(S01E07) Wow.

I mean, wow. When this week's episode of Life began I thought it was going to be your standard 'hate crime' type of show full of people expressing stereotypical opinions about those who are different from them. Then, I realized that this was Life and it wasn't going to be like that at all. Especially as one turn lead to a twist, which lead to a video game, which lead to drug money, which lead to a son who only wanted his mother's love.

Wow.

Gallery: Life - Season One

Granted there wasn't much in the way of character development -- although there was one doozy of a development in the 'Conspiracy' (which is what I'm going to call it from now on) -- but it didn't matter, because what was going on was go good. Hell, even Ted's little vignette worked out well this week. That's saying something coming from the president of the 'I Don't Like Ted' club. Add to that a really nice soundtrack (and if anyone knows the songs aired on this week's show please don't hesitate to speak up) and you just had a kick-tushy program.

Let's begin with this week's crime. I do love episodes that feature an all-night criminal investigations. In fact, one of my favorite episodes of Law & Order: SVU was a kidnap case that spanned nearly two days. I enjoy these types of cases because it gives the detectives a raw edge that you may not see during their normal duties. We saw that a bit this week as the investigation crept into early hours of the next day and Charlie really needed one of the techno-wonks at the precinct to look carefully into some spreadsheets found embedded within a video game.

Speaking about that video game...the scene where the sister of the kidnap victim played through all of the levels of Prince of Persia to access the secret spreadsheets was just great. The looks on all of the precinct employees who piled into the room to watch her showed a good bit of emotion. Then, when the spreadsheets started to appear everyone was dumbfounded. Even Reese, who doesn't seem to dumbfound too easily, was shown with her mouth agape when the spreadsheets appeared.

If there was any further character development this episode it was with Reese. Not only did we find out that she spoke Persian, but that she has a bit of a sore spot when it comes to the Bank of Los Angeles robbery (or, is it the Los Angeles Bank? I get confused). This chink in Dani's armor actually encouraged Crews to look up a Reese in connection to the bank heist. Turns out that Reese's father was the head of the S.W.A.T team during that time. This means that Detective Reese is now connected with the 'Conspiracy' where previously she was just up on the wall without any links.

Charlie, while subtle, worked his magic this week. He met a potential soulmate (which will now never pan out) whose son turned out to be one of the people who shot the original two victims at a gas station food mart. From her meeting he was able to glean that all her son wanted was her love and affection. It turns out that her mother's love was meant for the kidnap victim instead. I was a bit confused about this since she had a romantic relationship with the kidnap victim. Did her son want that as well or just the love a mother gives her son? Either way, Crews picked it up and was able to determine the next step that the kidnapper would take.

My final thoughts are on Ted and Olivia. First, let me say that I hope the producers of Life were not coaxed by the network to put Charlie's interest in a solar farm in for their 'Green Week' promotion. That would just stink. Saying that, I thought the scenes between Ted and Olivia were quite sweet. And, even though Olivia now knows that Ted is hot for her there wasn't any resolution as to whether she was going to reciprocate those feelings one day (even though she is going to marry Crews' father). I did find it ironic that Ted ran out of gas and had trouble with his cell phone in a place that was gathering solar energy for consumption for other users.

Next week -- Carl Ames is found dead. Guess who's the prime suspect?