Exclusive: Lucifer showrunners break down the final season

Would the Lucifer showrunners make more episodes if they had a good story? “I feel very confident that is something we would be able to find.”

The final season of Lucifer has dropped on Netflix. After three cancellations and three resurrections, the show is finally ending. Winter Is Coming had a chance to speak with showrunners Ildy Modrovich and Joe Henderson about bringing the adventure to a close.

Sarabeth Pollock: “Before we get started, I have to tell you that I’ve been a fan of the show since the very beginning, long before I started covering it, and I cried like a baby through the final season. I cover all sorts of stuff and I’ve never had that kind of reaction before.”

Joe Henderson: “Thank you. You’re making me emotional just hearing that. Thank you, it means a lot.”

Ildy Modrovich: “Thank you so much!”

SP: “It’s funny that we’re talking now because I’ve been thinking a lot about the days when Lucifer was cancelled. There’s a thing now that I think of as the ‘Lucifer Effect’ that just happened with Manifest, where fans look to what happened with Lucifer and have used that to save other shows. Manifest is the most recent example of that kind of global unified effort to save a show, and it worked. It says a lot about Lucifer and the magic that has always surrounded this show, as well as the amazing global community of fans.”

IM: “Yeah, it’s also something we didn’t expect, which made it so [special]. We didn’t galvanize anybody, they really galvanized themselves. That’s why it was extra special, and awesome.”

JH: “It was amazing, because when the uproar started, when we had a million tweets in 24 hours, I was like, ‘What an amazing sendoff! What a great Irish wake. But guys, that’s it. But thank you.’ And then to have it actually become something… I do think a huge part of the legacy of Lucifer, I hope, is that moment, because we did three extra seasons thanks to the fans. Because of the fans, and that’s meaningful. That means a lot to us in the show.”

SP: “I’ve been reading interviews you’ve done prior to the release of season 6 and you’re both masters at saying a lot and revealing nothing.”

JH: “Thank you!”

SP: “I don’t know how you do it. I’m thinking of comments you made about how an opportunity presented itself to have a sixth season, but you only wanted to do it if it made sense. You had the gift of season 4 to finish the series, and then serendipity came along and granted season 5, where you’ve said you wanted to nail the landing if it was the final season. But now that I’ve seen season 6, I can’t help but think that the show was always meant to have this season. It wouldn’t have been complete without it.”

JH: “Oh yeah.”

SP: “Do you think now, looking back, that it probably wouldn’t have been complete without this opportunity?”

IM: “Oh yeah. I mean, one of the strange things about our show is that a lot of these seemingly negative things happen and we got cancelled. But if we hadn’t gotten cancelled, we wouldn’t have realized the fan base that we had, the dedicated and passionate fan base we had. And I think if we hadn’t thought season 5 was the last season, we wouldn’t have thought up season six the way we did. It just would have been something else. If we had gone into season 5 knowing we had two seasons left, who knows if we would have found the story that we found, but we sort of painted ourselves into a corner.

“Basically we realized we had closed the chapter on God and Lucifer, on the father and son story, at least to that point. And so we thought, ‘What’s next? Well, for Lucifer to become the father, let’s reverse the roles, let’s let him see how he feels being the one who did the abandoning.’ And we realized that was good stuff.”

JH: “In an alternate universe, if we knew we had seasons 5 and 6, I wouldn’t be surprised if we’d been like, ‘Okay, season 5 is Michael and season six is God.’

“Because we’d have been like, ‘God is the end, God is definitely the final story.’ And what I love about TV and ongoing storytelling in general is sometimes you don’t know what the story is until you get to an end point and find a new beginning, because like Ildy said, that role reversal was something that we hadn’t really considered until Lucifer had dealt with those emotions, until we had gone on the journey with him. And then, when we were standing at the end of season five with him, we’re like, ‘Oh, here’s a story we never had considered.’”

IM: “Yeah, and we were able to burn brighter in season 5 for it. Like Joe said, we probably would have maybe stretched it out, and who knows what other great B stories we would have found under the circumstances. But the fact that we really run and gunned it to the end of season 5, and then had another chance to open up instead of beating a dead horse, if you will.”

JH: “I cannot imagine ending the show any other way than the way we did now. And that’s the beauty of the strange world we live in, where, I mean, obviously what we intended to do was make three seasons, get cancelled, get resurrected, get cancelled again, get resurrected again and have a season extended. That was all part of the plan.”

IM: “All planned, yeah!”

SP: “It really is like serendipity. It was meant to be, and it worked out so beautifully.”

JH: “Thank you.”

