Lucifer season 3 scores a casting coup with Smallville alum Tom Welling

When Lucifer season 3 premieres on Fox later this year, there’s more to celebrate than just Tom Ellis. You’ve got Tom Welling to boot!

For years, the former Smallville star has been the sort of actor who everyone under the sun wanted to get on their show, and for good reason. He’s a fantastic performer who has a devoted following, and a ton of today’s TV writers and producers probably watched him on his former gig.

However, we’ve also really gotten the sense over time that following doing that show for so long, he wanted to go off and explore different avenues and other things. That makes sense. We’re just glad that he’s opening himself up to more regular TV gigs now.

Per the official Fox release on the subject of his casting, Welling is going to be taking on the role of Marcus Pierce, described as “an accomplished police lieutenant who is everything Lucifer (Tom Ellis) is not – strategic, reserved and well-respected. But perhaps even more annoying are all the things they have in common. Both men are charming, charismatic and handsome as hell. So when Pierce starts developing a connection with Decker (Lauren German), Lucifer’s devilish traits are inflamed.”

Basically, Marcus is probably going to be the guy who makes Lucifer’s head explode with jealous rage at some point during this season — even if part of this is his own undoing thanks to his dishonesty and his lack of real attempts to open up to try to be with Chloe. He could make things better with her, but whether or not he has it within him to push in that direction is one of the things that we’re still waiting to figure out. Here’s another way of looking at it: He and Chloe would probably be together right now if he’d gotten his s–t together.

Even without knowing much about how Marcus plays out on the show itself, we don’t know how you don’t jump up and down with excitement over this news. You want people on Lucifer who already understand the genre and the fan base, and that’s what has been so exciting about much of their casting — take a look at getting Tricia Helfer as a regular last year, or even just the guest-starring role of Timothy Omundson last season as God Johnson (get better, Tim). The folks behind the scenes at this show are such that they care deeply about their fans, and with that, they want to do anything and everything in their power to make you smile.

Okay, we’ll admit that this sounds corny, and is probably something that Lucifer himself would scowl at and walk away.

New episodes of the series are going to start to air on Fox this fall, and thanks to that cliffhanger with the wings, we’ve got many questions. Maybe some of those were hinted at in the recent trailer for the show’s return, but a good portion of that trailer was also featuring footage from the remaining season 2 episodes already filmed. We’ll have so much more news on the subject of Lucifer over time.

For now, we just wanna know this: Are you as excited for Tom Welling as we are? Is that even possible? Sound off now in the attached comments! (Photo: Fox.)