Life: Fill It Up (Episode 111)

Except for the bloody gut wound, we all want to be this girl right now.

Charlie, his face full of conflicting emotions, goes through security at the prison. The guards, the same ones who hassled him in the pilot, make cracks about how he keeps coming back and they've got a cell waiting for him. Charlie, less easily riled this time, simply tells them to keep it ready because they just might need it. They escort him to a room where Mark Rawls, the father of the boy who was killed in the pilot, is waiting for him. They exchange pleasantries, with Mark remarking that it feels like earthquake weather, which Charlie finds interesting. They get down to business and Charlie asks Mark to look into Kyle Hollis, since cons have the best information about "how to find one of us." Mark agrees, since he owes Charlie one for finding the man who killed his son. Charlie gets up to leave, then turns back and asks, "Earthquake weather?" "Sure feels that way," Mark replies.

For the purposes of this episode, "earthquake weather" means "some bad shit is going to go down."

Later, Charlie joins Dani at their new crime scene, where Bobby tells them that a woman shot her husband through the door because he got home two hours late. The woman is led away in cuffs, her hands all red, and Charlie asks if she shot him through the door, why does she have blood on her hands? Bobby says it's not blood, it's meat sauce from the spaghetti dinner she made. He also says they haven't found the gun yet and it's going to be quite the search, as the shot expands and we see that the apartment is filled with marijuana plants.

Documentary: The interviewer says most men who are released from prison end up going back in. Constance points out that Charlie's not most men, because he's innocent. The interviewer responds that Charlie was innocent when he went in and asks if he came out that way. Constance can't answer that.

While Dani and Charlie are talking in the hall, Bobby comes out and says they can't find the gun anywhere. Dani orders him to keep looking so Bobby suggests she give it a shot, in case detectives have better eyesight than uniforms. She rolls her eyes and heads inside, but Charlie doesn't follow because he sees a mangy-looking dude staring at him from down the hall. He walks over and the guy hands him an open cell phone. Charlie tentatively takes it and it's Mark, with information about Hollis. He says Hollis has a new name, Reverend Orson Parker, lives in a nearby town with his daughter. He also says that when he started digging around, he found out that a lot of other people are looking for Hollis. He hangs up, his debt to Charlie wiped clean, and Charlie finds Dani to ask her to cover for him, but he doesn't explain why. Dani is furious, because on top of her partner wanting to skip out on an investigation to run a mysterious errand, she also can't find the gun and Bobby is being a dick to her. Bobby, always grabbing an opportunity, to be contrary to Dani, cheerfully tells Charlie that they can handle things and he can go.

Charlie hauls ass in his car to find Hollis, listening to a Zen tape on the way. The tape talks about how hurting another hurts one's self, and asks how that betters anyone. "Because it just does," Charlie snarls, ejecting the tape and throwing it out the window.

Back at the International House of Potcakes, Bobby wants to talk about their fathers, but only so he can insinuate that Dani got to where she is because of her dad's connections. Before she succumbs to the desire to shoot him, she decides to search another part of the apartment.

Charlie speeds onward and gets to Hollis' house, taking a moment to put his service weapon under the seat and grab another gun from the glove compartment. He lets himself in the house and a tape of Hollis preaching is playing on the TV. He looks around and the house seems empty, so he shuts off the tape but a voice calls for him to turn it back on. He looks closer and, in the kitchen, he finds a girl sitting on the floor against the counter. She's holding her hands to a bloody wound in her stomach and she politely asks Charlie to turn the tape back on so she can see her dad.

IHOP. Dani is searching the bedroom when Bobby comes in and closes the door. She orders him to open it but he ignores the order and asks her if there's something she's been wanting to say to him. What, besides the fact that he's a sexist pig? For a second, Dani looks like she's going to brush him off but then she demands to know why he didn't back up his partner when Charlie was accused of murder. She says Charlie had cuts on his hands that he said he got from an arrest, but Bobby didn't back him up at the trial. Bobby defensively says he didn't see the arrest and Dani retorts that she didn't ask if he saw it, she asked why he didn't back up his partner. Bobby finally admits that IAD told him if he backed up Charlie, he'd go to prison too. Before they can continue the conversation, Dani hears a noise from the closet. She and Bobby go investigate and find an aquarium filled with mice. Bobby thinks they're pets but Dani realizes they're food. They cautiously open the door to the bathroom, the only room they haven't checked yet, and see a large aquarium with a broken lid. Bobby wonders what could have been in there and Dani, pulling out her gun, guesses it's a very big snake.

