Lights Out: Crossroads
From a sports drama perspective, the opening scene with “Death Row” Reynolds talking to Lights in the diner may have been the most satisfying scene of Lights Out yet. Personally, I find Reynolds (played by Billy Brown) to be the show’s most intriguing character. Maybe it’s simply because we don’t see enough of him, so every time he makes an appearance becomes immediately significant. But there’s also something about a guy who seems just as hardworking and likable as Lights conceding to be constantly cast as the villain in the boxing narratives simply because of his skin color. It shows an amazing amount of self-awareness on his part.
The conversation between Lights and Reynolds is the kind of conversation I’ve always fantasized about legendary athletes having (that is what these two boxers are, right?). Reynolds clearly understands both the hero-worship and myth-making of larger-than-life athletes as well as his place in a long line of history. NBA fans assume LeBron James and Dwyane Wade had this kind of conversation at some point and realized they could catapult themselves way up the hierarchy of NBA history. Do we know that? It’s also interesting because writers and fans are always using this history to build up and tear down our sports icons. Baseball fans absolutely tore (and still do) Barry Bonds apart because he knew—just as everyone else did—that perhaps the game’s most unlikable player would sit atop the list of baseball legends. When Kobe and LeBron chose their numbers (24 and 23/6), they were both praised and hated for their obvious attempt at gunning to pass their sport’s top athlete (Jordan). It’s an understatement to say I’d like to see more of Reynolds on the show. His character adds a refreshing level of depth to Lights Out.
The rest of the show was fairly Rocky-esque, though that’s not necessarily a bad thing. It was entertaining to watch, but the plot points were all prescribed. Patrick trains, family argues, and Theresa shows up in Patrick’s corner, which of course fuels him to knock the crap out of “el Diablo” Morales. There are great moments throughout though:
- Daniella as distributor of alcohol via hairspray bottle is so effing hilarious. Of course someone who didn’t know what they were doing would put alcohol in a spray bottle. (True story: In middle school, I brought patis, a Filipino fish sauce, to school in a spray bottle and sprayed it on kids’ clothes. Just one small spray made them reek of awfulness all day. I avoided trouble when the principal accidentally made a borderline racist comment about the actual edible quality of the odorific stuff).
- Lights Out spent a full two minutes showing Patrick taking an eye exam, and somehow I wasn’t totally bored. (What was his acronym for passing the test? Fantastic Light Electric Orchestra somethingsomething?)
- Morales brought a machete to the official weigh in. That’s all kinds of crazy and all kind of badass. Morales truly redefines “crazy badass.” He also does a really good Pedro Cerrano impression when he says “I kill you until you die from it!”
- Theresa says “I missed you,” after the fight, and I assume she meant she missed Patrick the boxer as much as she missed him living at home.
The episode ends with Pops telling Patrick they won’t be training together if Patrick really intends to fight Reynolds. This makes for good television. While everything is all happytimes at home, Patrick may risk permanently damaging his relationship with his father. If you thought the boxing sequence during the Leary/Morales fight was terrible, that’s because it was. I was disappointed at how awful it was, actually, until I realized Pops also saw how terrible the fight was. It’s possible Morales had some shady dealings going on with Brennan (or their eyes met between rounds from across a packed arena because they find each other dreamy), otherwise we would’ve seen a lot more of this:
