Life: Dig A Hole (Episode 110)

Is Charlie 15 pounds of pure bunny or a mean panda? Dani can't decide.

Charlie and Dani pull up to a construction site, where the workers have uncovered a body buried upright in the dirt. They note that the victim has a rose clutched in one hand. Charlie thinks it's weird that the guy spent so much time underground and got dug up, but then he's going to be buried again soon. Dani asks if he's got a better idea, which is dangerous because I wouldn't put it past Charlie to suggest they ride around with the corpse like a Weekend at Bernie's thing. After talking to the foreman, Dani reports that the site used to be a strip mall and the place where the victim was buried was a Zen center. It was owned by Tim Chang from 1995 to 1997, when he skipped out on his rent. Dani asks if burying someone alive is Zen and Charlie allows that's not usually the case, but every center has its own path.

Science Music Video! I think this is the first one that Life has had. I approve, since it means less typing for me. Anyway, the victim and a large chunk of the dirt surrounding him has been brought back to the morgue and the dirt is carefully removed until the victim is freed. Dani and Charlie go through the victim's pockets and Charlie finds a wallet, confirming their victim is Tim Chang, and Dani finds an old cell phone. They take it to the cute redheaded lab tech, Beth, who we first saw in "A Civil War." She says she can extract the last numbers called then musingly wonders who remembers their number from ten years ago. Charlie says he does, but it wasn't a phone number. Beth looks confused so Dani helpfully mouths, "Prison number." Hee. Beth finds a number that Chang called several times the last time the phone was used and says she'll track down the old directory information but Charlie suggests they simply try calling the number.

Charlie and Dani track the number to the Dujardins. Amy Dujardin recognizes Chang's name and expresses horror that he was buried alive, but says she didn't really know him and the number originally belonged to her husband, Luke. Luke joins them, saying he's the one who knew Chang, and Amy explains they're both physics professors. Luke delights Charlie when he starts babbling in a mix of particle physics theory and Zen teachings about how everyone is not really here but more likely to be here than not be here. "I'm not here. You like that, don't you?" Charlie asks Dani with a grin. "If only that were true," she snarks back. Hee. Charlie and Dani explain about Chang's death and Luke looks devastated, saying he knew Chang when he attended his center after having a crisis of faith. He says when Chang went missing, he and Amy went to the Zen center multiple times to try and find him. He remembers two potheads who made an instructional tape at Chang's center that they sold online, but he can't recall their names.

Charlie and Dani drive to their next stop and Charlie points out all of the things that are there but not really there, while Dani grits her teeth. Luckily, his phone rings and distracts him before she punches him in the neck. It's Beth, who's tracked down the potheads. Dani and Charlie head over to talk to Sean and Ryan, who are now millionaire dot com potheads living in a big mansion. They speak fondly of "Zenmaster Chang," even though their instructional tape of him was never a bestseller, and say he knew they smoked up, since he would do it with them. Dani asks if they thought it was strange that Chang disappeared but they say they thought it was simply Zen. Sean and Ryan's wives, both ditsy airheads clearly attracted more to the wealth than their husbands, arrive back home from a day of shopping. They eyeball Charlie and Dani and ask if they want a beer, but Charlie politely declines, saying that they're on the job and one of them is a recovering alcoholic. Dani's "What the actual fuck?" scowl in his direction made me wheeze with laughter for about five minutes. The girls skedaddle and Charlie astutely observes that Sean and Ryan didn't have much luck with women in high school, or college, or at all before they made a lot of money.

Documentary: Jennifer says she sometimes wonders what would have happened if she believed Charlie, if she hadn't walked away. Tearfully, she says it doesn't matter, since she didn't believe him, so it's better not to think of the "what if?".

Charlie makes a visit to Jennifer's house and Mark tries to make him go away, but Jennifer says she can handle Charlie. Charlie, with a lot of simmering rage, reminds Jennifer that it would have been their 15 year anniversary. Jennifer tries to be gentle with him at first, saying she understands what he must be feeling, but when he continues to needle her and Mark she gets angry and demands that he leave. Charlie tells her that he only came by to bring her something, because he made a promise to her 15 years ago. He tells her happy anniversary and walks away, and Jennifer follows him to see a large, gorgeous white horse tethered to her front lawn. Jennifer is too stunned to say anything and Mark insists he can't leave the horse there, but Charlie, before he leaves, replies impudently it's not really there.

