“Just because he told us his plan doesn’t mean that’s his plan. It’s Uriel.”
I’ve been thinking about Uriel. And I’ve been wondering how much of the pattern he could see at any given moment. Because he’s an angel; an immortal. A human minute is not the same to an immortal being who doesn’t have to live within the concept of a lifespan of perhaps 80-90 years. Does Uriel see patterns of days? Yes; he claims pressing the key will kill Chloe in two days. Does he see months? Years? Is it a clue that, when talking about Mum, he says, “She’s been here, what? Three minutes? Now you’re already defending her.”
Because here’s the real question: Why does Uriel bring Azrael’s blade to Earth? (And why, for that matter, does Azrael let him? Death is always watching.) We, the audience, think it’s because he’s going to use it to kill Mum. We think that because it’s the conclusion Lucifer jumps to, and even though we have seen Lucifer jump to many many wrong conclusions in the past, we believe him. Not only that, Uriel’s very appearance, I believe, plays on audience-held prejudices and biases.
Before Uriel, every celestial we meet is tall and strong and beautiful. We trust Lucifer because he’s our POV character, even though we know that his own feelings and emotions and history make him an unreliable narrator. We have seen the beautiful favorite son, firstborn angel Amenadiel fall in slow motion and then crawl haltingly back toward the light. We’ve seen Amenadiel do good things and we trust him, too, especially when Lucifer grows to trust him.
When Uriel shows up, he’s shorter and thicker than either Lucifer or Amenadiel. His human form is older; he is not young and beautiful, his clothes are drab and either too baggy or too tight. And if first impressions don’t ensure we already dislike him, Lucifer’s attitude toward Uriel takes us the rest of the way---disparaging Uriel’s trenchcoat as “pe/do/phile chic,” for example. That’s a laden word.
We, the audience, think we know what Lucifer thinks he knows: Uriel has come to hurt Chloe. Like Lucifer, we love Chloe and hate anyone who would hurt her. We distrust Uriel because his clothes, his appearance, his New York accent, his Mafiaesque vibe, like relying on ‘accidents’ to get what he wants and ensure his outcomes (Hell, the actor’s connection to The Sopranos) encourage us to. Kimo breaks legs for the Mob in the same episode we’ve got an Italian American actor known for major gangster-related roles pulling strings; these things are rarely coincidental with the Lucifer writers.
This episode is about appearances. Lying about them. Changing them. Pretending to be something you’re not. Amenadiel pretends to still be a powerful angel; Chloe pretends she’s not as upset about the accident as she is; Kimo pretends he still has movie star money; Jamie Lee pretends she still loves Kimo; the manager pretends he has Kimo’s best interests at heart; Kimo and Wesley pretend to be enemies; Chloe reads Coraline--appearances!!--to Trixie. What is Uriel pretending to be? How, perhaps, is his appearance at odds with his truth?
Uriel pulls out Azrael’s blade after explaining, “Dad’ll do the same thing [forgive Mum], he’ll let his guard down, and then she’ll destroy him. I need to make sure that doesn’t happen.” If we look at the events of “God Johnson,” this is exactly what happens. The God we see in God Johnson may not be the full power of the Almighty, but we know He has some of God’s essence, some of His memories. It’s not just the healing power of life; God knows Lucifer as Samael without prompting. And we know that iteration of God is willing to forgive. Mum is the one we know isn’t interested in forgiveness because she tells us again and again that she’s got an axe to grind and boy she can’t wait to get at the sharpener.
God, after all, is still an enigma---as “The Weaponizer” reminds us with Lucifer’s angry speech about how no one knows what He wants, and the various grace notes peppered throughout the episode reminding us everyone is essentially blind when it comes to God’s actual wants/plans/needs---”Nobody bloody knows because the selfish bastard won’t just tell us!” That this is immediately followed by “There’s my Lightbringer” in an episode that is going to introduce us to the flaming sword is not a coincidence. Mum means Lightbringer as truthbringer, I think; shedding light in the darkness. It’s one of the many meanings of Lucifer’s name and his insistence on never lying.
But back to Lucifer and Uriel at the church. Lucifer is the one who points out it’s Azrael’s blade; he explains its power; he says, “No Heaven, no Hell, just gone.”
Uriel replies, “Finally a moment of clarity between us.”
