Lights Out: Bolo Punch
After last week’s episode, Rachel (TNIB editor and girlfriend extraordinaire) said that it’s hard to watch a show where only bad things happen. This fourth episode of Lights Out sure had its share of terrible things, as it brought the Leary family even farther down the toilet. Johnny gets into more trouble, has the butts beaten out of him, and forces Patrick to save his arse yet again. While saving his brother’s arse, Patrick gets beat down by some hired muscle/MMA fighter. The other bad things: Theresa makes a $50,000 donation pledge to help rebuild a clinic in Haiti because she doesn’t realize they don’t have any money, Theresa’s credit cards get declined and confiscated in front of the Leary daughters and their friends, Omar pulls a gun on the Leary boys and, later, quits boxing.
The list goes on, but there’s good news in all of this as well. Patrick finally had to tell Theresa they’ve lost their entire fortune, so there’s no more secrets between the two (besides his pugilist’s dementia). The timing was perfect, as I just started to think he wasn’t a good enough liar to keep hiding something of such large magnitude from his wife. It also allowed a better part of Theresa’s character to finally be revealed.
I never got the feeling that she loved Lights for his money, but seeing her packing up her jewelry to sell off for a quick buck confirms what she says about sticking with Patrick “for richer or poorer.” The mention of “apology rings” is a nice little detail that implies she’s stuck with Patrick through some other troubling incidents. I like seeing her with more dimension than the nagging wife who forced Patrick out of boxing. Also, the Leary daughters know about the money problems. Now that everyone knows, we can get past Patrick hiding things from everyone and move forward into everyone trying to make things better.
Speaking of people trying to make things better. Johnny’s a real eff-up. We can assume he bet on Omar’s fight because the huge payoff would help him fix a number of the problems he’s created. Of course he loses, because Johnny loses at everything. He’s always getting things his way in the short term (setting up risky fights/investments, hooking up with receptionists) only to fail down the line (losing money, breaking the copier with the receptionist/losing even more money). At some point, Patrick will have to lose faith in Johnny. Theresa’s already tried to tell him to cut Johnny loose, and, as loyal as he is to family, Patrick should be feeling it, too. When Lights wins his underground MMA fight and looks out at Johnny, I got the sense that Lights doesn’t want Johnny dragging him into more effed up situations like that. Meanwhile, Johnny gives a sigh of relief that immediately disappears into an expression of opportunity: he realizes Lights can still fight, which is bad for Lights, but good for the show.
Sidenote: A good portion of the show revolved around Patrick and his father. Patrick chased his father around town, worrying that Omar had done something bad to Pops. Anytime Patrick looks uncomfortable in his own skin is good television, and their relationship seems to make Patrick very uncomfortable. Their relationship seems to have paused in Patrick’s teenage years. He gives Pops a lot of half-answers, knowing Pops doesn’t really want to know the whole truth, and he’s right. “I got this covered,” Lights tells his Dad in a dark alley in front of a bunch of scary looking dudes. Pops leaves without saying anything. Of course he knows there’s trouble, but not the whole story.
Other sidenote: This episode provided a glimpse into the decaying world of boxing and the rising world of MMA. Since the pilot episode, I’ve been wondering how the show would deal with a sport so steadily on the decline. Patrick hints that big-name prize fights can still land a huge purse, which I suppose is still true today.
