Lucifer returned to the airwaves for Season 3 this fall, and fans got to see the payoff of the Season 2 finale twist that saw Lucifer sending his mom into the Void. The twist meant that Tricia Helfer likely couldn't return to play Lucifer's mom again, given the seeming finality of her banishment to the Void. The good news is that Tricia Helfer still had a way to stick around the series, as the departure of Lucifer's mom meant that the human Charlotte Richards was back in control of her body. Charlotte made her grand comeback in this week's "Welcome Back, Charlotte Richards" episode, and Tricia Helfer spoke with CinemaBlend about what's to come for Charlotte now that she's in the mix, saying this:
In another episode coming up very soon, she notices that Ella Lopez, Aimee Garcia's character, always does the right thing. And Ella can sense something about her. Last season she told Mom 'There's a lightness about you.' And now when she sees Charlotte, she's like, 'There's a darkness about you.' And so Charlotte kind of zeroes in on Ella in an episode that was really fun to shoot. She just kind of clings on, gloms on to her to try and figure her out to try and help herself. And Ella for the first time is like freaked out by it... You see this character that's always perky, always optimistic, always huggy, and she's just terrified of Charlotte and wants to run the other way.
In "Welcome Back, Charlotte Richards," we saw Charlotte attempting to make sense of the months she lost due to Lucifer's mom taking over her body. She eventually came around to believe that she needs to live a better life and clear some of the red from her ledger. The problem is that shark criminal defense attorney Charlotte doesn't quite know how to go about clearing her ledger without making more mistakes, and she doesn't really have somebody to guide her on her path. She did forge a connection with Lucifer by the end of the episode, and she showed signs of potentially rekindling her relationship with Dan, but neither is really equipped to help her learn to live a better life.
Who better than Ella to know the most moral path to take? She's already proven perceptive of the change in Charlotte, as she realized in "Welcome Back, Charlotte Richards" that the lightness that was present in Lucifer's mom was no longer present in Charlotte. Of course, that darkness coupled with Charlotte's cold-shouldering of Dan may not make Ella feel particularly inclined to help her, but Tricia Helfer's comments make it sound like Charlotte isn't planning on taking no for an answer. Lucifer has always excelled at combining comedy with drama, and an exploration of Ella and Charlotte as a duo could provide plenty of both.
That said, Tricia Helfer did reveal one thing she misses about playing Lucifer's mother:
I actually do miss working with my boys. Although it's so fun to get to work with a bunch of the others. Last year I was so predominantly with Amenadiel and Lucifer, Tom [Ellis] and D.B. [Woodside]. And this season I haven't even worked with D.B. yet! Where are my boys? I don't get to work with my boys very much. Because they're not my boys anymore.
While we will get to see more of Charlotte with other characters (including Ella), we evidently shouldn't count on seeing too much of her with Lucifer or Amenadiel in the foreseeable future. Luckily, the scenes between Charlotte and Lucifer in "Welcome Back, Charlotte Richards" were meaty enough for fans to ponder in the coming weeks. Sadly, Amenadiel was not on hand during their interactions, which is something of a shame. His reaction to seeing Charlotte making a move on Lucifer would have been pretty entertaining, even if seeing Lucifer splutter his way through turning her down was definitely funny enough on its own. All things considered, we have a lot to look forward to with Charlotte in Lucifer Season 3.
You can catch Tricia Helfer in action as Charlotte Richards on Lucifer, which airs new episodes on Mondays at 8 p.m. ET on Fox. Charlotte isn't the only character to make a splash in Season 3, and it should be fun to see where the show goes in the next batch of episodes. For what you can watch on the other nights of the week, be sure to swing by our fall TV guide.
