Lie to Me Review: Exposed
Because contrary to popular belief, Supernatural is not the only show on TV (it's true!), periodically my mad love and critical appreciation for other shows, their writers, and the freaking phenomenal actors who play their characters will crop up and expose itself to the unwary. This is one of those times, so cast your eyes another direction if that kind of thing isn't your particular cup o tea.
If you're not watching Haven, Eureka and Warehouse 13? You should be. If you're not watching both Justified and Lie to Me? You need to have your freaking head examined.
The writers for both Justified and Lie to Me are turning out the best shows on the air right now. More than that, they are turning out the best shows to have hit the air since Deadwood. In addition to flat-out spectacular writing, the entire cast of both shows is outfuckinstanding. Not a weak link in the bunch. But the leads? Are something else entirely. Tim Olyphant as Raylan Givens and Tim Roth as Cal Lightman raise the game to a whole new level. They are, in a word, stunning.
Justified's on hiatus right now, but Lie to Me is airing new episodes every week, so I'm going to take a break from the genre train and talk about the lastest episode for a moment. Because as much fun as Haven and Eureka and Warehouse 13 are being (and Leverage is not being) on the Entertain Me front these days? That flat-out fucking GREAT is every episode of Lie to Me. Not fun. Not entertaining. But great. Deadwood great. And this week was no exception ...
Freaking GREAT episode. I love seeing Max Martini back on the screen (he was the draw for The Unit for me) and hate, hate, HATE to see him go. But I couldn't have loved more how they sent him on his way. He had a great character. He did a great job. And they wrote a great arc for him, with the perfect send-off. And that being said, I'm still going to pray to the TV Gods that they're not actually finished playing with him so much as they are going to bring him back again next season and make him a regular. Hope spring eternal, as they say. (The "they" in that sentence referring, of course, to John Winchester fans.)
But all Max Martini love aside, here's the real gold in the Lie to Me mine: Tim Roth is a fuckin wonder. The Emmys need to be slapped for not putting him in the run for best actor and Lie to Me for best series. Seriously slapped. Repeatedly. Perhaps by Little Moon.
The whole beta dog testing the alpha's boundaries was freakin brilliant. Roth really gets the concept of pack dynamics, and the writers really get how egoless Lightman can be in his ferocious quest for truth. He's got the mind/spirit of a true genius who is all about his work. When the work wins? He's won. When it loses? He loses.
Such a joy to watch both a script and an actor who can play the subtleties of Lightman, ego-maniacal badger that he is in all regards, literally cowering in front of someone he's playing to some greater end. The man has the fear response of a freaking wolverine and the ego of Harlan Ellison, but he can cower without either his inherent fearlessness or his gargantuan ego getting in the way simply because the game is everything to him. If cowering buys him a win in the end? That's where his ego lives, not in the chest-bumping machismo of a moment he plays like Bobby Fisher giving up his queen to take the game.
And Tim Roth, being Tim Roth, can't do the body-posture shorthand of "I'm showing submission to your alpha dog threat." No, the man goes balls-to-the-wall in as full-on a belly-up submission posture as you can adopt without actually putting spine to ground. This is the unmitigated joy of watching an actor of Roth's calibre and commitment in a role this perfectly written for him and only him. Because the scenario they put to the table? Plays Little Moon as the kind of gangsta who would require a challenger to wet himself unless he wants to get his throat torn out for the mere insult of daring to challenge. And Roth's commitment to the cowering posture in those scenes where he's testing Little Moon's perimeter for a weakness? Sells the other actor's character as every bit as badass as that character is supposed to be.
Not that the other actor wasn't doing his job. He absolutely was. Everything he was playing sold his character as exactly the "principled sociopath" Foster diagnosed him to be. But even so, it was still Roth's choices, as an actor, in the role of Lightman, that really SOLD the villain as what he was supposed to be. Far beyond what a single-shot guest actor could likely have accomplished, and far in excess of what any scriptwriter could have possibly put to paper, Roth leveraged the viewer's knowledge of Lightman's ego and Lightman's fearless nature into a first person testimony on the badassness of the villain he's facing. If he lifts a shoulder and gives that averted eyes, head slightly cocked "submissive pose" posture, the viewer knows "okay, Lightman's playing this guy's ego by playing submissive to his alpha dogging." But when Roth damned near puts his far shoulder to the cement, he's so dramatically submissive in response to the gun-to-the-head threat? When he literally cowers in a way that conveys genuine submission, not fear? Roth tells the viewer "Lightman has used his magical face reading skills to come to the conclusion this fucking sociopath is absolutely willing to shoot him in the head in response to being challenged." And he is likewise telling the viewer "as fearless as Lightman is, he is absolutely willing to go completely submissive to this man to keep him from doing what he would otherwise do." And both of those testimonies made as only LIGHTMAN, a character the viewer KNOWS and UNDERSTANDS from extensive experience with him, can make them, are not selling Lightman's character to us, but rather selling the villain to us. Saying "this man is every bit as badass as the script just told you he is, and I'm the expert on reading such things."
That is the true test of a great actor. You know you've got as good as it ever gets when an actor can not only sell you his own character by his performance, but he can also sell you the other characters and the plot scenario itself by the choices he makes, as his known character, in response to those other guest characters and plot scenarios. And Roth is every once a great actor and more.
The flat-out brilliance of both this show, as it's written, and the character of Lightman, as Roth plays him, is in their excruciatingly consistent integrity in playing this aspect of Lightman's self identity as the trump card for every other, with the sole exception of his trump's trump of Emily. And with their ability to play Lightman so ferociously aggressive he can come off as utterly devoid of any form of compassion or empathy only to crack his nut a few moments later in a sublimely subtle display of how deep his compassion runs for those few people who have earned his emotional loyalty in addition to what he affords anyone and everyone in the name of playing true to his own personal code of right and wrong.
In this particular episode? While I consider it a scripting cop-out of sorts to have a hard core gangsta like Little Moon "miss" the kill shot on his buddy, they redeem that cop-out in spades by the conflicting hot-cold-hot Roth plays in checking on the kid's condition. A single flash of "is that concern you're showing?" immediately mitigated by his defensive "he's an adult, love ... legally speaking." Roth deserves the freaking emmy for that moment alone.
And of course, he 2 moments with Foster and Foster-Emily respectively:
The "My mother's birthday. You know what I'm talking about?" exchange with the repetition of Emily's hand gesture from a couple of episodes back when she said "you're doing that thing you do with your face"? Was stunningly effective at encapsulating both the subtlety and the depth of the relationship between Lightman and Foster and how different it is from any other relationship you will ever see. A perfect illustration that their interactions on a daily basis are only the tip of an iceberg that exists 90% under the waterline where only the two of them can go, and only with each other.
And the end sequence with Lightman telling Emily "I'm not alone" before going out to talk to Foster. Another masterful stroke in showing Lightman's rare willingness to show only the child he loves the truth of him, and only in certain ways that only she will recognize as profound. He expends so much energy being the "I am an Island" to her, but in her expression of fear over the future ramifications of his apparent emotional isolation, he opens a window for her and says "here, watch this and see how much Foster is what you worry I don't have." Such a moment of deep and complex paternal compassion illustrating how a man like Lightman would address his child's fears on his behalf coupled with an equally beautiful moment of him showing to the viewer exactly what he is showing to his daughter: "This is the real of me, right here, with Gillian; and the relationship between us may not manifest as love in traditional forms, but it is, indeed, love."
I freakin love this show. And I freakin love Tim Roth.