Life: Powerless (Episode 106)

Charlie CrewsWow.  Thank you to your regular Life recapper Annie for taking a vacation and letting me fill in!  Otherwise, I would totally have missed out on this funny, emotional, and decently-crafted new show.  I am usually unimpressed with dramas on TV as of late (that’s why I stick with reality – you already know it’s going to be crap so you’re never let down), but Life is a pretty great show with a premise that’s not about to get old anytime soon.  It seems that episode by episode we’re allowed small glimpses into the personal lives and pasts of our characters, lending itself to more than one season of exposition for the writers.  Anyway, enough of my praise and onto the recap…

We open on Charlie sitting in on police training with Bobby and his new partner Juarez.  They’re re-creating the “officer down” scenario, which involves gunfire from an enemy.  This leads to the inevitable “$18million Shootout” conversation between Bobby and Charlie (with Juarez providing his two cents from the backseat of the patrol car).  Bobby sticks to his story that he was in the crossfire and a hero; Charlie makes some prodding comments about the whereabouts of the money that Bobby blows off.  Meanwhile, Dani is in a bar doing what she does best – simultaneously drinking a beer and flirting.  She leaves with the guy she was making eyes at and turns out they’re both on their way to the AA meeting across the street.  He offers her a mint; Dani, of course, has mints of her own.

At the meeting, Rick (the alcoholic hottie from the bar) greets a blond chick who may or may not be a significant other.  She’s probably not that significant since he hit on Dani hardcore on the walk over.  Dani takes a seat and fidgets, finally leaving early.  Not so fast – Rick takes the podium.  Good thing Dani stuck around because she hears Rick confess to getting drunk and “hurting” a girl.  We’re not sure if he means rape or battery, but the language is fearful nonetheless.  He claims to be a year sober (liar) and asks the group for their support.  Dani waits for him after the meeting and instead of giving him her number, calls him out for being an abuser.

Back at the station, Charlie tries to be charming and nice to Dani who returns the favor by being a bitch.  She tells Charlie that she might have a sex offender about to repeat his crime and she runs Rick’s plates.  He has a prior sexual assault misdemeanor.  In another room, Davis holds a press conference lauding the efforts of the police force.  A rogue reporter rebuffs these claims; she’s a local web reporter who’s had someone crapping on her lawn.  Charlie wanders in and offers the stake-out services of himself and Davis and declares that they will catch the offending pooper.  Davis looks like she’s just shit a brick herself.

Dani continues on her quest to… well, I’m not exactly sure why she went after Rick so hardcore (in terms of busting him for rape… I mean, AA is supposed to be anonymous, right?).  She looks through 911 tapes matching the MO to find his victim.  The guy who helped her with the tapes re-asks her out; she declines.  Finally, Dani finds a tape where the caller names Rick Larson as her attacker; the girl later rescinded the complaint.  Dani sets off to find her.

On the street, we see Ted going about his business.  He passes a bookstore and does a double-take – his face is on the cover of the hottest new bestseller entitled Earley Warning (cute).  It’s about his dalliances in white collar crime.  Ted goes into the store in a hat and glasses and does everything possible not to show ID.  It’s clear he’s embarrassed but intrigued.  Later in the episode, he’s shown reading through it and commenting on different sections.  However, he also comes to terms with the fact that he wasn’t really innocent and deserved the time he served.  Toward the end of the episode, he confronts the author of the book – his own business partner.  Although he brought a baseball bat to the encounter, claiming he “learned a lot of things in prison,” he uses his most important lesson on the guy – learning to forgive.  He walks away with the partner still shaking and a little surprised that Ted let him off the hook.

Dani goes back to the AA meeting to find Rick… and so does Charlie.  Charlie gets up and talks about being powerless and uses lots of prison analogies (yeah, the writers are going to stretch that one for as long as possible).  Although Charlie suggests that he, Rick, and Dani go for coffee, Rick brushes him off to get Dani one-on-one.  Dani goes along, despite Charlie’s warning that Rick is probably a bad guy.  Rick and Dani get into a heated discussion about how they are both liars and cheats.  He gets annoyed, claiming Dani is just “like every other woman.”  I’m not sure what that means, but he looked pretty sinister saying it.

At the station, Dani and Charlie regroup to find Nancy, Rick’s rape victim.  Nancy changed her last name and lives with her parents, doing bookkeeping for her mother.  She refuses to testify against Rick, despite Charlie’s further usage of the prison metaphor.  Afterward, Dani goes to Rick’s to stake him out.  Nancy apparently also had the same idea and pulls a gun on Rick as he’s leaving his house.  Rick speeds away in his car and Dani takes Nancy to the station, trying to calm her down.  Once there, she still refuses to testify against Rick.  Across town, Davis and Charlie are on a stake-out of their own – looking out for the town pooper.  Charlie, charming as fucking ever, suggests they tell stories.  He brings up Bobby’s role in the $18million Shootout and here’s where Davis gets to burst his bubble.  Turns out Bobby was embellishing a little and was actually behind the barricades 4 blocks away.  Although it makes his hero story a lie, it also means that Bobby probably (maybe?) didn’t steal the missing $18 million.  Oh – they also discover the source of the poop – it was the web reporter’s own cameraman who was sick of her treating him like crap.  So, the moral of the story is if you give someone crap, you’d better be prepared to take it back.

Dani returns to the AA meeting to find Rick (again).  She runs into the blond who tells Dani that she’s meeting Rick at a bar later that night (awesome, freaking alcoholics).  Dani goes to the bar instead – and so does Charlie.  There, they arrest Rick for Nancy’s rape.  Finally, Dani goes home to relax while Charlie stays at the office.  There, he learns that Rick made bail.  Well, Dani realizes this too when Rick enters her house in a mask with a gun.  She surreptitiously dials Charlie on her cell; he puts it on speaker, calls for backup, and he and Davis head to the house.

Rick takes a bottle of vodka from the freezer and forces Dani to do shots.  They have a pretty meaningless conversation until Dani gets down and dirty and confesses how low she actually went while she was doing blow.  At about her fifth shot, she says she “needs a moment.”  This is a clue to Charlie (although having only seen this episode, I’m a little confused as to the meaning).  While Rick is distracted, she takes the vodka bottle and slams him over the head with it.  At this moment, Charlie and Bobby (who heard the radio call and came to help), burst in and apprehend Rick.  As Charlie walks her out, Dani mumbles some stuff about a moment and zen, repeating the phrase “It’s zen, isn’t it?  Isn’t it?” about a million times before being taken away in an ambulance. 

Our final shot is of Dani at her AA meeting… she approaches the podium to speak: “My name is Dani and I am powerless.”