Charlie kneels down next to the wounded girl and calls for an ambulance. The girl looks sideways at him and asks if he's looking for her dad, since the guys who hurt her were looking for her dad. She sees his badge and asks if he's a cop but Charlie just cautiously reaches out and says he needs to look at her wound. He pulls away her shirt and the girl starts to panic, asking if she's going to die. Charlie assures her that she's not and tells her to imagine herself in tomorrow. His calming voice and presence work and she starts to relax. Charlie asks if she knew the guys who cut her and she shakes her head, saying that she only knew they were looking for her dad but he hadn't been home since the previous day. She slips sideways and Charlie cradles her in his arms, telling her when she asks why he's there since the phone lines were cut that he came to be with her so she wouldn't be alone waiting for the ambulance. She studies his face and asks if she knows him. Charlie shakes his head and tells her she doesn't know him. The girl asks again to see her dad and Charlie grabs the remote and turns the tape back on.

As the girl watches the tape, Charlie's phone rings and he thinks it's Dani, but it's Kyle Hollis. Charlie tells Hollis that he's at his house and he wasn't the first to get there, but assures him that his daughter is hurt but going to be okay. Charlie asks why Hollis called him and Hollis says he's got a lot of people looking for him, but Charlie has the badge and money to get him out of LA. He tells Charlie to meet him at the Bank of Los Angeles in two hours. He hangs up just as the EMTs arrive and start to work on the girl. She tells Charlie that she heard him call her dad "Kyle" just like the men who cut her did. She asks if he wants to kill her dad too and Charlie can't answer that, so just as the cops arrive she accuses him of being the one that hurt her. Charlie bolts out the back door and dodges a vicious dog on a chain, but the cops chasing him can't get past and Charlie drives away.

IHOP. Animal Control has arrived and they pass out snake lassoes to the cops, explaining that they're looking for a python. Dani asks if a python would eat a warm gun but the Animal Control officer says snakes don't like metal. "What about a warm gun covered in meat sauce?" The officer says that would indeed be tasty to a snake. Dani gets in touch with Charlie and explains the situation, then asks if he's planning to show up. He says he's still got things to do and advises Dani that she's better off not knowing what. He hangs up and pulls up at a stoplight next to a VW Bug with two pretty girls. The passenger compliments his car and Charlie thanks her, then asks if she wants it. She's startled and asks if he's kidding, but he assures her he really will give it to her. He grabs his service weapon and hops out, warning the girl that the trick is to not get attached to the car. He watches both cars zoom off, then sometime later he drives out of a used car lot in a crappy old Caddy. Back at the IHOP, Bobby asks Dani if she wonders what Charlie's up to. She claims not to care and Bobby says he thought it was about a woman, but then he realized Charlie had that look like he's going to do something he shouldn't. Before Dani can pursue this, the snake slithers over her feet and into another row of pot plants.

Documentary: Ted is asked how Charlie saved his life in prison and Ted says Charlie convinced some people to leave him alone. The interviewer asks if Charlie used violence but Ted won't say, so the interviewer moves on and asks Ted what he thinks Charlie would do if he found the people who killed the Seybolts and set him up. "What would you do?" Ted asks. I am probably wrong, but it just struck me that the interviewer really, really sounds like BJ Novak.

At the Bank of LA, Charlie meets with Hollis, who pushes his luck by taunting Charlie that he can't kill him. A muscle twitching in his cheek is the only visible sign of Charlie's rage as Hollis tells him to get some money and a ticket out of LA, and in return he will provide documents about the Seybolt murders and Charlie being set up. Charlie agrees and they go to the parking garage, but as soon as they get to Charlie's car he clocks the shit out of Hollis with his gun and stuffs him in the trunk. Later, Charlie has Hollis tied and gagged in a chair in a warehouse at his orange grove. He sits down in a chair across from him, pulls out his knife, and begins cutting off pieces from a fruit and eating them. Pleasantly, he tells Hollis that the fruit is a dapple dandy pluot that he grew himself, but all Hollis cares about is the really sharp knife that Charlie is waving about. Charlie smiles and tells Hollis that he knows Hollis thinks he has all kinds of questions, but there's only one thing he needs to decide decide. The smile drops from his face and Charlie looks totally fucking terrifying as he says, "You shouldn't have killed my friends, Kyle." Hollis pees himself a little.