Later in the car, Dani sniffs a few times, even taking a whiff of herself, before asking what the smell is. Charlie explains it's horse and asks if she wants to know why. "Not remotely," she retorts, then rolls down the window. Heh. Charlie's phone rings and it's Beth, who has tracked down another of the numbers on Chang's phone. It goes back to a woman whose son attended the Zen center and Charlie asks for the address, but Beth teasingly orders him to say please. "Pleeeeeeeease?" Charlie simpers like a teenager, with a stupid grin on his face, but at Dani's disgusted look he puts on a more professional expression. Hee. Beth provides the address and Dani and Charlie track Eric Molina to a martial arts academy, where they watch him kick the ass of his opponent then kneel in front of an altar with several pictures of Chang. Molina, who talks like a Marine or perhaps someone who's seen a few too many war movies, isn't all that upset to hear that Chang died and explains that he believes Chang's spirit still exists and will return someday. He tells them that he was a troubled street kid and Chang showed him a new way to live, which is why he bows respectfully to Chang's picture after every fight. He peers closely at Charlie and says that he has the same look that Chang did, like he's searching for something that's an illusion. Breaking the spell, Molina steps back and says he was sick, home being taken care of his mother when Chang went missing. He adds that as much as he respected Chang, he thinks Chang was weak and says Sean and Ryan took him to dark places, more than just the pot, and that Chang would return begging for forgiveness.

In the car, Charlie asks Dani what she would come back as but she thinks one life is enough. Charlie thinks he'd like to come back as a giant Flemish rabbit: "Fifteen pounds of pure bunny." HEE! Then he thinks a whale would also be awesome, swimming around thousands of feet under water. Dani pointedly asks if it's quiet down there and Charlie wisely takes the hint but the big smile on his face tells that he's still happily thinking about his reincarnated form. They arrive back at Sean and Ryan's mansion, where there's a party going on. A bouncer says they need to be on the list and they flash their badges, which is good enough. When they get inside, they see all kinds of shenanigans going on, including topless women wandering about and coke being snorted off the living room table. The wives bounce over and asks if they want a room with a camera. Charlie tells them to go ahead and they'll catch up and before they leave, one of the wives grabs Dani and plants a lingering kiss on her. Dani's eyes widen but, honestly, she exerted more effort shoving off Charlie's hug in the pilot than she does here. I'm just sayin'. The wife lets her go and scampers off with the other wife, while Charlie looks hilariously enthralled and Dani simply says, "Okay!" HEE. They collect themselves and go off to find Sean and Ryan, who are taping a couple of bikini-clad girls playing Twister. The millionaire nerds look totally busted.

Interrogation room. Charlie and Dani play "Snarky Cop, Snarkier Cop" and pretend like they're going to bust Sean and Ryan for all the illegal stuff at the party, in order to get them to reveal what they didn't tell them before about Chang. They admit that Chang could take a lot of pain and he liked to go "all the way down" on film with people watching, so they taped him. It's really unclear here whether they're just talking about fighting, or if there was also a sexual element. In any case, Sean and Ryan insist they didn't kill him and thought he just took off when he disappeared. They turn it back around on Molina, saying there was a bad fight between him and Chang where Chang almost died. Afterwards, Chang banned Molina from the Zen center and wouldn't let anyone speak his name.

Charlie and Dani return to the martial arts center. When Molina sees them, he nods respectfully, then takes off running. They chase him but Molina doesn't get very far, because as soon as he runs into the street he's plowed down by a car. Molina shakily gets to his feet and, looking at Charlie, dazedly calls him Chang. Charlie plays along and says he's here for Molina, who says he's lost.

Documentary: Constance is asked if her relationship with Charlie has changed since she started working for the DA. She says they'll always be friends and, professionally speaking, she'll work with him the same way she'd work with any other LAPD officer.

