"Paul Levinson's It's Real Life is a page-turning exploration into that multiverse known as rock and roll. But it is much more than a marvelous adventure narrated by a master storyteller...it is also an exquisite meditation on the very nature of alternate history." -- Jack Dann, The Fiction Writer's Guide to Alternate History

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Lie to Me 2.14: Paranoids Can Have Real Enemies

Well, you know the old chestnut that, just because you're paranoid, that doesn't mean there's no one out to get you.  Lie to Me 2.14 plays this to a fine tune, with a story about an Iraqi vet who thinks someone wants to kill him.

The tale hinges on an important distinction between someone actually, physically, trying to kill someone, and the presumed target knowing that someone has a real motive to kill the target.    If the target is right in his beliefs - as it turns out he is in this episode - than he'll react just as if there were a real person right outside his door, trying to take him out.   Lightman is able to crack this syndrome and along the way finds out that his book on understanding faces is required reading in our military.

There also an excellent coda to this episode.  Lightman goes in for what looks like a brain scan, giving us the impression that maybe he's suffering from some problem - "the usual suspects" he says to the tech, which seem like the usual things that can afflict the brain.   But it turns out that the "suspects" are the people in his life - daughter, ex-wife, Foster - and the scans are showing the emotions he feels for them.   These would be pure love for his daughter, flight impulse for the former wife, and "all over the place" for Foster.

That's a good take for how Lightman feels about her, which means it could go anywhere, which is good news for the series.


5-min podcast review of Lie to Me

See also my reviews of Lie to Me and Bill O'Reilly, Saddam Hussein, and Ben Reynolds in Lie to Me 2.6 and Lie to Me 2.7: The Redeeming of Loker and Lie to Me 2.8 in Afghanistan and Viva Lightman and Las Vegas in Lie to Me 2.9 ... Lie to Me 2.11: Double Feature ... Lie to Me 2.12:  The One Prevarication ... Lie to Me 2.13: The Whole Truth and Rep Joe Wilson




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