Devil's Advocate: Lucifer, Episode 302, "The One With the Baby Carrot"

As Lucifer Morningstar (TOM ELLIS) continues his rant about the new villain in town stealing his schtick, the so-called Sinner Man, the LAPD gets pulled in on a homicide involving a second-rate comedian found murdered after publicly claiming another successful comedian had made a career on jokes stolen from him. Detective Decker (LAUREN GERMAN) tries to get Lucifer to focus on the case at hand rather than continue off on tangents about some mythical bogeyman, and warns him not to let their new boss, Lt. Marcus Pierce (TOM WELLING) hear him gon on about that or his 'devil nonsense' or he'll think Lucifer is nuts. At which point, of course, we ominously see that the good lieutenant is watching and listening from afar.

Returning to the station, Detective Espinoza (KEVIN ALEJANDRO) tries to mend fences with Lt. Pierce, only to find out that Pierce had been having him on for as long as he could ride him. But Pierce wants a favor -- he wants all Espinoza's notes on Lucifer, presuming of course that he had gathered them since Lucifer has been teamed up with his ex-wife.

The accused comedian (KEVIN CHRISTY) turns out to be a super diva. Ella (AIMEE GARCIA) is totally enamored with him. Lucifer literally steals his show from him during a live taping and shoots him with a loaded puppet (No, that's not an autocorrect), after which he admits that he stole the jokes, but didn't commit the murder. He doesn't even want the success he has now, because of the pressure, but he loves the money too much. But he's been getting anonymous death threats via email, which could provide another lead.

While Lucifer and Chloe follow the trail, Lucifer's brother, Amenadiel (D.B. WOODSIDE) confides in Dr. Martin (RACHAEL HARRIS) that he feels he is being tested by his Father. He then takes her to Lux to show her the problem he's been facing: having to dispose of Lucifer's wings, which he leaves littered about for anyone to find every time he cuts them off. Yes, the continue to grow back, and Lucifer is hating that.

We get a particularly tense moment at Lux when Lt. Pierce shows up to confront Lucifer with the ominous warning: "I've figured out what you really are." But no, he hasn't. He thinks Lucifer is just an idiot, but he wants to warn him against talking about the Sinner Man. He doesn't believe the Sinner Man is a myth. In fact, he went up against him in Chicago, and lost someone very close to him, and doesn't want that to happen again. Okay, are anybody else's Co-inky-dink Alarms going off yet? Pierce comes to LA at the same time the Sinner Man does?

The team try to flush out the mystery comedian who issued the death threats through a comedy routine focused on the man's insecurities about having a micro-penis--the issue which apparently instigated his spate of hate emails. To do this, Espinoza puts his improv talents to use in a stand-up routine that fails miserably, but is rescued through the heckling of Lucifer, who literally brought tomatoes to throw.

When the killer is finally cornered, Lucifer gets a revelation. It was never about the stolen jokes, because "It's okay to steal someone's work so long as you do it better." That's been Lucifer's whole gripe about this Sinner Man: his granting of favors to people. This leads Lucifer to go back into the favor-granting business, which he originated, to reclaim his title. And if the line at Lux is any indication, business is going to be very, very good.