WARNING: The following contains major spoilers for Lucifer's Season 5B, streaming now on Netflix.
Lucifer's first half of Season 5 ended with Lucifer disappearing to fight a Celestial battle right after Chloe told him, "I love you." When 5B returned, Lucifer doesn't jump at the chance to return those words, however, which ends up putting an "emotional wall" between them.
During an exclusive interview with CBR, Lucifer co-showrunner Joe Henderson delved into why this wall needed to be placed between the two of them. When asked if the distance was written in later, due to COVID-19 set restrictions -- which affected some show's filming plans like The CW's Batwoman --, Henderson replied that the "wall" was always a part of the script.
Henderson shared, "I'll tell you how much was shot during COVID. It was just parts of the finale. A lot of it was actually us wanting to tell emotional distance and show the fact that they were together, but they weren't together. Like the trick of it was there was this wall. Lucifer had created an emotional wall. And they're trying to be together. They're trying to overcome it, but they haven't. And so much of the challenge for them was, 'Well, how do we be together if we can't get past this hump?' And trying to either fake it until they make it or find a way to get there. So that was us sort of physicalizing that and also frustrating the hell out of fans."
However, he added some hopeful news for Luci-fans wanting to see more quality time spent with Chloe and Lucifer, stating, "All I will say is, 'Fans, next season. You'll be happy.'"
Although Season 5B starts with a commitment-phobic Lucifer -- terrified that he isn't capable of loving someone as an angel -- the season ends with Lucifer returning those three little words. After learning that his father did, and has always loved him, Lucifer sacrifices his life to bring Chloe back to Earth (and out of Heaven) during 5B's finale. In his last moment as Lucifer -- and before evolving into God -- Luci finally confesses his love to Chloe.
Lucifer stars Tom Ellis as Lucifer Morningstar, Lauren German as Det. Chloe Decker, D.B. Woodside as Amenadiel, Rachael Harris as Dr. Linda Martin, Kevin Alejandro as Det. Dan Espinoza, Lesley-Ann Brandt as Mazikeen Smith and Aimee Garcia as Ella Lopez. Season 5B is now on Netflix.