Lights Out continues to be a show that I’m just “in like” with. Something about it just isn’t registering fully. It feels as if the stakes aren’t high enough, but yet they’re as high as ever. Patrick’s marriage, family, and life are on the line, yet for some reason I can’t feel the urgency. I’m not sure if the shows content is strong enough to stand on its own without the fighting interjected in. Where Friday Night Lights can be extremely successful in not putting football in every episode, I just don’t feel the same about Lights Out. It needs some action.
Tonight we got a breakout performance for Reg E. Cathey. We really got to see him flex his acting muscles, especially in the scene where Patrick confronts him. Barry always appears to be in control, but we see that he can dig down deep if he needs to. Bill Irwin as Hal Brennan is also an intriguing character. There just seemed to be something going on in the diner when he was talking to Patrick’s sister, Margaret. He always seems to be scheming. After all, he is a very successful crook. So it wasn’t terribly shocking when he sat down with Barry at the end of the episode. To tell you the truth, I think I would have been more excited to see that scene play out than any scenes featuring one of the daughters.
Patrick decides he wants to fight again and hand picks an opponent that would be the easiest fight with the biggest purse. The catch is Johnny promised his comeback to Barry Word, so it has to be on his terms, and guess what? Patrick’s terms were not acceptable. So Patrick tries to find a loophole by using a silent partner, Hal Brennan, who just happens to be in bed with Barry Word. This all leads to Patrick having to take a more difficult and dangerous fight with Barry’s man in order to try and dig his family out of a financial whole. This creates several conflicts.
- Patrick fires Johnny. Patrick doesn’t trust Johnny any more. He believes Johnny is in to it just for himself and I’m inclined to agree. Now what I like about this conflict is I’m curious how Johnny fights back. Does he join forces with Barry like what the show hinted at? Or does he humble himself and try and ingratiate himself back into his family?
- Daniella, Patrick’s daughter, knows about his pugilistic dementia and hasn’t told her mom, so she hangs it over her dad’s head to convince him not to do the fight. Well Patrick turns it right back and makes her grow up fast and manipulates her into thinking that if she tells Theresa about the dementia that she’ll ruin the family. That’s a lot of pressure to put on a young girl and I didn’t necessarily see it coming. Patrick usually is much more controlled with his daughters.
- Perhaps the biggest consequence of Patrick’s decision is that it looks like it’s going to break up the marriage, at least force a separation of sorts. Theresa says she’s tried to be ok with it, but she just can’t be. The biggest problem the writers face is making her likable. The audience wants Patrick to fight, but she’s holding him back. But her motives are correct. She wants to keep her husband safe. She wants their daughters to grow up having a normal life with their dad in the picture. But yet, she seems like the bad guy here. Obviously there’s no show if he doesn’t fight, but the poignancy of Patrick making the choice to fight felt a little soft.
I think there’s a lot of good things about Lights Out, but not a lot of great things. I think it needs to ramp up the intensity and let the double crossing begin. We need to start seeing some punches throw, both literally and figuratively, and it needs to happen soon.