IHOP. Dani and Bobby continue to search for the snake. Well, Dani's searching but Bobby's just hanging around, wanting to chat some more. He asks what she would have done if IAD had told her the same thing they told him. She turns to respond but something over Bobby's shoulder makes her stop. To his credit, Bobby isn't all, "Hahaha, very funny" like I would have expected him to be. He immediately realizes the snake is behind him and Dani quietly tells him to step forward as she reaches out with her lasso. Wow, that's a really crappy-looking CGI snake. Although, I am always appreciative that this show relies on complex character development rather than special effects.

Documentary: The interviewer asks Jennifer if she's seen Charlie since he was released. She says she's seen him once, so I guess this segment was taped before Charlie gave her a horse for their would-have-been 15th anniversary. She's asked if he's a different person and she says she can't say who Charlie is now.

Charlie and Jennifer sit on a bench at the park, the car with Hollis bound and gagged in the trunk noticeable in the background. Charlie thanks her for coming and she wearily says if she hadn't, he would have pulled another of his passive-aggressive tricks. He smiles ruefully at the barb and says he wants to ask her something. She bitterly wonders what he could possibly ask her and is startled when he says he wants to ask for her forgiveness. He tells her that he was very angry at her while he was in prison, but realizes how young they both were, how young she was, when it all went down, and he understands anyone would have done what she did. Her heart breaking, she whispers his name but he's not done. With more vulnerability than he's ever showed before, Charlie admits that he was angry at the wrong person and now he's asking for her forgiveness. Jennifer is stunned but before she can respond, Charlie gets up and walks away.

Charlie heads over to his car and opens the trunk, where Hollis is staring up at him. Charlie tells him that the first six months he was in solitary, he exercised daily and never talked to himself. The next six months, he stopped doing push-ups and, he confesses, he did talk to himself a little. "The next six months, those next six months? Kyle, you don't want to know what happened then."

Ted and Charlie meet at a diner and Ted compliments Charlie's new ride, but in the kind of way that a husband compliments his wife's new dress when it's clear he really wants to say, "Baby, you look kind of fat in that." Charlie doesn't want to talk about the car, he wants to know what Ted uncovered in Jack Reese's finances. Ted says Jack contributed to his favorite charity for years, but a few months after the Bank of LA robbery, the charity received an anonymous donation of $4 million. Charlie realizes Jack was either using the charity to launder the money or it's guilt money, but either way it's Bank of LA money. Before Charlie leaves, Ted anxiously asks Charlie to assure him that he's not Alfred, which Charlie does. However, he doesn't respond when Ted asks if he's Higgins. Charlie drives to his next destination and calls Jack Reese. He says he wishes that, on the day before he was arrested, someone had told him it was his last day as a free man. Jack doesn't see why he should care, so Charlie tells him he should since today is his last day as a free man. As he hangs up the phone, an SUV comes speeding up a side street and slams right into Charlie's car.

When Charlie comes to, his view is all topsy-turvy because his car has been flipped upside down. Two men get out of the SUV and walk over, then kneel down, take Charlie's service weapon which has fallen onto the roof, and ask Charlie where Hollis is. Charlie peers closely at one of the men and says he knows him. He remembers seeing the men in the park when Jack argued with Ames, and says they're the ones who killed Ames. They were also pretending to be cops when the paramedics arrived to treat Hollis' daughter, but Charlie doesn't say that. The guy admits they're not really cops and he takes the keys from the ignition, tosses them to his partner, and tells him to look in the trunk. While he's distracted, Charlie grabs his other gun from his holster, shoots the first man, releases his seatbelt, and rolls over to shoot the other man through the rear window. The whole maneuver takes about 3 seconds and Charlie's hotness level right now is in the stratosphere. Charlie moves Hollis, who has come through the crash almost unscathed, into the SUV and drives off.

Documentary: Jennifer says if she could tell Charlie one thing, she'd say she wants him to live his life. "Does that make sense?"

