Lights Out: Rainmaker

I’ll be honest: I’ve never gotten completely on board with Lights Out, but I only figured out why after watching last night’s episode. The show seems to float between a successful serial drama and a show more like Law & Order, where the stories are wrapped up at the end of each episode. “Rainmaker” is a perfect example.

All of a sudden, Patrick has to deal with the repercussions of his delivering a birthday cake with a sweet filling of CASH MONEY to a lowdown dirty councilman. This takes up most of the episode, as Patrick is arrested, his home is searched, and a nice FBI man pays a courtesy visit to Patrick at the Leary gym.

While all this is going on, there’s another story line involving another former boxing champion by the name of Rainmaker (played very well by David Morse, of Treme and House). For 3/4 of the episode, the two stories seem unrelated; Margaret says she wanted Patrick to see him because he’s all punchdrunk, broke, and can’t remember anything he doesn’t write down. She doesn’t want to see her brother end up like that. At one point, Theresa, who apparently watches crime dramas like Law & Order when she’s not on camera, is surprisingly willing to come up with an amazing and complicated story about how Rainmaker was the “champ” who delivered the moneycake, not Lights. 

These plots come together in the very end when it’s revealed that Lights paid Rainmaker to make it rain (with his fists, not cash money) on the councilman. Rainmaker gobbles down the paper with the councilman’s hotel address on it, so it’s like it never happened. For me, that moment saved the episode from being a complete bust. It was such a good ending that I didn’t see coming, even though it should have been ridiculously obvious. (Theresa pretty much lays the groundwork for it with her crazy plan!) The problem is that Rainmaker will likely disappear completely from the series, like Ed Romeo, while the major story line of the FBI investigations has to keep going. 

Sidenote: Reynolds’ brief appearance is rad. He essentially turns Lights into their rematch’s bad guy by pointing out that, with the sum of shady things happening to Lights, some of it has to be true. Then he implies that he’s always the bad guy because of his race, which is probably true. Reynolds kicks ass.

Sad-eyed Sidenote: I love Hal Brennan as a bad guy. He’s so calm and evil! I have to admit though, I crack up every time he gives this sad puppydog face to threaten Patrick.