Life – The Business of Miracles

NBC

(Season 2, Episode 3)

“Do you have to touch everything?” – Reese to Crews after he shatters the murder victim.

Okay, I’ll admit it. That was cool, no pun intended. I wasn’t too sure where Crews was going by trying to touch the murder victim with his pen, but the result was fun. The way that the victim cracked and then shattered, plus Charlie’s reaction to it all…very amusing. Of course, if Dr. Temperance Brennan was his partner she would have packed up all of the pieces, shipped them to the Jeffersonian, and had an intern put them back together. That sadist!

On the other hand, wearing shoes made from the skin of a dead animal rights activist…Eww! I have never heard of someone giving their body over to industry. Science, absolutely. But, giving your body away to make a nice pair of shoes? I don’t know. Frankly, I think I’d make a nice pair of casual slacks.

Anyhoo, we’re already three episodes into this season of Lifeand things are going smoothly for Crews and Reese. The kinks that the series encountered at the beginning of the season have seemingly been worked out and the actors have settled into a groove. Even Donal Longe’s character of Captain Tidwell is adjusting, becoming less the brash New Yawker than he was just a mere two episodes ago.

This week the show took a lighter approach to its detective work as Crews and Reese investigated the murder of a research scientist. Charlie was the target of that humor in most cases, starting with the accidental breaking of the murder suspect. This set up an unfortunate round of circumstances for Charlie, beginning with abuse from a monkey that was rescued from the research lab where the murder victim was found. That was followed-up with a punch to the jaw by his ex-wife’s husband. Well, that was pretty justified since Charlie asked him if he could sleep with his ex-wife. I mean, there are some points where being truthful just doesn’t work. Subsequently, he was slapped in the face by his ex-wife, Jennifer, after she found out what happened. Guess that means no more romps in the back seat of the car.

Then there was Crews’ drug-induced trip, thanks in part to a bottle of chemicals that he inadvertently dropped at the research lab. At first, it didn’t seem like it affected him — it was hard to tell since he tends to be a bit hippy-dippy most times. Suddenly, he began to hallucinate about Jennifer at a suspect’s home, in his car, and at his own house. That was a bit uncomfortable since he was meeting with the dean of some business school on behalf of Ted. Eventually, everyone looked like Jennifer. That last image before the commercial break gave us a slightly distorted view of Charlie as he tried to piece all of it together. One of the more amusing scenes of the episode and the series.

Reese had her comedic moments, and the most dramatic moment, as well. Actually, the dramatic moment is what brought on the comedic one. After a confrontation with her father (more on that in a second), Reese ended up getting her hair stuck in a locked car door with the keys on the front driver’s seat. See, she was trying to avoid Captain Tidwell and his apparent flirtatious advances when this happened. Unfortunately, it didn’t stop him from coming around and rescuing her from her dilemma. What it did do is show the viewers another side of Tidwell, a somewhat compassionate side, that moved the character up a notch.

On the dramatic end Life delved more into the conspiracy behind Charlie’s murder conviction with a few tidbits to keep the viewers going. The major one was Reese questioning her father on how he could let an innocent man (that would be Charlie) go to jail. This was pretty significant as it was the first time that Dani had ever confronted her father on this matter. Jack didn’t take it all too well and coldly asked her daughter to get out of his house during what seemed to be a family gathering. If there was any further doubt that Reese was now on Charlie’s side when it came to getting closure to this case it was washed away at that point.

Two other clues into the conspiracy. First, it seems like Constance is either denying the fact that she heard Kyle Hollis say Jack Reese hired him to kill the Seyboldt family, or she didn’t even hear his confession. This is hard to believe since we all saw her listening to the phone conversation during last season’s finale. The other clue we got this week was the mysterious man who seems to have been the head of the conspiracy. We don’t know who he is yet (though, I’m sure it’s someone high up in the police food chain), but it will all come out in the end. If anything, the scene between Jack and this mystery man put a bit of confusion into his allegiances: is he protecting Charlie (since he lied about having Rachel) or is he protecting himself.

The week’s case was all right, but was really just something to fill the time during the other events going on in Charlie and Dani’s lives. Since the pool of suspects was pretty small it wasn’t a big leap to determine that the scientist’s current assistant was the culprit. Even the janitor wasn’t believable as the murderer as he really wasn’t able to go much further about how he killed the scientist. It would take someone who knew the ratio of liquid nitrogen to oxygen to determine how to properly kill a man.

That’s all for this Monday episode. Lifefinally settles into its Friday night time slot starting this week. Hopefully, these Monday night specials have given the show a jumpstart.

Clacked by Richard Keller
on Oct 06, 2008 @ 21:01 EST5EDT