Lights Out - "Bolo Punch" Review

“This isn’t the ring, Patrick. You’re in over your head. You can’t punch your way out of this.” - Theresa

Finally some action! Up until this point, Patrick ‘Lights” Leary has been relatively passive. I know, he want after the dentist, but I’m talking about his financial situation with his family. I wanted the show to be all about boxing, but it looks like we’re in for a fight over financial struggles with Patrick and his brother and wife. We learn that Johnny is a degenerate gamble, he used be addicted to drugs, he’s getting divorced and he’s lost all of Patrick’s money (and probably their father’s.) We’ve learned that Johnny is not to be trusted with money. It’ll be interesting to see what happens with his character once Patrick fires him (which will happen).

But to me, the most important thing happened this episode. Patrick finally told Theresa about them being broke. I was delighted to see that Theresa’s reaction was immediately about the girls and that she embraced him after the exchange. It built some much needed compassion from a character I otherwise don’t like very much. The dramatic irony was getting to be too heavy. Theresa was bound to find out and the writer’s couldn’t keep the secret away long, so I’m glad they just came out with it. Now we’ll get to learn more about Patrick in the coming episodes. Where is he going to place his allegiance too? With his wife who vowed to stay with him through richer or for poorer? Or with his brother? Who he had to bail out of gambling debt by winning an unsanctioned cage match? A scene, that seemed a bit cheesy. And the choice to have tribal drums be the only score to the fight seemed curious. I’m worried that if Patrick keeps lying to his wife he’s going to lose her. I want him to be able to fight and keep his family, but I don’t think that’s possible.

The show is not perfect, but I feel like it’s heading in the right direction. We finally got to see Patrick fight. We finally got to see his hunger to box again. We saw him tell his wife about them being broke, and then we saw him promptly lie to her face to get them out of trouble. My big complaint is that we haven’t seen Johnny do anything particularly redeeming so it’s hard for me to A) feel bad for him and B) care about Patrick trying to save him.

Other thoughts:

-Would Patrick really step in the way of a gun? His family means everything to him. Gave up his livelihood for them, yet he steps up to Omar. Doesn’t quite make sense.
Catherine McCormack can’t do an American accent to save her life. Unless she’s not trying to.
Barry knows of a simulcast but still sends a fax. Nice.
Classic scene where Patrick and his father want to see “the fight” on the TV and the waitress says the fight is on, but she was talking about UFC, he was talking about boxing. A nod to the state of current combat sports.
I really liked the character of Omar. Curious if that will be the end of him as the show will try and focus it’s narrative.

What did you think? Will you keep watching? Are you excited to finally see Patrick fight?