If you weren’t keeping a close eye on the entertainment news machine on the run-up to Lucifer Season 5’s release on Netflix this August, you may have been a bit confused when you logged on to the streaming service for a proper Luci binge, only to discover that Season 5 had been split into two halves, and only 8 episodes were available to stream.
Right up front, we’ll tell you that Netflix has NOT yet confirmed a release date for the back half of Season 5, nor has it indicated when the sixth and final season will arrive. You can spend ages poking around online for this information, but you won’t find it because it doesn’t exist!
That being said, the release of Season 5a has prompted plenty of interviewers to ask the same question of Lucifer’s cast and crew – including us! – during their promotional rounds for Season 5a, and from their answers we can gather that Season 5b will probably be along before the end of 2020.
In a recent interview with Collider, Lucifer showrunners Joe Henderson and Ildy Modrovich acknowledged that the show has been, let’s say, ‘unconventional’, when it comes to season lengths throughout its lifespan.
“[Season 3 was] 26 episodes, which is insane,” admitted Henderson, adding “Season 1 [was] 13. That’s not bad. Season 2, 18. [Then] 26!”
“And then back to 10 [in Season 4],” said Modrovich. “We’re just all over the place.”
“We’re a mess. We’re a hot mess. We’re the hot mess of shows,” joked Henderson, before Modrovich confirmed that Season 5 will still be 16 episodes in total.
Henderson went on to explain how the end of Season 5 changed when they got the green light from Netflix to start work on a sixth season of Lucifer after a Tom Ellis inked a new deal to star in it.
“One of the big things that we said when we agreed to Season 6 is that we did not want to change Season 5 because we loved Season 5,” he explained. “When Season 5b gets released, I think people will see how much the whole season fits together like, I think, a beautiful jigsaw puzzle. I love it. We didn’t want to change the ending, but what we did is we just ended Season 5. We basically lopped off the act six that Ildy was in the middle of writing.”
There had already been solid reports doing the rounds that Season 5 had not quite finished filming before the pandemic hit, and Modrovich revealed that they still have “a little more than half of the final episode” to film when production resumes, but the pair were always planning to release Season 5 on Netflix in two halves.
Henderson said deciding to split Season 5 ahead of time has “actually become a bit of a blessing because it’s allowed us to get the first half out and buy some time as we race to the finish shooting the second half.”
Because there’s so little left to film on Lucifer Season 5b, it won’t take long for them to get it ready to release on Netflix, and Henderson confirms that “the honest truth is I think the second half will come out as soon as we can finish shooting it.”
So, when will they finish shooting it?
“We start production in the fall and I know it’s going to be very buttoned up and very safe,” Aimee Garcia, who plays Ella Lopez on Lucifer, told Den of Geek. “I think we’ll see how this whole pandemic changes the storytelling, but we’re scheduled to go into production quite soon.”
Garcia also indicated that the gang would start shooting Season 6 pretty much straight away when Season 5 is all wrapped up, so the final run of Lucifer should be along in mid-2021, all being well.
“The sixth season really is a love letter to the fans,” Garcia said. “We’re here because of you, in full honesty. It’s our little thank you for coming on this journey with us.”
Watch this space!