Life on Mars Episode Recap: "Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing in the Shadows?"
This week on ABC's Life on Mars, Sam Tyler and the 125th Precinct found their latest murder victim pulled from the East River. In a far more interesting turn, Sam ran into his circa-1973 mom being roughed up by the local mob muscle. How would he deal with this interaction? What would you do if you uncovered your mom had another life you never knew about?
That's what happens with Sam Tyler in this episode. And it's a doozy. He meets up with his 1973 mom and discovers she's entangled with a loan shark and she was roughed up by the local hoodlum Pravacci wanting payment. Sam Tyler sure is living the surreal life.
Tyler's crew brings him to meet the big mob boss Elliott (played by borsch-belt comic Robert Klein) at his disco club to prove there are no connections. This club sure does look like last week's disco club scene. All is forgiven as Pravacci tries to pay off Tyler but Tyler refuses. As they all let loose on the dance floor, Elliot isn't happy about Tyler's refusal to take the money. Tyler flashes (a la Chuck) on a guy wearing a Nirvana T-shirt. Oh, and by the way, did you know Harvey Keitel could dance?
Adrienne, the pretty young thing Tyler met at Elliot's club, comes knocking at Tyler's door with a black eye and suitcase in tow. She tries to seduce him but being the righteous cop he is, he refuses. There's a moment of weakness in her character as she explains her back story and why she's essentially a hooker. He leaves her sleeping on his bed as he falls asleep on his chair (circa Pottery Barn 2008; I've recently been shopping for a chair so I can vouch for its authenticity). He bolts up in his chair and suddenly there are creepy things crawling out of his mouth and he's hallucinating about having sex with her, his mom, and Annie Norris. Flashes of Vietnam and Nixon fill the background. You know when you see Nixon it's got to be an LSD hallucination.
Tyler wakes up nude and in handcuffs. There's a bang on the door and Ray Carling busts in to make sure he's alive. He explains to Tyler it was all a set up. Tyler finds out that Adrienne took some lude photos so Elliott has ransom to keep Tyler in line like the rest of the cops. Tyler bravely confronts Elliott about the murders and Lieutenant Hunt about being a dirty cop. You would expect a bigger moment between Hunt and Tyler but it certainly raises the much needed drama factor. Adrienne, the con-girl, finally decides to make amends with her life and wants to get out of town. She returns the nude photo negatives to Tyler but ends up as another dead girl dragged out of the East River.
Tyler and Lieutenant Hunt have a moment at the foot of the dead girl. In his previous life, Hunt tells his back story of a parallel life as a new cop seeing another cop getting ratted out while he stayed silent. The righteous cop ended up committing suicide because of the pressure. Hunt admits it's always been eating at him. You know what happens next as the hour comes to a close. Wrapping things up in a very pretty episodic bow, the cops arrest the mob guys and make good. Despite a somewhat trite ending there was a great moment between Tyler's 1973 mom and Tyler as he sends her home to tell her son (him) she loves him. Do you think there will be more interactions between Tyler's 1973 life and his new self? What did you think about this episode?
