TV Recap: Life - Everything...All The Time

Hey, wanna do some ‘roids? Come on, all the cool kids in L.A. are doing it. At least they are in this week’s episode of the sharp sorely missed cop drama with a twist, Life.The other question of the week: Why is Dani Reese so good while Jack Reese is definitely not?

Let’s start with the first one. A Hispanic family man is found beaten to death in the bottom of an empty pool and the first thing that happens is everyone thinks gang. So the new chief, Tidwell, rounds up all the gangs and puts them in holding to see who’ll rat the killer out. Of course, no one’s coming forward so Crews and Reese turn to the man’s family for some answers.

Turns out sometimes he took his youngest daughter to work with him when it wasn’t a school night and she heard quite an important conversation. The dad got a call on his cell that told him to go to the Bankley building, an abandoned warehouse in L.A. Why would he go there and leave his little girl alone? For that you have to ask his other daughter, a pretty high schooler who, not too coincidentally, was at the Barkley building that night. Only she doesn’t remember anything because she was slipped some sort of date rape drug. So at least things are making a little more sense. Daddy came to save daughter but instead was beaten to death. Yeah, she won’t have any guilt issues for the rest of her life.

Everyone heads to the building but nothing’s there. Luckily, two of the gang guys were talking about a guy who they heard ate glass and drank blood, a monster in short, and Charlie heard them while he was hiding in the cell with them. Just so you can smirk a little, I’ll tell you that his disguise consisted of a hoodie with the hood pulled up. Back to the gang guys. They tell the cops they don’t know anything about it and the only thing they have on them is steroids. But what would make a guys look more like a giant monster than steroids? Exactly.

Only these steroids are legal, at least they are when prescribed by the doctor and owner of an exclusive gym. What happens after he prescribes them is not his business. That’s what the doctor tells Crews and Reese anyways. Oh yeah, and they can’t get the list of gym members because technically they’re all the doctor’s patients. Really? What a sneaky little sucker. But, Crews and Reese can sit outside and watch who comes into the gym. And who should happen to roll up but a kid named Benny Bankley, whose dad owns the Bankley building. And who should follow him but a giant kid with anger issues named Marty. Guess they have their first two suspects.

It’s not difficult to find the rest of the gang since these kids drive fancy cars and eat at even fancier restaurants. There are two others, Patrick and Annabelle. Patrick is the alpha dog, Marty is the beta dog, Benny is the clown, and Annabelle is the honest one. It looks like Patrick is calling all the shots, especially once Crews and Reese visit Marty’s psychiatrist, who is Marty’s alibi. She says that Marty has an anger control problem but that Patrick is the one with which they should be concerned. Then you find out that the psychiatrist is actually treating all the kids and on top of that, she’s sleeping with Patrick. Why is it rich people on TV are always super incestuous? Are there no other rich people out there?

So she’s kind of a dead end until she calls saying that Marty is going crazy and busting up her office. Crews and Reese get there just in time to see him completely destroying everything. Oh yeah, Marty also has blood coming out of his eyes, which is probably not too normal. He rushes Crews and tries to get his gun so he can kill himself but Crews is able to overpower him. But he’s a monster, right? Turns out the only thing stronger than a monster is steroids with intensity 20 times the normal amount. Huh? Who would want to kill Marty? My guess is the only guy who would worry that Marty would talk. And so we’re back to Patrick.

Good thing it doesn’t take too much to turn his friends against him once they find out Patrick killed Marty. Of couse that can’t be proven, yet. But Annabelle feels bad once she meets the two daughters and Benny just wants to clear his name. He says that Patrick pushed him into a room with the older daughter after she was passed out but his conscious took over. Benny’s the one who actually called the Dad to tell him his daughter’s in trouble. And then he got super drunk and passed out somewhere else. So Daddy shows up and Marty kills him. The only problem with this is they still don’t have anything linking Patrick.

But even he isn’t as smart as he thinks he is. It actually doesn’t take much for Crews and Reese to trick him into thinking he didn’t actually kill Marty. They have Annabelle call and say Marty was going crazy mad and then Benny called and said Marty was arrested. Who should drive by just then but a cop car with Marty in the back. Yeah, it was kind of gross but whatever. That was the push that Patrick needed. He confessed that Marty called him whining about killing the dad. He also confessed that he tried to kill Marty but it didn’t matter since he wasn’t dead. Which is when he learned the truth. So Crews and Reese got their guys.

Unfortunately, Crews isn’t having as much luck in getting Jack Reese. Remember that at the end of last season, Crews found the guy who actually killed his best friend’s family but he also found out that the guy was just a lackey of Reese’s. But Jack is smart, too, and he knows that Crews has the most important piece of evidence, the only member of the friend’s family who survived, the daughter. Crews also has Ted helping him, although Reese did visit Ted and threaten to have him thrown back in jail. But Crews has the girl, and Ted has the Reese’s file, which is the only thing that would point back to him. Crazy stuff.

The only problem for Crews seems to be that the daughter refuses to speak. Even after he brings his ex-wife down to help, she remains quiet. But that did lead to the hottest almost-sex scene on TV. Crews and his ex in the back of her husband’s car. Yeah, that’s why it was almost, she remembered she’s married to another guy. Too bad for our favorite fruit loving, Zen living detective. But don’t worry, it’s looking better for our friend, Charlie.