Devil's Advocate: Lucifer Episode 307, "Off the Record"

When Reese Getty (BETTER CALL SAUL's PATRICK FABIAN) wakes up in a hospital, he's told he just had a brush with death. But now that he's got a second chance at life, he's going to try to turn things around with his wife. He shows up with roses, only to hear her canoodling with another man -- and that man is revealed to be Lucifer Morningstar (TOM ELLIS). Reese follows Lucifer to Lux, and Lucifer buddies up to him. He learns that Reese is out to destroy the man who stole his wife, and Lucifer--not realizing it's him--gives him the encouragement to truly punish the man.

It turns out that Reese is a newspaper reporter, and he gets his editor to pull strings to get him to ride along with Lucifer and Detective Chloe Decker (LAUREN GERMAN) so that he can prove that Lucifer is a con-man bilking the LAPD. This lands him at a crime scene with them where the find the latest body in a string of serial killings. The victims are all people who professed one thing in life but secretly were hypocrites, something deduced by Reese.

When Mazikeen (LESLEY-ANN BRANDT) later threatens Reese to stay away from Lucifer, Reese knows he's onto a story. He rushes to his office to find out his wife is waiting for him -- and we find out that his wife is Linda Martin (RACHAEL HARRIS), Lucifer's therapist! But they've been separated for two years, and Linda is there to get him to sign the divorce papers. He begs for 24 hours to prove he can change everything before signing, but his efforts only lead him to humliating disappointment, even after a confrontation with Lucifer and ultimately to the tracking down of a key person in the serial killings--who isn't the serial killer, but knows about him.

It's not until Reese is in the interrogation room alone that he witnesses Lucifer with the informant, getting rough and slamming him up against the 1-way glass. But it's not the actions that alarm Reese so much as it is what is revealed: Lucifer's devil-face! Now he knows that Lucifer is, indeed, the Devil, something that not even Linda realizes at this point in the narrative (these events having taken place in the past). He tries to tell Linda, and she rebuffs him, so he signs the papers and feverishly sets about building a Conspiracy Wall in his office to get the proof he needs that Lucifer is indeed the Devil.

This brings us up more to present time, when Lucifer and Decker come to his office again asking for help with the serial killer, as a new lead has come in. (So they've apparently been tracking a serial killer throughout the last year of episodes that we did not see.) Apparently he's written into the newspaper a few times, and they need Reese to pull any comments that didn't get printed or were redacted. When Lucifer says he's late for an appointment with his therapist, and that she's going to kill him, Reese takes that to mean that Lucifer can, in fact, be killed. So he rushes over with a gun...

...and shoots him. In Linda's office. And at this point, Linda already knows that Lucifer is the devil, and he's not around Chloe so he's not vulnerable. But he is mad about the bullet hole in his suit.

Realizing that Linda knows the truth about Lucifer, and doesn't care, Reese goes to his office and demolishes everything. He's wasted a year unnecessarily. But in his rage, he comes upon a clue -- that Lucifer is vulnerable around Chloe. So he seeks out the serial killer and invites him to Lux, to take out the biggest charlatan of all. And while the poor neurotic killer (JOHN BILLINGSLEY) is on site, Reese makes sure Chloe is nearby, interviewing her and giving her the information she requested. Only the murder attempt goes horribly wrong, and suddenly Reese is more desperate than ever...and more guilty.

And you know what happens to people with guilt in this series, right?

To tell you any more about this episode would spoil what was truly a unique and special episode. The point of view was a welcomed fresh perspective on the setting of LUCIFER, and the ending was nearly unforeseen (although telegraphed a little during a confrontation with Lucifer and Reese near the end of the episode). Patrick Fabian did a great job portraying a guy who just wanted his life to return to normal and confronted with a world-shattering truth. (Someone needs to get Fabian in the same episode of a series with John Wesley Shipp.) Tom Ellis is at his devilish best, which is always the highlight of a great episode, and John Billingsley is the world's least-likely serial killer--which makes him all the more compelling.