On a remote area overlooking the city, Charlie digs a hole in silence and Hollis, panicking as he realizes he's probably facing a very nasty death, starts to babble. He keeps insisting over and over that he "got right" after what happened and turned his life around. Charlie doesn't respond so Hollis admits that, besides being Jack's informant, he worked for him. He'd get calls to drop off and pick up envelopes filled with cash from Charlie's and Tom Seybolt's bar. Hollis says Seybolt was laundering money through the bar and one night, Hollis got the call to "straighten out" Seybolt, who was caught skimming. The situation got out of control, because Hollis was on drugs and Seybolt's family was there. Hollis admits he doesn't have any documents but he knew Jack and his friends were working with Tom to use the bar to launder the Bank of LA robbery money. As Charlie walks towards him with the shovel, Hollis insists, "I killed that family. But I didn't set you up." Charlie looks behind Hollis, where an open cell phone sits on the ground. Constance has been listening in and when Charlie picks up the phone, she hears his breathing and asks where he is, telling him he needs to come in. He tells her that there's something he has to do first and hangs up, then he looms over Hollis with the shovel. Hollis begs for his life but Charlie just stands over him, his jaw clenched tightly, until he turns around and begins filling the hole back in. Hollis demands to know what he's doing and Charlie, having controlled his fury somewhat with the Zen exercise, replies, "Dig a hole. Fill it up."

IHOP. The snake has been caught and Dani and Bobby are marveling over its size (dirty!) when Charlie joins them, pointing out they'll need a warrant to cut open the snake to retrieve the gun. Bobby notes that Charlie looks like crap, but Charlie brushes it off. He needs both of them to do something for him. Later, Charlie meets Jack on the rooftop across from the Bank of LA. He lays out everything he uncovered and Jack tries to bluster that Charlie doesn't know what he's talking about, so Charlie hands him a pair of binoculars. Jack looks through them and sees Bobby and Dani escort Kyle Hollis out of the bank and into a squad car. Busted but still trying to remain top dog, Jack says he told Charlie to keep Dani out of it. Charlie replies that she doesn't know who he's talking to, that all he did was ask his partner he needed something and that's all she needed to know. Charlie tells Jack that it's over and advises him to come in, make a deal with the DA, and make things right with Dani. Jack looks at Charlie and says he's going to stay up on the roof a bit longer. Charlie leaves him, probably thinking what I am, that Jack's going to save everyone a lot of expense and paperwork by taking a swan dive off the roof.

At the station, Charlie, Dani and Bobby lead Kyle Hollis through in cuffs while most of the department stands and claps, although Davis is one of the few who is noticeably not clapping. Okay, the slow clap is kind of a lame cliche for a show that usually goes out of its way to avoid cliches, but it still got to me. Capturing Hollis was probably the last thing Charlie's colleagues, who were already starting to come around based on the quality of his work, fully believe in his innocence. It truly is a nice moment, especially since Charlie looks genuinely touched, in a really repressed, subtle way. Later, Constance congratulates Charlie and says it's all over, but he's not satisfied. Kyle Hollis killed the Seybolts, but he's not the one who set Charlie up. Constance knows but, proving that she still doesn't get it, she urges Charlie to let someone else unravel the conspiracy.

Dani and Charlie sit outside on the steps, Charlie snacking on some fruit. Dani tells him she's got a lot of questions for him. He says she may not like the answers and she retorts she usually doesn't, but before she can get a question out Charlie's phone rings. It's Jack and Charlie steps out of Dani's earshot to talk to him, then asks if Jack has thought about his offer. Jack congratulates him on catching Hollis and Charlie says Jack is next, but Jack says that's not going to happen because he has something Charlie wants. He tells Charlie that he has Rachel Seybolt and Charlie, thinking it's a bluff, says Jack doesn't know her. "No, Charlie, you don't know her," Jack replies smugly. "You didn't even recognize her when she was bleeding in your arms." Jack hangs up and Charlie just stands there, looking like he's just been sucker-punched.

Charlie races to the hospital and calls to ask about Rachel, but a confused nurse tells him there's no record of her, which is unusual since she remembers checking Rachel in herself. She looks again but Charlie already knows that it's too late, that Jack and whoever's working with him have made Rachel disappear again. Even so, he returns to Hollis' house, but isn't exactly surprised when he sees it's been emptied out. Later, he drives along the highway and stops at the place where he tossed out his Zen tape. He finds it and picks it up, the unspooled tape fluttering in the breeze, and wonders where his path will take him next.

I wonder, too, and hopefully the strike will be resolved soon and we'll see more of Charlie, Dani, and company in 2008. Hey, do you think it would help if the writers and producers were made to dig a hole and fill it up?