We are in the middle of Season 2! Charlie is getting closer to finding out who stole 12 years of his life. Dani is getting closer to Tidwell Charlie and Dani are getting closer, too. Dani is asking for Charlie’s opinion, can you imagine? Besides, they start finishing each other’s sentences! 🙂
In Episode 10 Evil… and his Brother Ziggy, Charlie wakes up poolside at Raybourn’s house while Dani wakes up next to Tidwell in bed. Raybourn tells Charlie he can call whenever he wants to talk. Dani tells Tidwell she can handle his New York attitude as well as his four ex-wives that adore him but his hair needs to go.
On their way to a Native American Reservation to investigate a murder, Charlie notices Dani is humming.
The victim is John Hawes. He stayed as the last resident deputy once the reservation had its own police force. Charlie, along with Dani and tribal police captain Whitehat, finds out Hawes was shot outside his trailer and then driven away and buried. Hawes left his trailer with no gun to meet his killer. He knew and trusted that person.
Who killed Hawes?
Another question arises when Charlie finds a bowl of deer stew with heating instructions in Hawes’ fridge.
Who cooked for Hawes?
It’s Anna. She is a young woman who moved to the reservation with her dad 20 years ago. When the little girl hated there and escaped, Hawes found her in freezing weather and brought her home. He became a father figure to Anna. He taught Anna how to ride, fish, and shoot. He gave her his rifle as a gift when she got engaged to Tomas Shasta even though he and Shasta did not see eye to eye. Shasta is a member of the tribal council bringing in a new casino and hotel and Hawes was against the casino. Charlie and Dani send Hawes’ rifle for ballistics.
While they are chasing Anna for answers, Charlie and Dani have their car stolen and are forced to stay in the same hotel room. As Dani is taking a shower, Charlie answers the room phone.
Tidwell’s voice: “You wearing those little purple panties?”
Charlie’s face! Now he knows why Dani is humming 🙂
It turns out Hawes left a message for Whitehat before he died: “Money, Guns and Evil.” Evil turns out to be Eval Vadas who was hired by the tribal council to set up the casino. Whitehat is constantly watching Eval’s LA house and he reports her as a stalker! Whitehat is sure Eval is hiding something in his garage and Tidwell is sure they can get a search warrant for the house of a guy called Eval!
Whitehat stays at Charlie’s place and has the weirdest dinner conversation of her life.
For starters, Ted orders Indian food! 😀 Whitehat finds out Ted and Charlie have been together since they met in prison! Rachel is not Charlie’s daughter. Ted is in love with the woman who is about to marry Charlie’s dad. Charlie is spot on: “White people.”
They find boxes of rifles in Eval’s garage. They are for the high-end customers who want to have as authentic an experience at the reservation as possible. Besides, Eval has an alibi for the night Hawes was killed. He was playing bingo with his mother!
Hawes’ financials help solve the murder. Why did he write a $60 check to the Chillicothe County courthouse? Charlie eats more “always better a few days later” deer stew and finds an envelope from the courthouse in Hawes’ trailer. It is Anna’s birth certificate. She is not Native American — a fact Anna’s dad hid from Anna and everyone else. So Hawes did not leave any option for Anna’s dad who thought Tomas would not marry Anna if he knew — no casino money!
Charlie attends a fundraiser by Raybourn to find out Raybourn has cancer and has only six months to live.
Episode 11 Canyon Flowers has an “only in LA” murder: A young guy buried up to his neck and turned into a flower with petals scattered around him.
“Dianthus.” Charlie knows flowers.
The victim is Frank Dunlop, a delivery guy for Beverly Hills Cares food shelter. Frank is a very dedicated employee who has raised tons of money for the shelter.
Research for oddball customers in the area Frank’s body was found points to Maude Paxton and Flint Garber: Seemingly roommates in a house full of junk, they turn out to be kids of Johnny Hazlit, a serial killer who killed 10 people but never got convicted thanks to a drug overdose in 1972. Hazlit used dianthus to decorate his kills.
Maude and Flint know and love Frank. Their alibi: They were watching TV. It was Maude’s turn to have the remote. No witness. Soft alibi.