But is it the clarity we, the audience, think it is? Is it the death we (and Lucifer) assume Uriel is planning? Because when we get to the finale (Uriel says, “Maybe I’m working up to a big finale.”), isn’t that what happens? Lucifer slices open the universe and Mum leaves. No Heaven. No Hell. Just gone.
Lucifer, still assuming Uriel intends to use the blade on Mum, says, “You’ve gone completely insane, brother.”
And Uriel says, “I’m doing what has to be done, and you’ve run out of time. I don’t care about your deal with Dad, I don’t care about your little human, but it’s obvious you care for her a tad more than you do Mom. Now, all I need to do is hit this one little key, right here. A sequence will begin and two days from now, your cute little human will finally die. So, Lucifer, you can either let that happen or you can give me Mom. Last chance. You choose.”
The bolding is mine; I’ll come back to it in a moment. But first, here’s the thing: Uriel doesn’t tell us what it is he cares about, not in so many words. What can we infer? That he doesn’t want Heaven to go to war. He doesn’t want the Universe to be destroyed by Mum and Dad fighting. He looked up to his siblings and kept trying to play with them, even when they rejected him, and even when, as Lucifer says, it was “strange, considering he already knew what the outcome would be.” So what is he doing here? Revenge? I don’t think so. That’s Mum’s thing. He could’ve killed Amenadiel. He could’ve used Azrael’s blade on Lucifer.
Why does Uriel bring Azrael’s blade to Earth? If it’s to “kill” Mum, why are his last words to Lucifer about “the piece”? If Uriel’s plan was to avoid Mum returning to Heaven, being forgiven, destroying Dad (and possibly the Universe in the process, including his siblings), why would he tell Lucifer what he needs to know to fix the flaming sword? The cut-through-the-gates-of-Heaven, maybe-Lucifer-would’ve-succeeded-in-his-rebellion-if-he’d-had-it flaming sword?
What if Uriel saw a different outcome all along?
Back to Uriel’s monologue, then, and his actions on Earth. These actions seem focused on Lucifer; he only deals with Amenadiel because Lucifer adds that variable. He doesn’t seek Amenadiel out. There, I think, we see the actions of the frustrated, stubborn, rejected little boy whose siblings never played with him. But I don’t think that kind of vengeance (or even justice, some might say) is why Uriel involves himself. I think, on some level, Uriel believes Lucifer is the only one who can come close to understanding him (though I wonder if Uriel and Azrael didn’t hatch part of this plan together, both being young and small and not the best or brightest or most beautiful).
Think about it. If Uriel was always rejected and excluded, who of his siblings can now understand that best of all? He needs Lucifer to help him but he also knows he can’t just ask Lucifer to help him; Lucifer is paranoid and distrustful. Lucifer might say no. The pattern might change. Perhaps Uriel has seen all the ways it will never work just to ask.
So Uriel goads him. Finds his weaknesses. Plays on them. Exactly like Mum is doing to Lucifer. Only Uriel’s doing it to try and save everything, whereas Mum is doing it to get Lucifer and Amenadiel to help her “retake” Heaven; war is always implied. Death is always implied. Patricide is implied.
In their fight, Uriel says, “Patterns are tricky like that; it takes time to get a real sense of them.” He looks Lucifer in the eyes. “I needed to study you a bit.”
Again, we assume because Lucifer assumes that Uriel means he had to study Lucifer’s fighting style. But I don’t think that’s it---at least, not all of it. Uriel arranges the car accident; he watches Lucifer’s reaction to it. Uriel arranges the confrontation between Kimo and Chloe; he watches Lucifer’s reaction to it. Uriel gives Lucifer an ultimatum (Lucifer, who once rebelled against the Creator of the Universe because Lucifer asked, “Why can’t I choose my own way?” and Dad said, “Because I said so.”).
Uriel goads Lucifer, knowing damned well that goading Lucifer is usually an efficient way to get him to do something. Tell him he can’t. Insult the things he loves to get his ire up; Lucifer is impulsive and protective. Uriel suspected Chloe was a weakness---or, perhaps, even a source of change that makes Lucifer better. So he insults her, belittles her, attacks her, knowing Lucifer will shoot from the hip. Uriel says he doesn’t care about her; he says he doesn’t care about Lucifer’s ‘deal with Dad’---we know Lucifer loves Chloe; we know Lucifer values the honor inherent in keeping his deals above all things. These words are very precise jabs at Lucifer’s weaknesses, his Achilles heels. Uriel knows what he’s doing. And Lucifer doesn’t see it; he falls for the “trap;” he lets his anger drive him. (Later, Uriel also mocks and insults Mazikeen---Lucifer’s favorite---but again, though he has the chance, he does not kill her. He’s still trying to push Lucifer toward an action.)
