This week’s Lie To Me focused on the price we pay for lies, and as part of the exploration, we also got a good look at how difficult it may be to define truth or lies, especially as oppositional terms. The episode was solid, if perhaps a bit heavy handed, and we learned a little more about Cal and Foster’s relationship.
"Life Is Priceless" opens on a shot of Lightman’s face as blue and red light washes over him. The lights are revealed to be from emergency vehicles, as Cal walks across a construction site enveloped in panic, eventually ending up at a group of people shouting accusations and defenses at each other. This rather surrealistic opening is a wonderful contrast to the gritty nature of the story itself, which concerns three men trapped underground when a building under construction exploded. The missing men cannot be located, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency has called in Cal to figure out who may be lying about what happened. Everyone involved, of course, is horrified at the idea he or she may not want the men rescued. Cal and later Foster as well have to try to identify what each of the key players really wants, and their case is not helped by the fact that it seems everyone really does want the men rescued.
Lightman and Foster sift through the evidence as they build possible scenarios on who may not want a successful rescue. They find a worker who lied about when he last saw the men because he had left to sneakily take drugs. This revelation leads to the location of the trapped men, but the co-worker clearly has no ill will to the men and didn’t cause the explosion. Once the trapped men are located and can be talked to via a camera, Lightman realizes one of the them is frightened of being rescued. He suspects the man (Blunt) may be frightened of being found to be the cause of the blast, and sure enough, further investigation reveals that Blunt’s wife had an affair with the company owner. But the episode never allows a simple equation of guilt to stand.
Blunt does indeed feel guilt about causing the blast, as he dropped his blowtorch due to tremors from the Multiple Sclerosis he has been hiding from the company. He is certain the torch caused a tank to blow up and is wracked with guilt. Lightman notes, however, that the city engineer seems less certain about the cause of the blast. It turns out the man is hiding not what he knows, but rather what he does not know. He did not do a safety survey of the site as he should have because an unknown person paid him not to. Foster forces him to admit that he has a suspicion why: the site used to be a landfill and there’s a good chance there is trapped methane gas. If so, the dropped torch set off the methane gas, and the drill bit digging through debris to find the trapped men may do the same.
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Article comments
1 - Clare
Thanks, Gerry. You summed everything up well. I really enjoyed this episode. It had a fast but smooth pace, intertwined with micro-expressions, great atmosphere, sense of drama, urgency,(the explosion!). I'm glad the writers have us coming back for more, as they drop hints about Cal and Foster's personal lives.
I'm sure I'll always watch Lie to Me as long as it's on - I've always been intruiged by body language, and almost couldn't believe my luck when I heard about the show! It's a great learning experience show to watch, and I think all of the viewers have been picking up the science! But unless it's a wild card episode, I usually find it slightly predictable. Has anyone else experienced this? I think it can be fun to be a step ahead of the plotline, able to spot and understand emotions/expressions, and go "It's going to be the mayor. Just watch, they're going to end up with her." And sure enough!
On the subject, I thought I'd share an experience of applying information learned from Lie to Me to other shows. I'm a fan of the Fox show Bones, in which murders are solved through foresic science. A few episodes back, "The Salt in the Wounds", I solved the case in the first couple minutes: the chiropracter who is first interviewed. As he walkes away across the room, he keeps his head down, looking at the ground. It was so plain to me: guilt!! Of course at the end he's convicted, but think how much time could have been saved. I'm often able to find the murderers on Bones if they are given enough screen time. It goes to show how body language/micro- expressions should be more greatly known and studied, especially in criminal investigations, in all areas of personell.
Well, long comment today! Thanks again, Gerry.
2 - Gerry
Hi Clare! Thanks for reading and I think you bring up some very good points. I also find myself looking for micro-expressions now in other shows--I watch "House" and saw House do a wonderful "shame" and "Cameron" do a wonderful deflection last week. It's addictive!
I agree with your feeling that the show can be a little predictable. I'm very glad we're getting more on the complicated relationships among the team, because that is not predicable. That's the part that keeps me guessing. It's also why I was worried at first the B case just wouldn't hold interest, because we wouldn't be invested enough in the secondary characters' relationships with each other. But the recent development for all the characters has been good--I'm really wondering when Loker's lie will be revealed. I also love the relationship between Torres and Lightman with the slight tension due to Torres being a natural. So, so far, so good, there.
I'm not sure what the show can do about the predictability. If they hadn't shown us the micro-expression and psychological clues so thoroughly, and instead repeated the explanations every episode, I have no doubt that would get boring. I'm feeling rather clever at picking up on the clues myself without the explanation. But there is that feeling of things being just a bit predictable perhaps because the clues do need to be obvious for us to pick up on them. Or maybe it's just that Lightman only has so many avenues open to him to explore, unlike a policeman or private detective.
It's a problem. Some early critics felt this show was too high concept and the strict constraints of having to solve cases by micro-expressions would make the show predictable very quickly. However, I think the show has been getting more interesting lately, not less. I guess we'll see if the complicated relationships among the team infuse the cases with interest consistently. I adore Tim Roth and think the whole cast is solid, so I hope so.