“ | This apartment is literally the most depressing hovel I've ever seen, and I've seen Kafka's Hell loop. | „ |
— Lucifer Morningstar in "It Never Ends Well for the Chicken" |
Hell is basically a labyrinth of a billion doors, and behind each door, every condemned soul gets their own personalized eternal torment. This torment is colloquially referred to as a Hell Loop, as the torture the condemned soul experiences plays in a constant, repetitive loop, regardless of the length of time in each loop. Each Hell Loop and the person being tortured inside is accessed through a specific door.
A Hell Loop is made from the memories of the person trapped inside and it causes them to live through their worst experiences and nightmares over and over again.
With the exception of the tortured soul, every person in the loop is played by a demon. Since the Hell Loop is made from the person's memories, it cannot recreate anything they don't know; for example, if the person who killed them was wearing a mask, such as the gunman in Lee Garner's Loop, the demon would be missing facial features under the mask and would appear to have a blank face if the mask was removed.
According to Lucifer Morningstar, he has no say in who goes to Hell or in the actions that result in them going down there, the individual suffering the torment is self exiled. They are in Hell because they feel guilt deep down in their souls and subconsciously believe that they rightfully deserve to be in Hell.
According to Lucifer, the doors are not locked, and the condemned soul's could leave any time they want, but they never do, because they know that they should be punished for the sins they committed in life. The only way that they can get out and escape to Heaven is to gather the courage to face their own guilt and learn to forgive themselves. Interestingly, the Hell Loop isn't just torment, it is also a clue to the true source of that persons guilt.
The Sovereign of Hell has complete control of any Hell Loop. Lucifer has demonstrated this by stopping action completely, reversing and altering what happened in a loop. It was demonstrated, however, that if the soul was mentally damaged, the Hell Loop can break down and may not function properly, hampering even Lucifer's ability to control the loop, as was demonstrated in Jimmy Barnes' toon Hell Loop.
Before the events of Season 6, Lucifer created a special kind of Hell Loop which he calls 'Purgatory' so that his friend, Dan Espinoza wouldn't go through the torture as the other souls have in their Hell Loops. However, it doesn't actually help Dan because even though he tried many things to deal with his guilt, he was still trapped down there as he didn't know what he actually felt guilty for.
Parts of the Hell Loop[]
Main Stage[]
It's the first stage of what people see when they enter the Hell Loop. It could either show the soul's recent event that leads to their death or their recent deed that leads to their eventual downfall. It contains small clues of what they are guilty for but it doesn't help understand of what the actual guilt is for.
In-between[]
Other stages of the hell loop that parts of the soul's history. It helps with retracing certain events to understand the person's past and their guilt.
The Root[]
This is located on the very deep part of the Hell Loop. It shows the clearer answer of where the guilt comes from or why a person's behaviour or personality is like. It can be an event that involves around them or what the soul's actions themselves that leads them to feel guilty in the first place.
Known Hell Loops[]
- Reese Getty - From the day he woke up in the hospital after a near death experience and found out that Lucifer was sleeping with his wife, Linda Martin. Over the ensuing year or so, he discovers Lucifer is the actual devil and tries desperately to bring him down, and ending with his murder by poison.
- Jimmy Barnes - Lucifer showing up to ruin Jimmy's wedding, a riff on what was seen in the Pilot. The nature of this Hell Loop resembled a cartoon (the type of artwork used in old cartoons, such as Wacky Races, The Flintstones, Yogi Bear, and Top Cat). It was later changed to a real life setting in the 80s, when the band he managed dropped him and when he then rejected his girlfriend for not siding with him when he got his revenge on them.
- The true source of his guilt was his mother abandoning him in a motel room when he was a child to focus on her music career, overhearing her manager making the comment "he's only holding you back". An event that shaped him into the man he was and lead him to committing all his sins in life.
- Prof. Jason Carlisle - Getting into a fiery car wreck and opting to save his life's work, letting the college student who was working as an Uber driver die when the car exploded. A crowd of people then surround him on the scene and label him as a villain, a murderer, or a monster because of that action.
- Cain - According to Lucifer, he would relive the moment where he shot Charlotte Richards.
- Abel - His Hell Loop was different every time, but no matter what happened or what he did, it would always end with his older brother, Cain coming in and killing him.
- Malcolm Graham - Due to his love for life, he was isolated and starved.
Former[]
- Lee Garner - His murder by a masked gunman at a party on his yacht. It also included a high-end gambling club. Lucifer even commented that it was an "exquisite Hell Loop."
- The true source of his guilt was that he chose not to attend his sister's baby shower because he was afraid that he would inevitably fall back into his criminal ways and disappoint his family. That baby shower was his last chance to see his parents before they both passed away.
- Lucifer Morningstar - Stabbing Uriel to death with Azrael's Blade over and over again. Interestingly, this loop takes place in Lucifer's penthouse instead of a church where Lucifer actually killed Uriel.
- Goddess - Tortured by Mazikeen
- Charlotte Richards - She wakes up in bed, has breakfast with her family, then a criminal comes in and shoots her family and all she can do is sit there and smile. It was a different criminal each time, but all of them were people whom Charlotte represented in court and helped set free, even though she knew deep down that they belonged in jail.
- Dan Espinoza - The events of his death. Since Dan and Lucifer were friends, he changed Dan's Loop to playing ping pong with Belios at the LAPD precinct.
- The true source of his guilt was that he felt he had died before he had the chance to be a good father to his daughter.
Trivia[]
- The episode 'Off the Record' demonstrates how the Hell Loop works.
- Another episodes that explains further about the Hell Loop are 'Really Sad Devil Guy' and 'Yabba Dabba Do Me'
- Not all the Hell Loops are the same because it all depends on a soul that inhabits it, more specifically, their own memories.
- It has shown that a person won't notice that they are in a Hell Loop until someone, like Lucifer, points it out to them.
- Because how the time differs in hell, a person could be going through a Hell Loop over centuries or millennia and it would only be a few weeks or months on earth.
- Abel, as the first resident of Hell, served to have a Hell Loop as a teaching tool. The demons learned how to torture souls by practicing on Abel.
- Lucifer once mentioned that he once tortured a masochist in Hell. The masochist chose his own punishments. One day, Lucifer didn't come to torture him, and when Lucifer did come back, the masochist was in emotional agony and promised to be good, begging that Lucifer not forget him again.
- For purgatory, it has been said that souls go there to be purified before they go to Heaven.
- According to the demon Rory met, it's still possible for a soul to get out of their Hell loop but not leave Hell.