(S01E05) Suspect -- Where is Officer New Money?

Charlie Crews -- Detective New Money, actually.

Forrest Gump. As soon as they showed that feather drifting down to the ground, accompanied by that soft piano music, I immediately thought of the Tom Hank's hit of the 1990s. Then I thought that Forrest and Charlie were a little bit alike. Both have that innocence to them, but they are also quite worldly as well.

Then, a dead woman with angel wings came crashing down from the sky into a parked car (did you see the reaction of those bystanders as she crashed? Good stuff.), and the illusion abruptly ended. And so, another episode of Life comes to pass.

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This week we had another fine episode that built upon the relationship between Crews and Reese. Plus, it looks like we were introduced to a new adversary/informant in the form of Roman. Well, at least I hope Roman returns, because he's quite fascinating. To paraphrase Charlie, when we look at Roman we are looking right at the devil.

As we saw already, Roman seems to know everything about Crews and Reese. For Charlie, the information Roman gives isn't really new and could probably have been gotten by reading the news and watching that damn documentary about him. For Dani it's more of a shock as Roman seems to know plenty about her addiction, the drug addict she fell in love with, and the meetings she attends. As Dani is pretty close-lipped about her personal life she's obviously pissed about how he got all of that information.

Since he's a federal informant Roman probably had certain avenues he used to obtain that information. That pisses off Reese more than the fact he practically knows her bra size. She had a right to be ticked off, as the federal agent who took Roman away from the police station told Reese, in no uncertain terms, that she didn't know the way the real-world worked. I guess, as a police detective, Reese thought there were good guys and bad guys. The federal agent, on the other hand, sees plenty of gray.

I believe that's what Charlie thinks as well, as he learns more and more about the cover-up that put him in Pelican Bay. I didn't think we would learn anything else this week as nary a word was mentioned for nearly the entire hour. Then, Roman contacts Charlie and tells him to ask his partner -- his former partner -- about the Los Angeles Bank robbery. In that heist four people were killed and $18 million was discovered missing. It seems that Stark knows more about where the money went then what he previously told his former partner. More on that next week.

More and more I'm seeing comparisons between Charlie and Reese and Bones and Booth from Bones. Reese (Booth) is definitely the one who likes to keep her feet firmly on the ground when it comes to her reasoning. Crews (Bones) tends to see things under a slightly different colored light. Charlie and Dani seem the most similar to Temperance and Seeley when they have their car conversations. While not as spirited as the conversations Booth and Bones have they have the same feel to them.

Yet, even though they are totally different personalities, they are starting to come together. The biggest sign of this is Reese's spouting of a few Zen statements. When first caught, Dani is a ticked that she said it. But, when she says something Zen-like a second time she shrugs it all off. Maybe that's because she's beginning to see what Charlie likes concerning Zen.

Meanwhile, Charlie is beginning to stir a heaping pot of hostility into his persona, courtesy of Dani. There were two examples this episode where he used some of that hostility on a few people connected to the attack of Constance. One was where he dislocated the informant's finger to get him to contact Cuddy, and the other when he went to beat the snot out of Cuddy. Don't know who Cuddy is? He's the guy who was in Constance's office last week when Charlie stopped by. Seems that he wanted the same amount of money that Charlie got in his settlement. It looks like that was a one shot deal for Charlie, so Cuddy beat up Constance, and then was summarily beaten by Charlie.

Which brings me back to Constance. If this character is really going to New York, I say good riddance. She was really beginning to tick me off with her whining that she couldn't have Charlie because she was married. Well, Boo Hoo! Maybe this move to New York will get past her feelings for Crews so she can be less annoying.

Quick talk about this week's mystery. It was good, but really didn't do anything for me. I was focused more on what was going on in the lives of Crews and Dani this time around rather than what criminal activity occurred. I pretty much felt that Roman was the man who killed the victim in the first place because he was so damn evil.

Finally, I now get what everybody's saying about the resemblance of Damian Lewis to Steve McQueen. When he looks in the mirror after beating up Cuddy he looks and sounds just like the man who starred in The Great Escape all those years ago.

Next week of Life ... Charlie confronts Stark about a 15-year-old bank robbery.