Life with Charlie Crews: Season Two, Episodes 1-3

Welcome back, everyone! It’s Tuesday, and we’re spending all our Tuesdays this summer with our favorite fruit-chomping LA detective, Mr. Charlie Crews!

Alternate universe boy band album cover
Alternate universe: boy band cover photo

When we last saw Charlie, he was celebrating his full exoneration. His case and conviction had been previously overturned, but the doubts had still lingered. If not Charlie, then who? Well, through diligent detective work, Charlie spent season one tracking down the answer- Kyle Hollis. We left him dragging Kyle through the squad room, and then enjoying a fruit cup, alongside his partner, Dani Reese.

new phone who dis?
new phone who dis?

What I left off was the cliffhanger ending-episode 11 of season one ended with one doozy of a twist. The damsel in distress, the darling brunette, the devoted but caught-in-the-crossfire daughter of Kyle Hollis, was none other than Rachel Sebold. Yes, the daughter of Tom, the remaining member of a slain family. She was not only in the house when her parents died, but also through some twist, Kyle felt compelled to atone, to be “cleansed” by the fire and take responsibility for the girl he orphaned.

And we found out, through a phone call from Jack Reese, that Rachel was in Jack’s care. The last remaining witness, an innocent victim still in this whole debacle-injured and in the hands of the enemy, stolen from the hospital and taken to who knows where!? Continue reading “Life with Charlie Crews: Season Two, Episodes 1-3”

Life With Charlie Crews: Episode 11

I love a happy ending. It’s the reason I love Return of the Jedi instead of The Empire Strikes Back. It’s the reason I am not so sad that Disney took some rather horrifying stories and remade them into something…a little brighter! And it’s why, I think, I love the season finale of Life, season one.

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Going into it the very first time, I wasn’t so sure it was going to be a happy ending. Charlie finds the name of the man who committed the crimes for which he did the time, and he knows just who can help him find this man. He starts the episode by walking into the prison he was unjustly confined in. He looks nervous, edgy. Is it the prison that has him out of sorts, or is it the path that he’s on? Either way, Charlie is much less Zen. Calling in a favor, he taps an inmate named Mark Rawls, someone who owes him a favor. In episode one, Cruise help put the murder of Rawls’ son, John, away. Charlie tasks him with putting out the word-he’s looking for Kyle Hollis. Continue reading “Life With Charlie Crews: Episode 11”

Life with Charlie Crews: Episodes 9 & 10

Episode 9 – Serious Control Issues

Charlie Crews is a nuisance to those who conspired in their various ways directly and indirectly to put him behind bars. He refuses to go away, he refuses to be controlled and he will not stand for others being controlled either.

Ted declares him crazy as Charlie lays out the contents of ‘the conspiracy wall’ on their breakfast table, it having being saved by Ted from a police raid the previous episode. Charlie has come to the conclusion that Rachel was in the house at the time of her parents and brother’s murders, contrary to the Police report. He has some drawings from Rachel’s files after the murder and picks out a drawing that seems to him to be a child’s drawing of the murderer. Regardless of how crazy Ted feels Charlie may be about this, he also trusts him and when Charlie points out that Carl Aimes (lead detective on his case – and now dead) had a link to Jack Reese, swat leader at the Bank of LA robbery where a lot of money went missing, Ted is convinced.

CBS
Source: CBS

Charlie knew off the bat that Dani was troubled like him and here he knows that the boy we are introduced to as ‘Nate Hastings’ is too.

Continue reading “Life with Charlie Crews: Episodes 9 & 10”

Life with Charlie Crews, Season 1: Episodes Seven and Eight

Episode 7 “A Civil War”, and Episode 8 “Farthingale”

As we follow Charlie Crews’ exploits as detective non grata on the LAPD bizarro homocide beat, with every episode of Life, we get another puzzle piece clicked into place in Charlie’s picture of who framed him and took away so many years of his life. This time the puzzle pieces were more personal than ever. We got a couple of major reveals about Charlie’s partner Reese.

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Now, decades and decades of watching police procedural drama have taught me nothing if not the incontrovertible fact that partners have to rely on each other through thick and thin. Partners sharing a car and a beat have to have absolute trust in each other. Without trust they can’t possibly face the bad guys with an united front, without trust they can’t have each other’s back out in the field. Violations of that trust between partners is a breeding ground for some good drama in police stories.

Continue reading “Life with Charlie Crews, Season 1: Episodes Seven and Eight”

Life with Charlie Crews, Season 1: Episodes Five and Six

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Charlie Crews and me: I confess I did not watch Life as closely as I did Homeland or Billions earlier. I kept it in my stash for a long time and my husband and I then binge-watched both seasons in a couple of weeks with no real opportunity to digest it. That is why I fell in love with Holliedazzle’s idea to re-visit this fantastic show and dive deep into it the moment I heard about it!

Crime fiction and me: I had a phase in my childhood that I told everyone I would become a detective when I grew up! It probably started with Charlie’s Angels at a young age, continued with Magnum P. I. and peaked with Murder, She Wrote. I also religiously read Agatha Christie. Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple together sealed the deal for me.

Los Angeles and me: I confess L.A. is not my cup of tea. Having said that, I always love films and shows that display the city they are filmed in with its good, bad and ugly and Life is no exception. In fact, the wide variety it has in all things makes Los Angeles the perfect setting for the show.  Continue reading “Life with Charlie Crews, Season 1: Episodes Five and Six”