Life – Black Friday

nbc.com

(Season 2, Episode 8)

I love this show. This and Pushing Daisies are my favorite shows that debuted last season, and now that it looks like Daisies may bite the dust, Life better continue to get decent ratings, or I will freak the hell out. Anyway, speaking of freaking out, I love that this episode took place on the scariest day of the year: Black Friday.

I had my first Black Friday experience last year at the Target in Brooklyn, and Oh. My. God. Never again. Quite frankly, I’m surprised that I didn’t see a dead body, but I know that if there was one, it would not have stopped people from shopping even a little bit. A dead body certainly didn’t stop Crews from shopping, for which I am thankful, since his conversation with Reese about learning Dutch in four days and not washing his face with soap was hilarious. Danni’s reaction when he asks her if he wants the lacy underwear just proves something I’ve thought for quite a while: there are just some people who can get away with sexual harassment.

I really liked this week’s case, although as soon as I saw Kyle Gallner as Zack, I already knew what was going to happen. As any fan of Veronica Mars knows, if Beaver shows up, two things are going to happen; there is going to be sexual abuse and he is going to kill someone. I will say, when Reese first opened that curtain and found that scared little girl under the covers, my first thought was definitely not that she was his sister.

Turns out that even though Beav was the one who killed the shoe store guy, he’s still the good guy in this. He was just protecting his sister from mall perverts. Crews’s conversation with Zack was great, because it showed the constant struggle that Crews has with being a cop in charge of upholding the law and the different perspective he has, as a result of being a prisoner, toward people who commit crimes.

He knows that as awful as it may be, sometimes people have to go to jail, as was the case for the poor kid in “Not for Nothing.” However, he’s not adverse to bending the rules where he sees fit, as in this episode, where he tells Zack that “people fall all the time.” Does this make him a bad cop? Technically, yes. I don’t think very many of the higher-ups would enjoy hearing that a detective ignored a murder confession. However, I don’t think it makes him a bad person.

We didn’t learn much about the conspiracy this week. Ted tells Crews that he needs to go see Mitch Rayborn, another officer in the funeral picture. Ted and Crews catch up to him at a dedication ceremony; apparently, Rayborn is quite the real estate mogul. The conspiracy portion of the episode ends there, because who should be in attendance? Why it’s Charlie’s ex-wife, Jen.

Her husband is off on a call somewhere, leaving Charlie and Jen ample time to flirt. Although she tells him they can’t go back to where they were, they end up meeting at a motel they used to go to all the time. I kind of hate this, because I really don’t like Jen. She abandoned Charlie while he was in prison and is taking advantage of the fact that he’s still in love with her. I want Charlie to find someone better (although not Danni, because her whole “relationship” with Tidwell makes me laugh).

However, as much as I hate the fact that he and Jen got together once again, it did mean that Damien Lewis got to take off his shirt. And a shirtless Damien Lewis is something with which I will never, ever argue.

Clacked by Kona Gallagher
on Nov 13, 2008 @ 13:00 EST5EDT