Life: Hot Lead

I’m going to preface this review with a personal message for Robert Bianco, the television critic for USA TODAY. Robert…may I call you Robert? Here’s my message: stop watching Life and better yet, stop writing about it. I’m sure you’re a nice guy, and I’ve enjoyed some of your thoughts in the past, but you clearly have no idea what Life is about. It’s already going to get canceled, so just let people enjoy it while it lasts. Anyone who complains about the conspiracy aspect of the show and advises that the show drop it completely and just become yet another case-of-the-week procedural…how could anybody think that?

The Charlie Crews conspiracy is the hook of the show, and no Life fan would say differently. It is what sets the show apart from every other cop and procedural show on the air…and there are a lot of ‘em. Life is a fantastic show that somehow you have missed the boat on from the beginning. You have offered faint praise at best from time to time, so I wish you would just leave it alone.

As for episode 2.14, it’s fantastic, fun, eccentric, and unpredictable…the very qualities Life almost always captures in spades. Charlie and Reese are called to investigate the death of a guy named Mitch, who was the lead singer for Hot Lead, the cover band for fictional 80s KISS-esque band Heavy Caliber. (The rock star that Mitch spent his life impersonating was Jude Hays).  They arrive at the crime scene—the club the band played at the night before—and examine the body, though Charlie is initially more caught up in thinking of a nickname for Reese, much to her irritation. With a little solid police work, the detective duo discovers that Mitch was suffocated with a big piece of plastic, which now has his face, makeup and all, permanently imprinted on it. Yet again Life’s writers have devised a creative and very visual death scene.

Naturally, Charlie and Reese first suspect the other band members, one of which is a dentist who keeps a tally on the wall of his office detailing how many groupies he has bedded…what an upstanding citizen. It’s logicalthey would suspect the other band members. After all, how many bands—cover or not—get along famously all of the time? Alas, all members seem to have alibis.

Charlie and Reese then go after Tyler, who used to fill Mitch’s spot in the band until he tried to sing one of his own songs on stage and the fans revolted and the band kicked him out. Kind of like Ringo I guess. Tyler spent a few months in the slammer for assaulting Mitch previously, but was released and is nowhere to be found.

So how do you find an M.I.A. rock star impersonator? Simple: you hire every single one in the city to come to your house and play for you. At least that’s what Charlie does, and it’s a perfect excuse to have a classic Life absurdist montage. Fake after fake come to the Casa de Charlie, and while Tyler doesn’t show up, Emma does. Emma tried out for the band years ago but was laughed down because she is a girl. And she works at the club where Mitch was killed. And she has a pet rabbit. And she has a fetish for plastic wrap. She sounds like not all her dogs are barking, but it couldn’t be her. And it couldn’t be Tyler either, because life and Life are rarely that simple.

All I will say is that when the whodunit guy is revealed, it’s stranger than ever. And that’s a good thing. It’s a great murder mystery, and the episode has other plusses too: Charlie has another run-in with his dad, whom he “accidentally” shot in the leg a few episodes back, and hopes for Ted stealing Olivia away from Charlie’s dad improve. Woo hoo! We also get another glimpse at the conspiracy wall and a sweet moment between Reese and Tidwell. And the episode will make you never see Sharpie markers in the same way again. If you need any more reasons to watch an episode of television then you’re s.o.l.

Season 2, Episode 14: Mirror Ball (oriringally aired February 11, 2009)

For another take on this episode, read I Love Rock N’ Roll by Elma Rahman.

For more on Life, click here.

Wednesdays at 9/8c, NBC
Photographs courtesy of www.nbc.com