Cut to Constance, in a slinky satin dress and stiletto heels, strutting into the station. The shoes are awesome but the dress, aside from being a gorgeous champagne color, is really unflattering. Satin is the most unforgiving fabric, Constance. There's a reason its spelling is so close to "Satan." However, the overall effect works on Charlie, who takes one look and practically unfurls his tongue to the floor like he's a cartoon character. Dani, who clearly sees right through Constance's ploy, compliments the dress and Constance says she got it in New York. This prompts Charlie to start babbling about New York and both women joke that they wait it out when Charlie gets going. Constance asks to talk to Charlie privately and he takes her to the conference room, where she tells him that he's no longer a suspect in Ames' murder. She turns to leave and Charlie asks what's with the dress. She tells him that she's got a date, but it's not really clear if it's with her estranged husband, back from New York, or someone new. My guess? She has no date. The whole visit was purely to remind Charlie of what he's missing out on, which is just pathetic. This show is really making it harder and harder for me to like or even respect Constance.

Documentary: Karen says most solved homicides are done so within the first 48 hours. The interviewer asks her to comment on reports that the LAPD doesn't want the Ames murder solved. Karen flatly replies that the department wants every case solved.

Jack Reese pays a visit to Karen and he's furious that Charlie is no longer a suspect in Ames' murder. He says that Charlie had motivation and demands that she find the means and opportunity. Carefully, she informs Jack that witnesses report seeing two men at the scene. If they find the men and they're connected to Charlie, she'll go after him. But if they're connected to someone else, that's who she'll go after. Jack looks taken aback, probably because he's not used to her having a backbone with him.

Charlie takes Ted to the Bank of Los Angeles and says the robbers could have holed up indefinitely, unless snipers took them out. He points out that there's only one place sniper shots could have come from, the rooftop across the street where Jack Reese was leading a SWAT training exercise. On the rooftop, Ted asks what the robbery and the Seybolt murders have to do with each other and Charlie says they both have Jack Reese involved. After he confronted Ames, Ames got scared and went to Jack, where they argued and Charlie insists he saw them say his name, then Ames ended up dead. Ted asks if he's the Robin to Charlie's Batman and Charlie gives Ted a quick up-and-down, clearly imagining Ted in tights and not like the mental image, then flatly assures Ted that he's not Robin. Heh.

Interrogation. Molina says he ran because he could see when Dani and Charlie came back that they learned he had lied. He tells them that he fought with Chang because Chang broke his trust. Charlie asks him to explain and Molina says Chang would take the damaged girls who came to his Zen center back to his office and have sex with them. By breaking their trust in him, Chang also broke Molina's trust in him. He maintains that he tried to kill Chang the night they fought, but he didn't kill him. Charlie asks why Chang called him before he disappeared if he'd been banned from the center, and Molina says he called to say goodbye but didn't say where he was going.

Down in the morgue, Charlie talks to Chang's corpse, although he insists he's talking to himself and Chang's corpse just happens to be present. That's okay, Charlie, the dead guy isn't really there, after all. Charlie wonders what he's going to do when he finds who killed the Seybolts. He listens for a bit, then tells Chang's body that it was good talking to him and that he's off to find out who killed him.

Returning to Molina's martial arts center, Dani and Charlie try to figure out the next step in their investigation. Charlie kneels at Molina's altar and invites Dani to come meditate with him. She declines the offer but he insists it'll make her happy, and when she says that's unlikely he tells her that if it doesn't make her happy he promises to not talk to her the rest of the day. Since that's an offer she can't possibly refuse, Dani drops to her knees (dirty!) and, after a couple of moments, zeroes in on what Charlie sees. It's a picture of Chang, flanked by Luke and Amy Dujardin. Since Amy said she didn't know Chang, why does she look so friendly with him in the photo? I'm sure Dani's disappointed that Charlie will get to keep talking, but the break in the case probably makes up for it. On the drive to the Dujardins, Charlie says he's changed his mind, he wants to come back as a panda. "Really? They're so...cute," Dani responds, but the way she says "cute" is filled with hilarious loathing. Hee. Charlie disagrees, saying they seem cute but they're really mean. Dani's not sure what to make of that so she wisely lets it go.