IM: “Someone is watching over us.”

SP: “Exactly.”

JH: “A man of God.”

IM: “Someone’s watching over us, Sarabeth.”

SP: “It’s so true! What I loved about how you crafted the final season is that it feels like you’re handing out closure from the very start, but at the same time it never feels like the end until the very end. You’re even mixing in very big and important moments and messages into the season, like Adam and his toxic masculinity and Amenadiel’s story with the LAPD. That episode, by the way, is amazingly poignant and powerful, with ties going back to season 4 and 5. I was thinking that episode 6 is a huge reason why you needed a sixth season, if only to do that one episode. Could you talk about when you wrote that script and what was going on in the world at the time?”

IM: “Well, we formed our writers room about two weeks after George Floyd was murdered. And we were all very emotional and all the protests were happening around us and we were all very raw. It was very, very fresh on everybody’s minds. And then, of course, we do a cop show and we started to examine our part in copaganda and how we wanted to respond to what was happening in the world. But we’re also a show, a fun escape show about the devil, so we know what we are.

“And so we knew we wanted to approach it from a very personal, emotional level, and through our characters’ eyes and not stand on a soapbox. And that’s when it all came together as things tend to do a little bit on our show. We knew we were going to have this story, explore the story of Amenadiel as a rookie cop. And so, what does he thnk when he joins the force and sees things happening around him? And bringing that up to Chloe, and showing her that this institution she’s devoted her life to, her father devoted his life to and lost his life serving, what does that mean? So we just knew, it was rich with emotion, obviously, and from a personal perspective.

“And it took us a long time to break that story. It took us probably twice as long as we normally take, because we were really digging in and sharing stories and perspectives and wanted to honor everybody.”

JH: “It was the most emotional our room has ever been, at both the beginning of the room as we talked about it, and then for the episode. It was very raw.”

SP: “In terms of crafting your stories, what were your rules when it comes to what had to happen and what could happen? It seems like there were certain things that needed to happen in the season for it to end up where it did, but were there also things that happened kind of spur of the moment that you didn’t see coming?”

JH: “That’s interesting. Yeah, I mean, we knew the ending. We knew that we wanted a couple of episodes to sort of settle into Rory as this figure who would appear and then obviously drive so much of the story. And we also knew that we wanted to highlight each character in some way. We knew that each episode had to be a goodbye.

“And by the way, it was the pandemic so our scripts were 10 pages shorter. Our hours were shorter, though we shot more days. It was a challenge that became an opportunity because so much of it became, okay, well, how do we adapt to this? How do we make these scenes be two people talking, three people talking? And then it’s like well, this is our goodbye to these characters we love, how do we just dig into them one last time in new and interesting ways?

“So then it’s like, all right, let’s deal with Ella’s broken picker, and also Ella not knowing the truth. Let’s dig into Linda having a sort of existential crisis about how do you give therapy to a random person when you’ve given therapy to God? And so, a lot of it came out of the idea of wanting a Maze-centric episode, Amenadiel-centric episode, Ella-centric episode, Linda-centric episode, Dan-centric episode. But how do we do them in different ways so that it doesn’t feel like we’re highlighting them, but also giving each character their due? And we love the cast, so how do we structure it so that we get to show off either what they’re great at, or show the things that people still don’t realize just how good they are at?”

IM: “Yeah. And get a chance to say goodbye to them. I think we do that in episode nine. But throughout the season, just spending time with them individually was a way to say goodbye and was a catharsis for us. And, we hope it is one for our audience, too.”

JH: “I know it was for the cast. I know episode nine was really emotional because everyone was basically saying goodbye to Tom [Ellis], and Tom was saying goodbye to everyone and it was….”

SP: “And now, with the benefit of hindsight, looking back at all of the social media posts and seeing those scenes being filmed – and from a fan perspective trying to figure out how they all fit together – it all makes sense now. The emotion of those posts all makes sense. Hopefully there’s some footage or even a documentary to come from the making of the final season.”

IM: “I wish. The challenge was that you couldn’t have too many people on set. The beauty and the tragedy is we got to say goodbye to our show, but the problem was it was hard to actually experience the goodbye because you’ve got a face mask and all this other stuff. And so it was a very strange thing. I think that’s why a lot of us are still processing the goodbye because it partly doesn’t feel real because the last season was a little strange, but beautiful in some way.”

SP: “The thing that stands out about season six is that you brought it all back to the partnership between Lucifer and Chloe. That’s always been the heart of the show, and after the way season five ended everyone wanted to see what happened next but here’s Lucifer dragging his feet about becoming God so they go on a date in LA because he doesn’t want to say goodbye. When you say you had the ending of the show in mind, was it her actual death and how she’s going to die and then be reunited, or a combination of things?”