Tidwell tells Dani and Charlie to dig into archives for Hazlit. Charlie offers to go to LAMOMAM — Los Angeles Museum of Murder and Mayhem — to have history come alive to them! He was on a date there once: “It was her idea.”
Squeaky and Tex, the owners of the museum, tell them Mass Murder Memorabilia is a huge and growing market. As much as they are very serious about provenance — an object’s place of origin — it is a challenge to afford stuff. Japanese demand is driving prices like crazy and a gun who killed somebody starts at 10K.
Squeaky and Tex can’t hide their excitement to meet Charlie. They are sad Charlie is two murders short of making their mass murder room. Five is their minimum.
Charlie: “Actually, I was 5 murders short.”
Squeaky and Tex do not know Frank. Their alibi: Hillside Strangler Items Auction. Too crowded. Soft alibi!
Tidwell does not want any leak to the press about Hazlit. He and Bobby pay a visit to LAMOMAM to warn the owners about it. Tex asks if they could sell him a Crews memorabilia: Old shoes? A used coffee mug? A pineapple? Well, to be honest, I could pay a good sum for Charlie’s personal pineapple! 😀
New murder alert! Tex is found dead at LAMOMAM with dianthus petals scattered around him. Squeaky is behind herself claiming she saw Johnny Hazlit shooting Tex and ballistics confirm Hazlit’s fingerprints on the gun! WTF?
The discovery that Flint Garber gave all his junk (Hazlit memorabilia) to Frank breaks the case! That is how Frank raised money for the shelter. Flint told him to stick to foreign buyers. Frank did so and paid with his life.
Charlie and Dani find out Squeaky wired $15K to Japan for Hazlit’s original gun. They confront her about killing Frank because he was bypassing them to sell to foreign buyers. Charlie notices rubber gloves on a mannequin in the museum. Squeaky used them in the murders.
Provenance.
As Charlie is up to his neck with the case, poor Ted finds himself arrested thanks to gun and coke possession in his car. Charlie finds Agent Bodner at home who gives him a heads up: If Charlie does not cooperate, Ted will be in a maximum security prison soon.
Episode 12 Trapdoor starts and ends with the exact same question.
“You here Crews?”
Dani may be, for the first time, asking Charlie for his opinion. She is planning to take the Lieutenant’s test. Is it a good idea? But Charlie is not listening. Raybourn. Roman. Bodner. Ted. Rachel. He has too much in his mind to hear Dani.
They find three bodies in an LA warehouse: Two have Russian tattoos and have their fingerprints burned with acid. Dani is able to find one partial fingerprint. The third guy does not have a tattoo. He has hands soft like a baby.
The two Russians turn out to be low level Moscow “wise guys” who work enforcement, collections and protection in construction. The third guy is not any of that. Charlie thinks someone might be missing him.
This someone is Lisa, a community college student. She met Paul at a coffee shop. He helped her with math. They fell in love. Paul gave her his luck charm: a prize from Moscow Polytechnic Institute. Paul’s real name is Pavel Rozhdestvensky: an engineer who quit his job in Moscow to come to the US. He has no legal papers.
Charlie gets himself into trouble shooting a late night intruder. Well, say hello to Mr. Charlie Crews, Sr who breaks into his son’s house to leave a wedding invitation! Tidwell puts Charlie on administrative leave and gets his gun. Dani still lets him accompany her to the only Russian they know.
Roman looks at the pictures. He does not know the Russians. They notice Roman’s new toy: A handheld device showing what is going on anywhere in the club.
As they are leaving, Dani and Charlie notice “pardon our dust” signs.
Charlie: “You use these signs…”
Dani: “…when you’re building something.”
Yay!!! Charlie and Dani are now finishing each other’s sentences like an old couple 😀
As Charlie and Dani try to get details on the construction from the cute bar tender, Roman catches up with them. He, as usual, has done his homework. He knows Charlie shot his dad and that Rachel is living with him. He whispers to Dani’s ear: “I bet you thought it was your father Crews was going to shoot.” This is enough for Charlie to send Rachel out of the country and this is enough for Dani to find the vodka bottle in Tidwell’s fridge. She is back to AA meetings.
