‘Lucifer’ Season 6 Episode to Address Black Lives Matter Movement
Art will reflect the real world in one way (but not in another), in Lucifer‘s final run of episodes.
The drama, which follows the devil (Tom Ellis) working alongside Detective Chloe Decker (Lauren German) and the LAPD, will include the Black Lives Matter movement in its sixth and final season, ET reports. (Filming is completed on its fifth season, the first half of which drops Friday on Netflix.)
“When we got back to the [writers] room, we started looking at the fact that we’re a cop show and in what ways have we contributed or not addressed the systemic issues of the police department,” executive producer Ildy Modrovich, who will write the episode, explained. The “pretty diverse room” has been discussing it, and with the episode they’re doing that “speaks directing to it,” their goal is to “get it right.”
In addressing social justice in the country, they’ll “go at it through our characters’ eyes from an emotional place and not a preachy place,” she added. “To really look at the situation socially, emotionally and have it resonate on a deeper level than just words or rhetoric.”
(John P. Fleenor/Netflix)
They have been speaking with the cast about it as well, more so than with past storylines. “D.B. [Woodside] was one of the people in particular that we really engaged with it—Lesley-Ann [Brandt], with Tom [Ellis],” executive producer Joe Henderson said. “Normally, we pitch them their stories and a little bit of mythology, but this is a thing that almost all of them asked about, so we’ve listened to them and we’ve tried to make it as much of a conversation as possible and a listening exercise.”
Lucifer isn’t the first show involving law enforcement with plans to address what’s happening in the real world. CBS procedurals, Law & Order: SVU, Brooklyn Nine-Nine and others will be making changes as a result of the police brutality protests after George Floyd’s death.
But don’t expect to see the coronavirus pandemic in Season 6. (Production hasn’t begun yet; Netflix picked up the additional season in June.) “No one wants to talk about COVID on Lucifer,” Modrovich said, and Henderson pointed out that by the time those episodes are released, “we’ll look back at that and be like, ‘That sucked and I never wanted to go back there again.'” (After all, several of the characters are celestial beings, so it’s hard to imagine how the show would handle a pandemic.)
Some medical dramas (including Grey’s Anatomy and The Resident) as well as This Is Us have already announced plans to include the pandemic in their upcoming seasons.
Lucifer, Season 5 Part 1, Friday, August 21, Netflix
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