(Warning: This post contains spoilers through the Season 5A finale of “Lucifer.”)
“Supernatural” alum Richard Speight Jr. directed two episodes of the fifth and final season of “Lucifer.” Well, he directed two episodes of what was originally planned as the fifth and final season of “Lucifer,” until Netflix decided to renew the Tom Ellis-led drama for additional sixth and truly final season.
That surprise Season 6 pickup didn’t come until after Speight had wrapped production on both of his Season 5 episodes — “BlueBallz,” which dropped with Season 5A last month, and “A Little Harmless Stalking,” which will launch with Season 5B at a later date — meaning he, and everyone else, believed those installments were going to be leading up to the show’s grand finale.
But Speight tells TheWrap he’s confident that the fortunate turn of events that changed his final season episodes into just Season 5 episodes, especially the one that comes in the back half of the season, won’t do “any damage to the storyline” that was initially intended to bring “Lucifer” to an end.
“I’ll tell you this. If I’ve learned anything from ‘Supernatural,’ it’s that finales don’t mean a whole hell of a lot,” Speight said. “They’re always flowing. I say that because every time I was a part of ‘Supernatural’ and I’d see how they’d wrap up a season, I’d think to myself, well, they’ve just screwed themselves. There’s no way out of this. There’s no more story to be gleaned because they just ended it all. And the first episode of the new season, they find a way to lift the plane off the tarmac one more time, and I have no doubt that the ‘Lucifer’ writers will do the same.”
Speight’s “A Little Harmless Stalking” is Episode 13 of Season 5, which is “more towards the end of the season arc, which was going to be the end of the show’s arc originally,” he said. Rather than diving deeper into Lucifer (Ellis) and God’s (Dennis Haysbert)’s father/son issues — which are set up to be a big part of the back half of Season 5 — Speight says this hour focuses on fan-favorite character Dr. Linda Martin (played by Rachael Harris).
“My second episode teaches a lot on Rachael Harris’ character, Dr. Linda. She plays very heavy in my episode, which, by the way, was a real treat, because she’s a powerhouse actress and funny as all get out, so that was a delight. So much of my episode really centers around her. There of course is always the powerhouse wizardry of Tom Ellis and his storyline, but my episode specifically wasn’t hammering home that through-line.”
“Without saying anything that I shouldn’t say, Dr. Linda gets in over her head in a situation that is very unlike her to get involved in — but she does so for reasons that will make sense as the show progresses,” Speight added. “So it’s not always the funny Dr. Linda. You know, we see funny Dr. Linda, but this is also — there’s a lot of heart to her character and we see a lot of that heart in this episode.”
Speight says it’s a “powerful episode on several levels” and that the switch from a final season chapter to a fifth season chapter doesn’t tarnish it.
“All the power and impact of this storyline that they had going through this season is going to make fans more eager to see more, because you don’t want to see what you love go away. So knowing that it’s going to return, I think they’re going to be even more committed to the journey that ‘Lucifer’ takes us on in Season 5.”
In case you were wondering, Speight will get his shot to be involved in the actual final season of “Lucifer,” as he says it’s “looking like” he will be directing an episode of Season 6. No production start has been given for those batch of episodes yet.
Find out what Ellis told TheWrap about Season 5B — and Season 6 — here.
“Lucifer” Season 5A is streaming now on Netflix.