Lie to Me - "The Royal We"

by Jonathan Bredemeyer

(S03E02)

Great opening with Lightman knocking down the smoke detector after he burns toast from frustration from trying to write his book. Emily wants to help and tries writing the first line... which Lightman immediately changes to "Let there be Lightman."

Deaf intern girl makes her first appearance at the office as Lightman takes out his frustration on her by snapping at her bit, clearing Loker's desk, and sticking her at Loker's computer. Foster tries to make intros as he drives her guest away with smart-assness. In a rare appearance by the office admin, Lightman blackmails her into hacking into Foster's computer. Loker gets slightly annoyed as Cal put the deaf intern doing the red dot test at his desk...

Lightman heads off to the rehearsal of a beauty pageant to meet the pageant coordinator to vet the contestants. He notices the girl with an attitude towards her mom (pouring soda on herself on purpose), as he's told to leave by a mad dad. Foster and the coordinator show up as Cal pegs the seemly snotty girl as the favorite and predicting the cause of some future trouble. He continues to plead that the girl is screwing up deliberately and will cause trouble. Loker admits to job hunting to Torres as he searches for jobs on Lightman's laptop. (poetic vs pathetic justice... someone thinks they're clever.) The Lightman Group is doing 'preinterviewers' for the pageant. Lightman grills the Mom of 'attitude girl' and ticks her off pretty good. He then asks the girl if she's thought of suicide to which she says no but he spots as a lie. Next, he says it was abuse and they find a wicked bruise on her shoulder. The girl blames the pissed off dad from earlier which Lightman doesn't buy: "You just rang a bell you can't un-ring."

Lightman calls the 'dodgy' cop who's been drinking to scare the accused dad (Mr. Fletcher). Lightman makes fun of 'cop speak' as they briefly interview and then release the man. After a short exchange with the pageant coordinate, Lightman checks out Foster on the way out. He and Foster go to interview the mom and attitude girl and find no separation in their references to each other (the 'royal we,' perhaps?). They split the two to interview them separately: Lightman take the girl and entices her interest by stealing from the vending machine. (They're starting to add flashbacks to what Lightman sees in people...)

Back at the office, Admin makes an appearance again and Lightman asks if Loker has been at his desk. He smells him on his Mac and notices a missing pen. Attitude girl and her mom show up and this time they switch: Foster interviews the girl and Lightman and the mom watch from behind the glass. The girl tells a fake story of the Dad getting her alone and touching her. Lightman tells the mom shes enjoying her, lying in front of her. The pagent coordinator shows up all upset because two more girls have made the same accusations against Mr. Fletcher.

Cal and his dodgy cop show up to take Fletcher's daughter to social services. Someone has spray painted 'pervert' on the side of his motorhome. Fletcher now asks for 'Laura,' and Lightman starts the work of helping him prove his innocence. Fletcher mentions that Megan (attitude girl) did come by and attacked him with scissors. Lightman says Megan's getting what she wants. As Lightman and Fletcher rejoin the pageant people, Fletch takes a punch from a pissed-off dad of one of the girls accusing him.

Returning to the office, Loker apparently put deaf girl and boy on the red dot test for 10 hours to get back at Lightman (which he admits he's never finished). Torres has been going over footage of past pageants and discovers Megan's fake fall on the runway.

Lightman: "You know what causes that? Constant criticism and lack of affection."

Torres: "You mean how you treat Loker?"

Pause.

Lightman: "Who?"

At a meeting with the pagaent coordinator, Megan, and her mom, Lightman adds Fletcher and tries to convince the coordinator to disqualify Megan because 'pain is her drug of choice.' After refusing, Lightman exits with "enjoy the freakshow." Foster interviews the other accusers with the Dodgy Cop and discovers they are repeating the same story. D.C. gets a call about Megan going for a walk and not returning.

An angry mob has surrounded Fletcher's trailer. Loker shows up at the pageant site to confront Lightman about giving away his desk. Loker suggests one of the crowd knows where Megan is, as DC shows up. Fletcher's daughter is in intensive care and DC takes him to the hospital. After a 2nd badgering from Lightman, Loker returns his stolen pen.

Lightman goes to the hospital and waits in a hospital bed (where the injured girl is supposed to be) for Megan, who shows up and immediately gets close to him. After some taunting, he restrains her to find a piece of metal in her hand. She proceeds to show him the self-inflicted cuts on her leg. She threatens to claim Lightman attacked her if he tells, right before he throws back a curtain and reveals D.C and her mom.

Back at the fort (LG office), it's discovered the girls were reading Megan's mom's diary and repeating the attack story from there. Megan had been acting out her Mom's memories (She went to see Back to the Future...) from the diary in between pageants.

Now at the pageant stage, Lightman finds Megan dressed in her angel costume (ironically) up in the catwalk ready to jump. Lightman goes up and tries to talk her down by explaining that his mom killed herself. He explains he knows about the diary, and Megan finally breaks down and confesses to hating her mom's constant correction of her (hm... a dig at child pageant shows?). Lightman must convince her as Megan ends up competing in the pageant and getting second place, which pleases Megan and ticks off her mom (making Megan feel great).

Lightman gets the chance to comfort Megan's mom after the pageant and reveals he has her diary. Megan comes out and says she found it and wants to quit pageantry. The mom (still using the royal 'we'/'us' tense) protests and Lightman leaves. Returning to the office, Lightman plays soccer with the ball Fletcher sent him (being a soccer mom) in Foster's office. Torres tries to convince Loker that Lightman cleaned off Loker's desk because he wants him on the street, not behind a desk. Loker claims he applied for a job at the pentagon and will leave if he gets it. Torres is pissed.

Lightman returns home to Emily claiming she's warming dinner. Lightman actually opens up to her a bit (despite persistent urging from Foster earlier). Emily says she's writing a forward to his book as he starts dinner. He later sits down in the dark to begin Chapter 1 of his book for the third time. He starts with:

"Let me be clear. I understand very little, least of all the people closest to me."