#the weaponizer

Lucifer, still assuming Uriel intends to use the blade on Mum, says, “You’ve gone completely insane, brother.”

And Uriel says, “I’m doing what has to be done, and you’ve run out of time. I don’t care about your deal with Dad, I don’t care about your little human, but it’s obvious you care for her a tad more than you do Mom. Now, all I need to do is hit this one little key, right here. A sequence will begin and two days from now, your cute little human will finally die. So, Lucifer, you can either let that happen or you can give me Mom. Last chance. You choose.” 

The bolding is mine; I’ll come back to it in a moment. But first, here’s the thing: Uriel doesn’t tell us what it is he cares about, not in so many words. What can we infer? That he doesn’t want Heaven to go to war. He doesn’t want the Universe to be destroyed by Mum and Dad fighting. He looked up to his siblings and kept trying to play with them, even when they rejected him, and even when, as Lucifer says, it was “strange, considering he already knew what the outcome would be.” So what is he doing here? Revenge? I don’t think so. That’s Mum’s thing. He could’ve killed Amenadiel. He could’ve used Azrael’s blade on Lucifer.

Why does Uriel bring Azrael’s blade to Earth? If it’s to “kill” Mum, why are his last words to Lucifer about “the piece”? If Uriel’s plan was to avoid Mum returning to Heaven, being forgiven, destroying Dad (and possibly the Universe in the process, including his siblings), why would he tell Lucifer what he needs to know to fix the flaming sword? The cut-through-the-gates-of-Heaven, maybe-Lucifer-would’ve-succeeded-in-his-rebellion-if-he’d-had-it flaming sword?

What if Uriel saw a different outcome all along?

Back to Uriel’s monologue, then, and his actions on Earth. These actions seem focused on Lucifer; he only deals with Amenadiel because Lucifer adds that variable. He doesn’t seek Amenadiel out. There, I think, we see the actions of the frustrated, stubborn, rejected little boy whose siblings never played with him. But I don’t think that kind of vengeance (or even justice, some might say) is why Uriel involves himself. I think, on some level, Uriel believes Lucifer is the only one who can come close to understanding him (though I wonder if Uriel and Azrael didn’t hatch part of this plan together, both being young and small and not the best or brightest or most beautiful). 

Think about it. If Uriel was always rejected and excluded, who of his siblings can now understand that best of all? He needs Lucifer to help him but he also knows he can’t just ask Lucifer to help him; Lucifer is paranoid and distrustful. Lucifer might say no. The pattern might change. Perhaps Uriel has seen all the ways it will never work just to ask.

So Uriel goads him. Finds his weaknesses. Plays on them. Exactly like Mum is doing to Lucifer. Only Uriel’s doing it to try and save everything, whereas Mum is doing it to get Lucifer and Amenadiel to help her “retake” Heaven; war is always implied. Death is always implied. Patricide is implied. 

In their fight, Uriel says, “Patterns are tricky like that; it takes time to get a real sense of them.” He looks Lucifer in the eyes. “I needed to study you a bit.”

Again, we assume because Lucifer assumes that Uriel means he had to study Lucifer’s fighting style. But I don’t think that’s it---at least, not all of it. Uriel arranges the car accident; he watches Lucifer’s reaction to it. Uriel arranges the confrontation between Kimo and Chloe; he watches Lucifer’s reaction to it. Uriel gives Lucifer an ultimatum (Lucifer, who once rebelled against the Creator of the Universe because Lucifer asked, “Why can’t I choose my own way?” and Dad said, “Because I said so.”). 

Uriel goads Lucifer, knowing damned well that goading Lucifer is usually an efficient way to get him to do something. Tell him he can’t. Insult the things he loves to get his ire up; Lucifer is impulsive and protective. Uriel suspected Chloe was a weakness---or, perhaps, even a source of change that makes Lucifer better. So he insults her, belittles her, attacks her, knowing Lucifer will shoot from the hip. Uriel says he doesn’t care about her; he says he doesn’t care about Lucifer’s ‘deal with Dad’---we know Lucifer loves Chloe; we know Lucifer values the honor inherent in keeping his deals above all things. These words are very precise jabs at Lucifer’s weaknesses, his Achilles heels. Uriel knows what he’s doing. And Lucifer doesn’t see it; he falls for the “trap;” he lets his anger drive him. (Later, Uriel also mocks and insults Mazikeen---Lucifer’s favorite---but again, though he has the chance, he does not kill her. He’s still trying to push Lucifer toward an action.)