IM: “That very final scene in episode 10 was pretty much exactly the final scene that was at the end of season five. The 10 episodes (of season six) were all this new stuff, but that final scene of Chloe knocking on the door and saying, ‘I thought you could use a partner,’ was something I remember very clearly pitching to Netflix. We were crying, and they were crying. And we’re like, ‘Okay, let’s keep that, that we know will be our guiding star.’ So that remained the same.”

SP: “And we have to mention Brianna Hildebrand as Rory. That was some brilliant casting.”

JH: “What we needed, which was so challenging, is we needed someone with a rebellious energy, but not the same energy as Lucifer and not the same energy as Chloe. And when we made the offer to her and she accepted, we were just thrilled. I’m a huge fan of Deadpool, And just in general, her presence is so different from Lucifer. And yet, you can see the seed, you can see the connection. You can see that rebellious flare and also the pain. Tom and Brianna really connected and developed their own bond.

“It’s always tricky when you bring in a guest star, like when we brought in Dennis [Haysbert] in season five. You’re like, ‘Okay, this is what we thought would be our last guest star’ and this warm hug of a human being walked in. So this was our final guest star and Brianna just felt like family. It was awesome.”

IM: “And it’s a tricky role, because I think being the rebellious teenager is not easy, because you don’t want to turn everybody sour because you’re whining or complaining. But Brianna just skated by all that, and I think it’s because she has something that’s very similar to Tom, and that you see her heart on her sleeve. She can’t hide the warmth in there. And so, even if she plays hard or angry, it’s still there. You see this wounded child, just wanting to be loved, and your heart immediately goes out to her.”

SP: “With the end of the series in mind, if Netflix knocked on your door and said, ‘Hey, we want to do a special, can you come back?’ Can you conceive of more stories after bringing the show to a close?”

IM: “Sure. I mean people have asked that and we’re both like, ‘Sure!’”

JH: “Hell yeah!”

IM: “I mean, of course we are.”

JH: “Six months have passed since we finished shooting and we miss it. We miss the family, we miss the people, we miss the fun of it. It would be that simple question that we had at the end of season 5, can we find a worthy story? So if someone comes and asks us, the first question will be Ildy and I getting a room together and going, ‘What is a story that won’t spoil our ending, but instead add to it?’ And if we can find that, we would. I feel very confident that is something we would be able to find. And I think with time, especially, the stories will come up. And hopefully one does, and hopefully Netflix wants it.”

IM: “There’s so many of these people, I don’t want them to go from my life. I refuse. I mean, Joe and I were just talking to Tom today. He’s in New York filming a movie and we’re like, ‘Oh, it’s good to hear his voice!’”

SP: “That’s part of the magic of the show, that you have the ability to change things because celestials are so malleable. You can make people appear, or be trapped in a hell loop. And now, with Trixie, Rory and Charlie you have a whole new generation!”

JH: “From your lips to Netflix’s ear!”

IM: “Yes, there’s always more story in the land of Lucifer.”

SP: “And finally, looking at the high school yearbook of your time on Lucifer, could you talk about what this experience has been like for you and how you’ll carry that into the future?”

JH: “You can make a heartfelt show with good people, and have a good time doing it and work really hard, but also make great friends, and have a good time. We loved making the show. We loved working on the show, we loved working with each other. And everyone tried to make this as joyous and beautiful an experience as possible from the cast to the crew, to the writers. And that is something I want to carry on. I think that Ildy won’t, but I will.”

IM: “It’s a little game we play.”

JH: “But that’s the big thing I take away is that we were a show about the devil solving crimes, which is absurd. We were also a show about the beauty within. And I think we were just a show about really good people trying to do their best, and that was awesome.”

IM: “The first thing that jumped into my mind in terms of what I learned is not to take yourself too seriously. It’s just TV. But at the same time, I marvel at the number of lives we managed to reach out and touch – in a completely appropriate way, of course!

“But it’s kind of both, don’t take it too seriously, but it’s important to put positive things out there if you can. Like episode 6. You can say things without wagging your finger at somebody. You can just express how you feel. And if it has heart and soul it’s going to reach people.

“And then, like Joe said, the cast, the crew, our writers. I feel so lucky that we got this group because it’s rare. It’s lightning in a bottle. We’ve said it before, but I do not take it for granted. I will cherish it.”

The final season of Lucifer is available now on Netflix.

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