Lights Out - "Cut Men" Review

“I never play, Patrick. The train is leaving the station. If you can’t get on it, someone will take you place.” -Barry

When watching Lights Out I have to be careful not to forward think to much. What I mean by that is to not let knowing the logical conclusion of the season get in the way of taking the drama out the season leading up to the end. At this point it’s clear Patrick is going to fight Death Row Reynolds at the conclusion of the season, so it takes a lot of deft storytelling to keep the viewer interested in the events leading up to the finale.

One way the show is keeping us interested is by showing us the many sides of our hero. We know Patrick the family man, the fighter in training, the business man, but we really haven’t seen too much negative from him. We saw him near the beginning try and be a gangster for Hal Brennan, but that was still born out of the desire to put food on the table. Tonight we saw Patrick be unreasonable with his sister, Margaret, when he tried to tell her that her relationship was over with Hal. We saw a similar reaction when he told his wife that she was doing her residency end of story. It’s good to see some flaws in Patrick’s character. I don’t need my heroes to be flawless, I need them to be real. It just makes for a more well rounded character and thus we care more about his journey, not just the end product.

I wonder if Patrick new what he was doing when he went to call out Reynolds. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say he knowingly provoked Reynolds into fighting him. Perhaps that was obvious, but it seemed like a huge risk, what with him having a hole in his side and whatnot. Patrick does always seems to have a plan. I’m not so sure I necessarily agree with all his plans though. The decision to dismiss his father as trainer I wasn’t personally on board with, mainly because it robs me of getting to see Stacy Keach on screen. He dismissed Ed who got him into the best shape of his life. But recently his decision to take a needle for of drugs to speed up the healing left me less than impressed. Nothing good can come from any athlete taking a cocktail of various colored drugs for straight cash. I hope this doesn’t provide yet another stumbling block for Lights in his pursuit to fight Death Row. It takes a lot of the faith from the show to trust that the viewers will keep coming back week after week knowing that the forward motion will be slowed by some other event.

Most all of the characters are shaping up much better than where they started, particularly Teresa. I heard something very wise the other day. When a show is conceived, you write a character and then cast an actor. Once the show is in production, you get a feel for the actor’s strengths and eventually begin to write for them in a much more flattering way. It’s not surprising that Teresa’s character is coming along nicely as they realize that her likability is integral to the success of the show. We were all quick to jump on her at the start, but I have to give credit to the writers for righting the ship. The next problem is fixing the daughters. I’m still not sure why we can only get two of the daughters on screen in any particular episode, but it’s beginning to stick out like a sore thumb. If Patrick’s daughters are going to be that important to him, they need to be that important to us and right now they aren’t. But the show makes for the daughters by giving us Barry K Word and Hal Brennan. I just can’t get enough of them. Also good on them to bring back the reporter Mike Famoso. It's important to have someone around that knows Lights from early on in his life who isn't afraid to stand up to him.

I’m anxious for Lights to fight soon. I just hope the show can keep coming up with more plausible ways to keep my interest until the big fight comes. I’ll continue to believe in Warren Leight and the rest of the staff until they disappoint.