A search warrant for Roman’s club does not bring them anything but “special” agent Bodner.
Ted makes a new friend in prison who tells him “Charlie Crews says don’t worry.” This guy is serving three life terms – one for each murder.
Ted: “Miss the world?”
New friend: “This is the world.”
Ted: “This is something Charlie Crews would say.”
New friend: “This is something Charlie Crews taught me.”
Talking to Lisa a bit more reveals Paul liked people-watching at a certain coffee shop. Charlie and Dani look out of the window from the shop only to see the new federal building construction. They find Paul’s drawings of Roman’s club in Lisa’s math books. Paul seems to be inspired by the new fed building to build something in Roman’s night club. They ask help from Joint Terrorism Task Force, and they send… well, Bodner!
Lisa disappears soon after she talks to LAPD and Bodner about Paul. Time to pay yet another visit to Roman and Charlie is reading Russian history.
“The tsars hired engineers to build security in their palaces. Walls, secret tunnels. When the work was done the engineer knew all the secrets so engineer had to die.”
Knowing their end was near, the engineers built a trapdoor for themselves. Pavel’s trapdoor turns out to be a video he made and incorporated into Roman’s new toy with a certain password. Charlie makes an educated guess about Paul’s password: his luck charm in Russian. Elizaveta.
Paul and the builders installed underground vaults in Roman’s club where he is keeping prisoners. Lisa is there as well. They rescue the people. They cannot touch Roman.
Charlie’s doorbell rings. He and his dad are waiting for Olivia. But it’s Dani who wants to know what Charlie knows about her father.
Doorbell rings again. It’s not Olivia. It’s someone who wants Charlie dead.
“You here Crews?”
Fruit Count:
Episode 10: Nopales in deer stew. They are “prickly pear” pads. Are they vegetables or fruit? I should check with Charlie 🙂
Episode 11: No fruit sightings.
Episode 12: We don’t see Charlie eat fruit but his dad’s remarks make us understand Charlie and his love for fresh fruit a bit more.
“How come all you’ve got in your kitchen is fruit? You never ate fruit when you were a kid.”
“I eat now.”
Comedic moments are the highlight of these delightful episodes. When Charlie is stuck in the hotel room with Dani, listening to Tidwell & Dani talk on the phone, Damian’s face contorts into so many expressions it is like an acting tour de force. Hilarious and astonishing all at once. You captured the feel of these shows very well in your summaries.
Thank you for reading! I LOVE Charlie’s face as he hears Tidwell on the phone – one of my favorite moments of the show! Oh yeah Damian goes from expression to expression to yet another one in a few seconds! You are right, it’s an acting tour de force indeed!
I admit I binge-watched Life and only once so I really did not get it in the way that I am getting it now. Watching the entire show with a fresh eye, feeling and absorbing it as well as paying attention to details has made this summer so much FUN for us! Damian has perfect comedic timing and I really hope he has other opportunities to show it, on screen or on stage, to the world.
LOTS of comedy in these episodes! The panties….didn’t Charlie hold up some pink panties in the black Friday episode??? His face when he hears it, Dani’s face when she realizes he heard it…oh god. Amazing.
Great write up-another fun Tuesday!
Haha the panties could be my favorite – Charlie’s face!!!! PRICELESS! Poor guy is forced to hitchhike and go spend the night at the victim’s trailer! 🙂
My computer is broken, so I just bought another one! Happy to meet you !!
I am watching season 2 of life, and as you Damian’face when Tidwell phone amazes me,, and really makes me laugh!
Dalian’s talent, is incomparable, he is also great in the comic, as in drama!*Our Damian is great!
Monique
Enjoy your new computer, Monique! And it seems this is the first Damian post you read on your computer – nice! Haha I LOVE Damian’s face as he hears Tidwell speak on the phone. He just does not know what else to do but hang up!!! I really hope Damian will have other opportunities to show his comedic talent to the world. He is incredibly natural. Yes, our Damian is great! <3