When Lucifer started, it was a straight-up procedural with a supernatural slant, as befitted a FOX show. There was a different case every week, a team of people involved in the investigation, other characters surrounding Lucifer who, like him, needed to learn some lessons, and a will they/won't they dynamic between Lucifer and his new partner, Chloe Decker. Lucifer, however, always had larger plans, and the move to Netflix allowed the show to realize those.

A show centered on the devil probably always wanted -- if not needed -- to tackle more important issues than just a different case each week. And yet the procedural format allowed the show to kick-start its main character's growth in a believable way. Soon, though, the format grew stale. For the show to truly live up to its potential, it needed to not shed the procedural label, at at least to stop adhering to it so strictly.

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Then FOX cancelled the show at the end of season 3, and Netflix swooped in, saving Lucifer and giving it new life on the platform. The show would go on to have not just a fourth and a super-sized fifth season, but an upcoming sixth season, which is meant to bring the journey to a close.

With Netflix came new possibilities to explore not just the growth of Lucifer and the people around him, but to discuss the elephant in the room. Lucifer is the devil. Amenadiel, his brother, a series regular since season one, is an angel. Maze is a demon. Though the show did introduce important human characters, among them Linda, Lucifer's therapist, Ella, the LAPD's forensic scientist, Dan, Chloe's cop ex and even Trixie, Chloe's daughter, the fact that we were dealing with literal angels had to be addressed. Not to mention the fact that angels and humans, were, apparently, friends, and in other cases, much more.

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It wasn't just about addressing the separation between humanity and the divine, however, it was about explaining an ancient story, that of Lucifer the fallen angel, and, setting up a storyline that would, perhaps, give a satisfying conclusion to the age-old question of: what comes after? We don't have an answer to that last question yet, but the show has indeed done a lot to try to address the bigger issues. Starting with Lucifer's history as the one who tried to lead a rebellion against his father, aka God.

There was no way to really get at the heart of this question without bringing in, well, God, so Lucifer did that in season 5, just as it set up the idea of God retiring and someone else possibly taking his place. That the role fell to Lucifer, someone we'd seen grow from a self-centered, dismissive and frankly conceited individual to someone who didn't just feel for others, but who, through therapy, had come to understand there's always more to be learned, was just what the storytelling demanded. But Lucifer didn't stop there.

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Instead, the questions got larger, in a way that's reminiscent of where The Good Place decided to take its storyline in the final season. Sure, Lucifer had grown. He'd learned. But the system was still, in many ways, rigged against humans. The world was still unfair. Sometimes the right people lost, and sometimes the wrong people got rewarded. Could that be fixed? And how?

The answer to these questions surely lies in the final season of Lucifer. But that the show dared to ask the question, and that it somehow went form a show that had no business getting so deep to the one show that absolutely needed to tackle this subject is a testament to not just the vision, but the strength of the writing. Procedurals are fun, but they aren't always that deep. Some, however, are outstanding at characterization and sustained character arcs. Those are rarer. Shows that can start as a procedural and become a lesson in how to not just become better, but how to change the system to affect the same change you have managed in yourself? That would qualify as one of a kind.

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