But Uriel does give Lucifer what he most desires; choice---at least he says he does. The thing Lucifer wanted so badly that he ended up rebelling and being banished from Heaven for it. Here, too, a parallel between Lucifer and Uriel: Uriel is making choices here, something that would never have happened Before. He still looks up to his brother, still wants to be like him.
Mum says, “He’s not going to give up until he has either me or that detective.” Asked to make this choice, Lucifer says, “I refuse to believe that. There is always another way.”
“If anyone can find it,” says Mum, “it’s you.”
Because hasn’t that always been Lucifer’s role? To find loopholes? Other ways? To do the unexpected?
And believe it or not, I think Lucifer’s ability to find other ways is what Uriel was counting on, too.
“Your pride was always going to be your undoing,” Uriel tells Amenadiel. (And doesn’t everyone think/know that pride is Lucifer’s thing too? Pride goeth, doesn’t it?)
Ultimately, pride is Uriel’s undoing, too. Like every other celestial we’ve met, Uriel underestimates the intensity of Lucifer’s loyalty to those he loves, human or not. Because the celestials don’t “get” Lucifer’s (or God’s!) fascination with humanity, relegating them to the equivalent of toys or pets, they do not understand the lengths Lucifer will go to in protecting them. When Lucifer kills Uriel (because it’s the only other choice he sees, and Uriel has goaded him relentlessly into thinking this is true), and Uriel says, “I didn’t see this coming,” it’s proof that Uriel---with all his patterns, all his prescience---still failed to accept that his celestial brother, his brightest brother, could possibly care enough about humanity to do the unthinkable.
Perhaps in the pattern Uriel thought most likely, Lucifer ended up working with him to build the flaming sword and banish Mum with it after they traversed this path. Perhaps he believed (wrongly, always wrongly) that he could manipulate Lucifer successfully (the way so many others have tried and failed to do). Perhaps he didn’t understand that his brother does not negotiate with terrorists, especially those who hold the safety of his loved ones hostage. Uriel says he will take both Mum and the detective; he says, “You can’t stop me, brother.”
Getting Lucifer to act by telling him what he can and cannot do.
And in that final moment, I think Uriel understands. In studying Lucifer, he missed the most important lesson. His brother isn’t the man he once was; he’s changed. And this changed Lucifer might have been reasoned with. This changed Lucifer might have helped.
And so Uriel tells this changed Lucifer, “The piece is here,” hoping that Lucifer will pick up the thread of the pattern that should have been, the one where everyone is saved, where Mum gets her own universe, where his family doesn’t go to war with one another, where there’s no Heaven, no Hell, just gone.
Uriel just won’t be there to enjoy it. In this pattern, his is the sacrifice that makes the best outcome possible. Hell, maybe he did know that all along, too. How sad that would be. To be your worst self in order to make the best outcome happen. When Uriel says, “You’re lucky I would never use Azrael’s blade on you, brother,” is he planting the idea that becomes Lucifer using Azrael’s blade on him? How much of the pattern has he seen?
And I would like to believe, from one rejected brother to another, Uriel does see that his own actions led to this fratricide---and that he regrets it, because in making his brother a murderer, Uriel has potentially undone all the work that has gone into changing Lucifer for the better since last they met. (They call each other brother so often, even though they are, on the surface, enemies here. Brothers. Something that could have been and now never will. Even in dying---forever removed from existence---Uriel reaches for his brother, entrusts him with information. And somewhere in Lucifer’s subconscious this gets stored not as a lie, but as help---because otherwise, HellUriel wouldn’t be able to “tell” Lucifer what he needs to be thinking about.)
Pride goeth before the Fall, and in this case, the Fall is a very final one---and perhaps neither Lucifer nor his brother actually “got what they deserved,” no matter what Maze says. (“The prick got what he deserved.” Lucifer doesn’t think of him as a prick here, no. “He was my brother,” he says, tortured. “What have I done?”)
And in a world without Chloe Decker, without Linda Martin, without people who love him back, I think Lucifer might’ve fallen all over again after killing Uriel. But he doesn’t. And that’s a change, too. A really damned important one.
