We had to get there at some point, to my biggest problem with Lucifer season 6. To the one thing, above all, I would change, if given the chance. And no, it’s not the ending – though I might have tweaked a thing here or there. It’s the role of Trixie Espinoza in the final season of Lucifer.
Look, I understand the show was trying to make the best of what they had. Scarlett’s availability was complicated, and COVID made things much worse. But even though that’s a reason, it’s just not a good enough one, for me. Because so much of what I disliked about Trixie’s role in Lucifer season 6 could have been fixed with a line, or two, or five. I didn’t even need Trixie in there.
Though, of course, I would have loved to have more of her.
Lucifer season 6 was the culmination of many journeys, but above all, it was the culmination of the journey of this family, the one Lucifer had created for himself on Earth. And Trixie was always an important, nay, integral part of that family. Yet, in the final season, the show takes the easy way out by forgetting Trixie in many moments where she should have been front and center.
Take Lucifer 6×09 “Goodbye, Lucifer,” an episode where our favorite devil goes on a literal goodbye tour, getting a poignant and important moment with every one of the main players in this series, and forcing us to go through at least a box of Kleenex to be able to focus on the screen. Yet there’s no moment with Trixie, and not even an indication that a moment with Trixie was necessary.
Same goes Lucifer’s final moments with Chloe and Rory, as a family. The family of three was never a family of three, it was always a family of four. And yet Trixie wasn’t present or mentioned. She wasn’t even thought of. Nor was she part of any kind of family decision, or a consideration for Lucifer as he made his choices – even though Trixie had just lost her father, and Lucifer was the closest thing she had to a father figure in her life.
Again, availability surely played a role into it, and if I had to choose between having Trixie in these moments and allowing Trixie a chance at a final goodbye with her father, I would have chosen what we got. But that didn’t mean we couldn’t have gotten a nod or three or five to where she was, what she was doing, or even a confirmation that Lucifer did care for her.
We got it with everyone else, after all.
The fact that the Trixie issue wasn’t really addressed becomes particularly disappointing if we consider that season 5B left a conversation between Lucifer and Trixie about the fact that Lucifer left without ever telling her pretty much dangling. Season 6 shows them interacting with each other, and everything seems swell, so we’re to assume they patched things up. But we never get any confirmation, or even a mention of how this might have come to pass.
Later, after Lucifer leaves, we see Trixie with her mom and her little sister. We hear many Trixie stories from Rory. But we never get to hear about Trixie’s thoughts, or her feelings regarding Lucifer leaving her once more. We don’t even get to know if Chloe confided in her daughter – which would have been the smart thing to do. Instead, Trixie just …exists in the background in a way she never did in the first few seasons of the show.
There, but not present.
Lucifer season 6 did a lot right. It closed off many storylines, paid off almost every interpersonal dynamic and it gave us a beautiful romance the likes of which we’ll be talking about for years. But in many ways it failed the Lucifer and Trixie dynamics, and for some of us, that was one of the most important things they had to get right.
Fanfic will fill in the blanks. It will give us the after. It will show us the forever, not just between Lucifer and Chloe, but between Lucifer and everyone else in his life, including Trixie. It will give us adult Trixie at her mother’s deathbed, as she should have been. But fanfic shouldn’t have had to fill the blanks. We should have had some closure for Trixie, not just with her father, but with the man who, during six seasons, was a little bit father figure, a little bit partner-in-crime and a lot friend. That we didn’t is, without a doubt, the number one thing I would change in Lucifer season 6.
Lucifer Season 6 is available to stream on Netflix.
I really want an alternative ending to be filmed. Obviously want Trixie there with her Mom, and Sister- for me T could have just left Rory & Chloe alone for the scene they showed and then come bk into the room to sit with her sister after Chloe had died. Those two being together would have been a much stronger and emotional link to the scene with Chloe and Imenadiel in heaven. I’d also have liked a slow pan around the room lingering on photos of Dan with Chloe and Trixie, Lucifer with Dan and Chloe and Trixie, Lucifer, Trixie and Chloe plus photos showing the life with Chloe and her two girls to bridge that gap. It would have helped us all so much.