This episode starts with the murder of an extremely wealthy, older man and his beautiful, young wife finding his body. Cal’s ex-wife Zoe (Jennifer Beals) takes on the defense’s case when the so-called black widow is charged with her late husband’s murder. Lightman seems to be working for the defense and states that the woman (Clara) is hiding something.
At the very beginning of the episode there is a great moment where Zoe says “I’d like to speak with my ex-husband in private, if that’s all right”. Lightman’s expression of a very over-exaggerated social smile is priceless.
Lightman also does a great half smile with disgust expression at around 3:42 that lasts about 3 or 4 seconds. Hope people caught that. If not, you can see both moments here:
There is also a moment at the beginning of the show were Cal speaks about Clara: “I mean really, she is pushing those tears out really. I mean, she’s faking it”. Its important to note that macroexpressions last the longest on the face (1/2-4 seconds) and are also the easiest expressions to fake:
A dramatic, witty and humorous, but totally unrealistic court scene ensues, with Lightman eventually getting kicked off the stand by the judge. While outside the courtroom Lightman creates a diversion so that he can get into a room alone with Clara. Beal walks in just as Lightman is questioning the suspect and throws Lightman in jail, but releases him after her tells her that her client is in fact, innocent.
Back at the Lightman office, Gillian is working with the son of the murdered man and seems to suspect some suspicious behavior. Lightman proceeds to hook Clara up to a device and notices that she feels contempt toward the son, Damien and also anger towards her friend, Tonya. The crew brings Damien back to the office while Lightman makes out with Clara purposely to get his reaction. Damien shows what looks to be a brief sign of sadness (inner brows drawn up and together slightly, although this isn’t explained in the show):
An intense altercation between the Clara and Damien occurs, with anger flaring up between the two. The actors did a great job of working off each other’s emotions, which often happens in real life as well. When people are angry, they are more vigilant to other people’s anger and feed off of it. Therefore, tensions usually escalate to the point where people can’t remember what they were first arguing about.
The story takes another turn in court when Victor’s (the deceased) close friend testifies that Clara had been stealing $90,000.00 out of Victor’s bank account every month. Lightman confronts Clara’s friend, Tonya, and finds out that Tonya had been blackmailing her. There is a curious expression from Tonya at the end, along with a picture of another girl and Paris Hilton, but not sure exactly what those are trying to depict. The closest thing could be shame, although there is no scientific proof that there is a universal expression of shame.
Lightman’s team figures out the Leo, Victor’s close friend must have killed Victor. If Clara gets convicted, Leo stands to gain millions of dollars. Lightman states that Leo “flashed regret” when Lightman told him he killed his friend, but its important to note that there is no scientific evidence backing up that statement.
While on the stand, we come to find out the Leo was hiding a deep secret of his friends- that he was dying from a brain disease and had asked his friend to kill him. Leo claims that Victor left a video explaining the situation, which Clara sees at the end of the episode back at Lightman’s office.
Overall this episode was clever, entertaining and one of our favorites. What did you think?
At about minit 21 of the show they are analising the woman on the chair at the Lightman Group and discovers she shows contempt on her face. Is she really showing contempt? Because I can’t see the corner of her mouth going to side of her face and it looks more like anger.
Greetings from Netherlands 🙂
Laguna, I had a hard time seeing the contempt as well. It looked as though her lips were more puckered. Contempt would be a tightening only on one side of the lip corner, similar to a smirk and is a sign of moral superiority over someone or something.
I feel that the way they use picture is sometimes missleading. Im referring to the scene with Lightman and Tonya that is brought up here. What i mean is that that pictures are context bound.
For example, the picture of Paris Hilton was from when she went to prison. Wich is a completely different situation from the one Tonya is in. Wich i would say would not produce the same emotions.
My interpretation of Tonyas expression, given the context, was not shame. I like to play and watch poker and i have seen that look a few times. Most of the time its when someone is faced with a large unexpected raise. Becasue it was unexpected, they dont have a countestrategy. And then you can see this because their toughts are spinning thinking of what to do.
Lightman just showed that he recorded the conversation. She had just said that “Claire’s life was suppose to be hers”. She knows that looks like a motive. Then it looks like the expression i described above. To me it looks like someone’s toughts spinning around. Because the sudden unexpected turn of the situation (Lightman recording). Until that moment she had the possebility of denial to any of Lightmans accusations.
I agree its a strange expression in this situation. But to me shame does not fit either.
It seems more natural she would show fear of being caught on tape with what she said. With the risk of going to prison.
I thought this episode was a great one as well. In the beginning scene I thought Victor might have been unhappy about something because he looked like he was showing contempt around 0.23…maybe even subtly in other parts. After watching the end, the puzzle fit together. I also thought the coroner had something to do with it in the scene showing Victor’s death. He had an expression that looked like duping delight or contempt but I guess that guy just loved his job or he was concentrating on something.
Could the interaction where Lightman created a diversion fit into the dangerous demeanor product? I had a feeling an attack or situation was going to happen.
That’s what I thought about Lightman’s diversion too, but the expression the guy was showing didn’t match what I’ve seen in Eckman’s book, although that research wasn’t complete at the time I don’t think, and his examples were from quite a few years ago.
I suspect that’s what the director was aiming for, but poetic license had to be taken because it’s not clear what should be shown in that situation.
Who is the actress who played Clara?
The acting in this episode seemed to be over-the-top. It’s like they were having a hoot through the whole shoot. Roth in particular seemed almost drunk, definitely goofy, and as if he has Parkinson’s. I was left wondering if the cast received feedback that the show was too serious and they needed to lighten it up.
Who is the other girl pictured right before Paris Hilton in this episode?