Life: Did You Feel That?

Life returns with yet another stellar episode-one of the best of the season that features a remarkably intricate and clever plot where the stakes are extra high.  This time, the villain of the piece is actually Mother Nature, who takes the form of an earthquake and wreaks havoc on L.A. This particularly devastating earthquake throws the LAPD into turmoil.  Most of the officers-including Crews and Reese-are dispatched by Captain Tidwell and diverted to emergency duty and patrolling the streets, which severely hampers the department’s ability to investigate crime.  Even worse, the earthquake succeeds in knocking out the LAPD computers and communication system.

In all of the chaos, a man escapes from prison.  But this isn’t just any man; this is Arthur Tins, the lowlife that killed the son of convict Mark Rawls.  Crews and Reese caught Tins in the series pilot last year.  They couldn’t get him to fully confess at first, so they booked him on a minor parole violation charge.  They took him to the prison where Rawls was also incarcerated and pointed him out to Rawls.  Terrified, Tins immediately confessed, but in a satisfying bit of dark justice, Crews and Reese left him there, the implication being that Rawls was going to kill him on the inside. (Later on in the first season, Rawls helped Crews track down Kyle Reese as thanks).

But we learn early on in this episode that Rawls didn’t finish off Tins in prison.  The catch is that Rawls is out on parole now, so Crews and Reese rush to track him down and stop him from killing fugitive Tins.  Crews knows it is his duty as a cop to prevent the crime, but he sympathizes with Rawls.  The duo track down Rawls and prepare to bring him in before he can kill Tins, but in a jaw-dropping twist, they realize too late that Tins set a trap, using Crews and Reese to track down Rawls so Tins could kill him first.

In the pilot, Tins was a pathetic little weasel who was all but guaranteed to be crushed by the burly Rawls, but his time in prison changed him from being the hunted to being the hunter.  The rest of the episode concerns Crews and Reese trying out outwit, outlast and outplay (a life-or-death game of Survivor) Tins, who has a lot more planned besides taking out Rawls.  I don’t want to reveal any more of the plot and ruin the intricacies, but the proceedings are electrifying to watch, and Tins-who was a forgotten character until now-easily emerges as one of the most memorable villains in the show’s history.

And just to make sure the show hasn’t lost it’s wonderfully absurd since of humor, the other narrative strand this week involves Ted Earley waking up from falling down the stairs (that damn earthquake) and discovering that his hand has been fully impaled by a pencil.  Adam Arkin’s reaction is priceless, and this little odd event facilitates the return of Crews’ stepmother-to-be Olivia (played by the wonderful Christina Hendricks), who Ted developed a huge crush on last season.

Their scenes together are wonderfully funny and poignant, as are the scenes between Reese and Captain Tidwell, who see their romantic tension come to fruition.  There is no time devoted to uncovering the Crews conspiracy this week, which I actually really liked.  It proves that the show is not formulaic.  Every episode is not equally devoted to the crime-of-the-week A storyline and the conspiracy backbone/B storyline.  A major natural disaster caused chaos, so why should Crews have any personal time for his own life?  A lesser show would rigidly stick to the overall formula, but Life doesn’t, and that’s further testament to the brilliant writing.  Life isn’t formulaic, and rightfully so, neither is Life.

On a final note, I hear that NBC is moving the show from Friday nights to Wednesday nights, but I’m sure that the waves and waves and waves of loyal fans already know that.

Season 2, Episode 6: Did You Feel That? (originally aired October 24, 2008)

For more on Life, click here.

Fridays at 10/9c, NBC
Photographs courtesy of NBC