Many spoilers ahead for the Season 3 midseason finale of Lucifer, fittingly called "The Sin Bin."
The Lucifer midseason finale finally brought the story of the Sinnerman to a close, but that wasn't the only game-changing twist to take place in the episode. The action ended on a huge reveal about a certain character that few of us could have seen coming. Lieutenant Marcus Pierce (played by Smallville alum Tom Welling) with his tragic backstory of the dead brother is much more than he's seemed throughout the first half of Season 3. Pierce is none other than Cain, a.k.a. the guy from the Bible known for killing his brother Abel.
The big reveal came after Lucifer connected some dots between the Sinnerman and Marcus Pierce, and the whole thing came to a head when Lucifer realized the significance of the mark on Pierce's arm. It wasn't a mere military tattoo as he claimed. Instead, it was enough for Lucifer to realize that something immortal was up with Pierce. In true Lucifer style, he confronted Pierce by stabbing him with enough violence that any human would have been killed. Instead, Pierce sat up, wheezed a little bit, and sat down to have a drink with Lucifer as Cain. Tom Ellis, who plays Lucifer, has explained how the Cain bombshell will impact the rest of Season 3:
Lucifer threatens to tell everyone who Pierce is, and Pierce is like, 'Good luck with that. You can't even get them to believe you're the devil!' Lucifer is a bit stuck with this knowledge, but then he decides to use Pierce to get back at Dad. Cain makes a deal with the devil, and that drives the first half of the next part of the season onwards. Lucifer's goal is to get back at his dad and get rid of his wings, and Cain's biggest desire is to die. Lucifer decides he's going to help him do that and defy his father by lifting the curse somehow. They have this kind of strange bromance for a few episodes.
In this situation, Cain isn't somebody whose life can be threatened as motivation to help. In fact, Cain's motivation is to finally die. As the main who committed the world's first murder by killing Abel, he was cursed by God to walk the Earth forever. After many thousands of years walking the Earth, Cain is ready to move on, and it just so happens that Lucifer also has the motivation to mess with heaven's plan. What better way for Lucifer to get back at his father and Cain to get what he wants than by the two teaming up?
That said, Tom Ellis' comments to TVLine indicate that Lucifer will at least consider outing Pierce as Cain to the rest of the team. Cain will definitely have a point about not getting anybody to believe the truth. The team may call him Lucifer and put up with his otherworldly eccentricities, but they don't believe that he's literally the devil. Surely they wouldn't be on board with a claim that Lieutenant Pierce is reallythe Cain from the Old Testament story!
It should be interesting to see if perhaps Season 3 will be the season when Lucifer does finally bring Chloe in on his big secret and tell her the whole truth. He could probably use an ally when his plan with Cain inevitably goes south, and fans really deserve to see these two characters come clean with each other after so much time. We'll have to wait and see. All kinds of changes could be on the way.
Lucifer will return to Fox with a new episode on Monday, January 1. What better way to ring in the new year with Lucifer? For your other TV options in the new year, take a look at our midseason TV premiere guide. Our breakdown of 2017 TV cancellations can fill you in on the shows that won't be back.