Amy Dujardin admits that she drove her husband to the Zen center but, when confronted with the info that Chang would take women into his office for "one-on-one enlightenment," she angrily denies she ever had sex with Chang. Charlie notes three chairs and string instruments and asks who sits in the third chair. Amy says it's her son, then gets up and asks them to leave. Dani pushes, getting a little Charlie-esque when she fake-innocently wonders if it's true that "those Zen masters know all the secret places?" Amy gets angrier and tells them to leave again but just then Luke comes in the front door with a young Asian boy that looks about ten years old. Luke introduces Dani and Charlie to his son, Alec, who greets them politely then grabs his violin and heads upstairs. Charlie points out the obvious, that Alec's birth parents aren't both Amy and Luke. Amy and Luke claim they used an anonymous donor but Charlie, cutting through the bullshit, says they're going to get a sample of Chang's DNA and get a warrant to test Alec's DNA. Looking resigned, Luke hugs Amy and tells Charlie and Dani that after what Chang did, Luke did what he did. Charlie asks him to clarify and after securing a promise that Alec would be left out of it, Luke confesses to killing Chang. He says he was doing a Zen meditation behind the center - "Dig a hole. Fill it up." - and he pushed Chang into one of the holes and filled it up. Luke it led away in cuffs while Amy and Alec watch, and Charlie looks troubled.

Hey, Charlie's started locking his front door! He comes home, an apple in his mouth so he can unlock the door, and stops short when he sees the white horse standing in the middle of his living room. Ha! Well played, Jennifer. I really like Charlie's ex, almost as much as I like Dani. They both know how to handle Charlie's eccentricities, but in different ways, and without the mind games Constance likes to play. Ted comes in from the kitchen and explains it was in the back but he brought it inside so the coyotes wouldn't eat it. Charlie stands right in front of the horse and tells it to not get comfortable since it's not actually there. Horse: "Whuffle. Snort." Getting an idea, Charlie calls Dani and asks if Luke knew where Chang was, why did he say he looked for him after he disappeared?

Interrogation. Amy sits next to Luke and Dani and Charlie bring out the phone records, wondering why Luke called Chang so many times after he went missing. Luke replies that he was worried about Chang, then immediately realizes that doesn't make any sense if he killed Chang, but it's too late. Charlie says Chang was holding something when he died and asks Luke what it was, but he can't say. Charlie and Dani tell Luke he's free to go since they don't think he killed Chang, but tell Amy she needs to go to child services. Since it's clear Luke is protecting someone, Amy is now the lead suspect and the Dujardin home may not be the best environment for Alec. After asking Luke to take care of Alec, Amy admits she threw a rose in with Chang when she buried him. She says she did it because he said he was leaving her. That's it? What a lame resolution. I really thought we were leading to a reveal that Chang raped Amy, what with all of the stories about his love for violence and using his Zen center to sleep with women looking for inner peace. Instead, we get this blah posessive angle? Whatever.

The perpetually awesome "Gimme Shelter" starts playing as Beth gets on the elevator, which Charlie is riding up after a final visit with Chang in the morgue. She hits the stop button and, as Charlie blinks in surprise, presses him up against the wall and kisses him. When she's done, she hands him a folder, releases the elevator, and gets off at the next stop. Charlie looks bemused but pleased, and he's even happier when he sees that the folder she gave him is Jack Reese's file.

Back at his house, the conspiracy wall stuff is spread all over the kitchen island again. You know, if Charlie's not going to put the wall back up, it probably needs a new name, but somehow "Conspiracy Island" just doesn't do it for me. Ted asks where Charlie got the file but then says he doesn't want to know, and he thinks Charlie is crazy to go after a cop like Jack. Charlie tells Ted that if he doesn't want to be involved he's not asking him to stay, but Ted's loyalty is unshakeable and he says he'll look into the finances. If Jack was involved with the bank robbery, the money has to be somewhere. Charlie agrees, but thinks the first step in finding out how dirty Jack Reese is will be looking into Jack's official informant during the time of the robbery. He finds the name, Kyle Hollis, and looks him up on the LAPD database. Ted starts rambling about how they should get a dog but Charlie is transfixed by what he's found and doesn't hear Ted calling his name several times. Ted looks at the computer and Charlie shows him a mugshot of Kyle Hollis, taken at his last arrest in 1995, then grabs one of the drawings Rachel Seybolt made. It's a perfect match and they realize that Kyle Hollis killed the Seybolts. Charlie's mind starts racing and Ted asks what he's thinking about. Calling back to the pilot, Charlie says he's thinking about where he's going next.

The next day, Charlie walks towards the prison. He stops, sighs, then steels himself before going inside. To be continued...