to both be at each other’s throats and have each other’s backs.

And as two Gen Xers, we wonder (through our nostalgia) if Spandau Ballet is really the best way to parent trap God and the Divine Goddess.

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.

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In discussing these two deeply satisfying episodes Tracie and Emily have deep resonance with some plot points as well as moments of downright confusion. The delightfully complicated and not-who-she-seems Candy Morningstar (Lindsey Gort) makes it clear we should never underestimate women just because they fit into a stereotype. This makes the moment when Chloe (Lauren German) pretends to be Candy even more entertaining. 

When looking at the parenting choices from the Goddess (Tricia Helfer), Emily realizes we should get together and go bowling with whichever person in the writer's room experienced their parents' contentious divorce, because man can we relate (even though the contention for us was mainly not from our parents themselves!). It also becomes clear, again, that Lucifer (Tom Ellis) is a REALLY old adolescent.  

And in the end, the sisters have a good laugh when realizing Emily COMPLETELY MISSED a plot point misdirection because she is a sweet summer child who has never purchased diamonds.

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.

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Sometimes, Tracie and Emily have so much overthinking to impart, they make lists so as not to miss anything. This is one of those times. 

“Stewardess Interruptus” and “Love Handles” have one of Lucifer and Chloe’s sweetest moments and one of their sexiest. These episodes force characters and audience rearranging mental furniture around Lucifer’s sexuality, and they have Tracie and Emily rearranging their ideas of which character they most resemble (turns out it’s Luficer’s admirer/stalker, Suki Price (Diana Bang)). 

As is often the case, the sisters’ discussion leads them down rabbit holes of memory (that time Emily hand fed Tracie mac & cheese because Tracie was driving a stick shift and the cheesy noodles were fresh and delicious) as well as meta abstractions about human behavior and thought patterns (is binary thinking universal, or is it cultural?). 

And, lest you think this episode is overly intellectual, let us remind you, “self-worth comes from within, b!tches.”

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.

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“Homewrecker” and “Quid Pro Ho” have us thinking about the inherent chaos of the goddess of creation and destruction, and the nature of chaos. How much of chaos is simple messiness, and how much of it is destruction? Or is it something else altogether?

We’re also struck by how refreshing it is to see a competent woman on screen just being her badass competent self, and how Tom Ellis is the only actor who could follow up a Nietzsche joke with an anal sex joke. (Also, we once again talk about Lucifer's guyliner, which we would like to rename Guy-Decker liner).

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.

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“My LIttle Monkey” and “Welcome to Stabby Town” offer both humor and pathos, and have the sisters deep in our feelings. 

Lucifer continues to flail in these episodes after Dr. Linda’s reaction to his devil face in the last episode. Her reaction, which he reads as rejection, is confirmation of his own self-loathing, which Lucifer himself articulates when he tells the villain in the bath house that he hates Lucifer Morningstar.

Within the same pair of episodes, though, there is the deeply funny scene of the suggestive pantomime Lucifer and Ella perform in figuring out how all of the participants at a yoga class ended up dead. 

Amidst some really strong guyliner game in these episodes, we notice some echoing of language between what Maze says to Linda and what Chloe says to Lucifer in trying to (re)establish connections. This dialogue construction leads us on a tangent to include Boomer text messaging behavior and Biblical language. 

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.

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In really good television this season, we meet some new folks and new relationships. The Weaponizer/Body Bag franchises become a pillar of background ideas and images–and the initial basis of Lucifer and Dan enjoying one another’s company. The short arc of Uriel the angel/villain leads to a reflection on what makes a “good” villain, what a fantastic super-power pattern recognition (and prediction) would be, and the advisability of having a character say “I didn’t see that coming.” We speculate that Ryan Goldburg (Phil LaMarr) is supposed to be a Black Jew (mishpocha/family!), and though it’s too bad he turns out to be a killer (and a coward), we appreciate the representation!

These episodes also provide the exceedingly validating realization that even the Goddess of All Creation is overwhelmed by all of the tasks a working mother is expected to perform daily. Not to mention some unashamed Tricia Helfer thirst from both sisters. 

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 Fan Mail

These two episodes of Lucifer prove to be the jumping-off point for intense conversations. Recorded not long after Kyle Rittenhouse (the white teenager who crossed state lines and killed Black Lives Matter protesters) was acquitted, Tracie and Emily are thinking about punishment, justice, and the ways in which inherited paradigms can sometimes obscure other ways of thinking. We think hard about what we owe one another and how we as individuals and societies do and do not hold ourselves accountable for our complicity in repeated injustice. 

(Don’t worry, we also spend some time giggling over the abundant crotch jokes in these episodes.)

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 Fan Mail

The first two episodes of season two we meet new, key characters: the Goddess of Creation (in Charlotte Richards’ body) (Tricia Helfer) and Ella Lopez (Aimee Garcia). We also get the first appearance of Lee Garner, a.ka. Mr. Said-Out-Bitch (Jeremiah Birkett).

As we dig into these two episodes we go deep into the source material for the notion of a Goddess as consort or wife to the creator God. We admire the writers’ ability to fold exposition about Ella into the dialogue more-or-less naturally, and celebrate the story beat that has Lucifer dealing with naive (and naked!) behavior from his mom/the Goddess that he pulled on Chloe several episodes ago. 

The cinematography and decor of the penthouse show up beautifully in these episodes, including the funky tree chandelier and the balcony as a place to talk to (or smirk at) God. And of course, as a Wisconsin resident, Emily could not allow the preponderance of cheese in these episodes to go unmentioned. 

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.