Discussion YMMV / Lucifer2016

In Season 5 Episode 12, Lucifer's actions are far and away too extreme to be played off as a mere practical joke, and seeing as my attempt at adding him under "Unintentionally Unsympathetic" was removed with the argument that essentially "it wasn't, because it was funny", I'd like to see this discussed properly.

I absolutely argue that Lucifer's actions in the episode are far too extreme, dangerous and damaging to be justified with simply "it was a joke", and that putting Dan through everything he did just for schadenfreude was petty cruelty to the point of psycopathy. The fact that it's all written off as simply a prank in the end shows that the writers clearly did not understand just how far over the line Lucifer really overstepped with his "prank." Dan was put through multiple head traumas (one of which was a damn car crash), was lead to believe his life was held hostage by someone he thought was a friend, that he was complicit in multiple crimes he was forced to commit under duress, his career was over, that he had to choose between killing a woman or letting himself be murdered, his loved ones could end up in danger, and all of this on top of the already pre-existing trauma of having been recently exploded by God, whom he now knows is real as well as Hell but with no idea where he stands in all of it. The moment when he thinks literally everyone involved in the whole situation has been shot to death in the shootout (half a dozen innocent friends among them) is heart wrenching, and the fact that Lucifer still doesn't seem to understand just how much mental damage he may have done to poor Dan is emotionally deaf to the point of psychopathy.

The entire disaster makes Lucifer appear entirely devoid of empathy and happy to torture someone to extreme degrees simply out of petty spite, which is exactly what the rest of the series has made a point out of showing that he's not and that he wants to overcome the image.

Is there a trope for "Heavy handed metaphor, but it works?" I feel like there is (in the vein of Tropes Aren't Bad and Some Anvils Need to be Dropped), and Lucifer's vulnerability when near Chloe is very heavy handed, but works very well.