Dare I detect subtlety and nuance? This week's Lie To Me takes an old procedural trope -- dirty cops -- and twists it into a story about loyalty, and the pitfalls thereof. It also layers the show with the issue at the heart of the Lightman Group in this season -- "A house divided cannot stand."
Tonight's episode, "Dirty Loyal", deals with Lightman's new girlfriend/connection to the cops, Wallowski, and her connection to a dirty cop (her partner, Detective Farr) and the gangs she watches as part of her job. When Prince John, a Ninety-Sixer, winds up dead, all fingers point to Wallowski being dirty, thanks mostly to an eyewitness. But Loker and Torres pull some science on that eyewitness by pointing out "change blindness" -- we see what we want to see, blind to any subtle changes that might occur. Meanwhile, another Ninety-Sixer kicks the bucket, and the truth comes out: Farr's been getting some "off-duty booty" which resulted in a son, Suarez. He was trying to be a good father, Wallowski was trying to be a good partner, and because of that, the two got caught up in a bloody battle for gang leadership which ultimately brings the truth to Internal Affairs.
The episode felt a bit dragging, especially with one act devoted exclusively to the shootout at Wallowski's house, but it ultimately offered a lot of commentary on the values and dangers of loyalty. By the end of the episode, I felt kinda sorry for Farr: he was really just trying to be a good dad, and the system responded by kicking him in the ass. Same for Lightman and Foster, each attempting to be loyal to the same thing for entirely different reasons.
This episode is definitely the beginning of a series of introspective pieces involving the Lightman Group. With Loker on his way out, a new set of interns on their way in, and Lightman and Foster literally divided by a woman (loved the shot of the two walking away from the IA agent in opposite directions), the show is open to new thematic stories to tell based on these characters.
Most of all, I appreciated the subtlety of the episode -- the Group has stopped with the lengthy, wordy explanations of their science, instead letting Wallowski's facial expressions betray her for them. They've also lost their ability to communicate -- Lightman bounds away as soon as Foster and Wallowski start talking about him. At first, I was a bit thrown by how different this season is in comparison to the previous season, but now I'm all in, if these are the kinds of stories we can expect this year.
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