But Uriel does give Lucifer what he most desires; choice---at least he says he does. The thing Lucifer wanted so badly that he ended up rebelling and being banished from Heaven for it. Here, too, a parallel between Lucifer and Uriel: Uriel is making choices here, something that would never have happened Before. He still looks up to his brother, still wants to be like him.

Mum says, “He’s not going to give up until he has either me or that detective.” Asked to make this choice, Lucifer says, “I refuse to believe that. There is always another way.”

“If anyone can find it,” says Mum, “it’s you.”

Because hasn’t that always been Lucifer’s role? To find loopholes? Other ways? To do the unexpected?

And believe it or not, I think Lucifer’s ability to find other ways is what Uriel was counting on, too.

“Your pride was always going to be your undoing,” Uriel tells Amenadiel. (And doesn’t everyone think/know that pride is Lucifer’s thing too? Pride goeth, doesn’t it?)

Ultimately, pride is Uriel’s undoing, too. Like every other celestial we’ve met, Uriel underestimates the intensity of Lucifer’s loyalty to those he loves, human or not. Because the celestials don’t “get” Lucifer’s (or God’s!) fascination with humanity, relegating them to the equivalent of toys or pets, they do not understand the lengths Lucifer will go to in protecting them. When Lucifer kills Uriel (because it’s the only other choice he sees, and Uriel has goaded him relentlessly into thinking this is true), and Uriel says, “I didn’t see this coming,” it’s proof that Uriel---with all his patterns, all his prescience---still failed to accept that his celestial brother, his brightest brother, could possibly care enough about humanity to do the unthinkable.

Perhaps in the pattern Uriel thought most likely, Lucifer ended up working with him to build the flaming sword and banish Mum with it after they traversed this path. Perhaps he believed (wrongly, always wrongly) that he could manipulate Lucifer successfully (the way so many others have tried and failed to do). Perhaps he didn’t understand that his brother does not negotiate with terrorists, especially those who hold the safety of his loved ones hostage. Uriel says he will take both Mum and the detective; he says, “You can’t stop me, brother.” 

Getting Lucifer to act by telling him what he can and cannot do. 

And in that final moment, I think Uriel understands. In studying Lucifer, he missed the most important lesson. His brother isn’t the man he once was; he’s changed. And this changed Lucifer might have been reasoned with. This changed Lucifer might have helped. 

And so Uriel tells this changed Lucifer, “The piece is here,” hoping that Lucifer will pick up the thread of the pattern that should have been, the one where everyone is saved, where Mum gets her own universe, where his family doesn’t go to war with one another, where there’s no Heaven, no Hell, just gone.

Uriel just won’t be there to enjoy it. In this pattern, his is the sacrifice that makes the best outcome possible. Hell, maybe he did know that all along, too. How sad that would be. To be your worst self in order to make the best outcome happen. When Uriel says, “You’re lucky I would never use Azrael’s blade on you, brother,” is he planting the idea that becomes Lucifer using Azrael’s blade on him? How much of the pattern has he seen?

And I would like to believe, from one rejected brother to another, Uriel does see that his own actions led to this fratricide---and that he regrets it, because in making his brother a murderer, Uriel has potentially undone all the work that has gone into changing Lucifer for the better since last they met. (They call each other brother so often, even though they are, on the surface, enemies here. Brothers. Something that could have been and now never will. Even in dying---forever removed from existence---Uriel reaches for his brother, entrusts him with information. And somewhere in Lucifer’s subconscious this gets stored not as a lie, but as help---because otherwise, HellUriel wouldn’t be able to “tell” Lucifer what he needs to be thinking about.)

Pride goeth before the Fall, and in this case, the Fall is a very final one---and perhaps neither Lucifer nor his brother actually “got what they deserved,” no matter what Maze says. (“The prick got what he deserved.” Lucifer doesn’t think of him as a prick here, no. “He was my brother,” he says, tortured. “What have I done?”)