Lights Out: "Cakewalk"

A review of Lights Out's second episode coming up after the jump...


There were two running themes throughout “Cakewalk”: consequences and secrets. On the side of consequences, Lights was taken to jail for assaulting the dentist. His begins to feel pressure from his financial woes, and his wife's car gets repo'd. Death Row claims that his challenge issue to Lights is based on Lights claiming victory five years ago. And due to his mishandling of the dentist job, Lights is pulled in even deeper with Hal Brennan.

It is this last point that drives a majority of the episode, while also serving as the first of many secrets. Johnny has an affair with the wife of the Carpet King, a man for whom Lights is doing endorsements. Theresa throws herself into Lights shady business by offering to falsify an alibi concerning the dentists assault. One of the cops who escorts Lights to jail turns out to be in Brennan's employ. Lights tries to keep all of his troubles out of media. Light's daughter finds out about Lights' affliction, and she is sworn to secrecy.

But lets return to Lights' latest job for Brennan. He must drop off a “birthday cake” (i.e. a box of hush money) to a city official under the guise of a kid's birthday party. This causes many problems, as he not only misses his youngest daughter's recital, but his car get broken into by the man who passed off the “cake” to him. Nor does appear as if Lights' plunge into the criminal world in over, now that the purveyor of the bakery has been shot by...somebody.

If all of this seems like a lot, it was, especially in the first half, before we had the cake job to tie everything together. Though some of the plot points are obviously set up for later in the season, others are ongoing, and with all of this going on, the episode lost the some of the focus that was present in the pilot.  All of these plot lines are on some level interesting, but with so many interesting plot lines coming to the viewer almost simultaneously, it can be hard to feel invested in all - or possibly any - of them.

Some of the loss of focus also exists for Lights as a character. Last week, we were introduced to a man who was barely able to keep the anger inside of him from boiling outward. There are two instanced of this in the pilot – Lights smashes the model of the property he hopes to develop, and he mercilessly beats on a rookie in the ring – but for the most part he seem to be reacting to the world around him, instead of acting on his own accord. This means that as a character he has lost of the interesting allure that he had in the pilot.

There is one final flaw, thought this lies not so much with the episode but with the state of the series currently. We, as an audience, know that Lights will eventually end up in the ring with Death Row, and this will obviously take over a majority of the plot lines at some point. But the question still remains: When? Now, many shows in the past have used to the inevitable events of the future to create tension in the present. But unfortunately, Lights Out isn't doing that, and so we are stuck watching, waiting just how deep the shit goes before Lights has no choice but to enter the ring. I for one hope that this arc clears itself up quickly.


Additional Thoughts: 

-Okay, I thought that the opening credits sequence was pretty cool. Any other opinions?

-”How mad was she?” “Uh, a couple of Chardonnays?”

- Okay, how many different ads am I going to have to see for Justified before the second season premieres? I almost can't take it at this point.