Life on Mars: Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing in the Shadows? (Episode 104)

Different planes of existence between parallel dimensions - the you now, the you then and the you coming down the pike - sometimes your wires get crossed and your worlds mix and things don't feel right.

A pretty young woman in a red dress is crying when she is distracted from her own pain by the sound of her little boy calling her. As she sings her son to sleep, he lets go of his toy and it nicely segues into a mechanical robot-thing that zips into Sam's ear.

I'd make the obligatory bugged joke, but trust me, weirder and more disturbing things happen in this episode.

Hmm... Sam likes to have a few drinks before bed (Or he's a complete slob and doesn't recycle. Did New York have recycling programs in the 1970s?). He wakes up from his disturbing dream and snarks at President Nixon who is on the tv probably denying some criminal activity We get another blatant sign of the writers' agenda when Nixon is replaced by George W. Bush and the news anchor commenting that 'we as a nation are addicted to oil.'For the record, oil has been the lowest per barrel in more than a year.

Sam takes us on a quick montage through New York when  a plot device rides her bike past Sam singing the same song that the lady in red yes, I know most of us know who she is, but let's keep the illusion with us for now, ok? sang to her son.

Sam chases the plot device and runs into a young woman being bullied/abused/intimidated by a greasy man. Sam does his  vigilant cop thing and cuffs the guy. Sam goes to return her hat when he is hit by a massive realization - The lady is his mother.

Cue Stricken look Cue stricken look and Sam-angst. Sam drags the man into the One-twenty-five despite his and his girlfriend's protests. Nicholas Profaci greets the cops and random cop guy (aka not Chris, Ray or Gene) try to tell Sam something, but Sam is riding high on the wave of righteousness well, if you went back in time and rescued your mom from a bad guy, wouldn't you?

Random note: Chris is still the prettiest of them all.

Sam takes his mom, Rose Tyler...

Fine, I'll wait for you all to stop laughing. It's totally six degrees of separation. My math was:

LOM US ---> redone from LOM ---> original Sam = John Simm ----> played the Master in Doctor Who ----> Rose Tyler!!!

The writers are totally getting comfortable with their intepretation of the show if they're doing little not subtle homages.

Sam takes Rose aside and stares creepily at her then walks off. I've got to say, Jason O'Mara really handled that scene very well.

Sam finds Nicholas having a drink with  Ray and Gene. To top that off, Rose walks out of the station.

Ray and Nicholas share a friendly gambling conversation and Ray's hair is looking very perky this episode. Sam threatens Nicholas and Gene walks up to break up the intimidation session. Sam gets the lowdown on the relationship between Nicholas and the cops. It goes like this:

Nicholas works for Elliot Casso, the big gangster on the block. The cops play nice with Casso, Casso gives them bribes tips about the rest of the criminal element that don't work for Casso.

Witness further the disillusionment of Sam. he ain't seen nothing yet Annie gives Sam two unsolved homicides - two young women who were last seen with Profaci turned up dead. They worked at Casso's club.

Sam who totally thinks he's pursuing the case gets Rose Tyler's I cannot stop snickering when I type up that name address and visits her. We, of course, know differently.

Sam looks appropriately freaked by being in one of his childhood apartments. Mama Rose offers Sam coffee while Sam continues to look freaked out. Insert obligatory Star wars reference.

Holy crap, the dialogue for this scene is lifted wholesale from the original show.

Sam attempts to conduct an interview but gets sidelined by his own angst and his Freudian/Oedipal/take your pick issues. Turns out Mom Rose wants her husband to stay home more often and borrowed money from a loan shark.

Oh, and she finally notices Sam staring creepily at her.

Time for Sam's mother issues! and Jason O'Mara's Irish accent Again, props to O'Mara for this scene.

Scene change. Gene tells Sam they're going to Casso's club. Sam immediately plans the itinerary which includes beating the crap out of Profaci and questioning him about the two dead women. Gene tells him that no, they're going to make nice with Profaci and Casso.

Club scene! The dancers' hair could give Ray's hair competition for breath and perkiness, but Ray's hair is putting up a good fight.

This is also the time when Sam gets to see Annie out of uniform and down her dress. It's a cute dress.

Sam doesn't get to appreciate Annie's charms as he's herded up to meet Casso. Casso puts out his hand and Sam gives Gene a look of "Do I have to?"

Sam refuses to apologizes and there's an awkward moment with Casso, Profaci, Tyler and Hunt as they try to integrate the new player into their game of corruption, especially when the new player won't play nice.

Sam, well, Sam doesn't accept the situation. It looks like he's letting  it slide for now. He accepts a cigar and the hand of Adrienne, a brunette in a mauve mini dress. I totally want her shoes.

Sam runs into Annie who dances in front of him. He's distracted by a guy who looks like he came straight out of the '90s, complete with plaid and the obligatory Nirvana 'Nevermind' t-shirt. 

Sam hears the beeping of monitor and we get a funny lesson in cultural dissonance. In the '70s Nirvana was part of Buddhist philosophy, nowadays it's Kurt Cobain.

Sam's distracted by seeing Joe Namath and as he goes over to fanboy, he runs into Jim Croce and fanboys him instead.

Sam, who obviously never read any Ray Bradbury, tells Croce to avoid small airplanes .

The awesome fanboy moment is ruined by Profaci trying to pay off Sam. Sam obviously turns down the cash and is thoroughly mocked by Gene.

Writer homage number two: Get It On by Marc Bolan begins playing in the background

Sam is convinced by Annie's cleavage and starts dancing. We get to be horrified by Gene dancing. Is he pogo-ing?

Sam wakes up in his flop to see Windy pouring herself a glass of milk. She's impressed by him meeting Jim Croce and not by him meeting his mother. Windy gives him her theory, which is this week's quote. I love Windy, but I don't think she exists anywhere except in Sam's head.

Or she's really and constantly high. Take your pick.

She offers all that advice for a glass of milk? Windy works cheap!

Sam, who is more confused than reassured by Windy's theories, proceeds to stalk his mother, dragging Chris along for the ride.

Chris thinks Mom Rose is kinda foxy and Sam reacts like every man would when another guy thinks their mom is hot. At least he didn't say, "Dude, that's my Mom!

You know, considering Rose said the family was short on cash, why is she carrying dry cleaning? Dry cleaning is expensive.

Sam talks to his mom and finds out that Profaci has given her three days instead of three weeks to pay back the $1,000. Yeah, that may not sound like a lot, but this was the '70s and factor in the inflation, etc. etc. and I'm sure that today's number would be... a lot of money.

Btw, Rose? Your accent is slipping.

Sam gets woobie again as he talks to his mom and furthering his too-good-to-be true persona, promises to take care of her.

Rose walks away and Sam sees the red dress. He talks to Annie about the memories inspired by the dress and Annie pragmatically tells Sam that he's suffering from the classic Oedipal complex with a dash of Freud. Sam is totally grossed out.

Sam's disillusionment with his childhood fantasy about his mom continues and Annie offers Sam a way to save his mother - go after the killer of the two women who worked in Casso's club.

As if Sam doesn't haven enough women in his life, he now gets Adrienne knocking on his door sporting a black eye. She gives him a sob story about Profaci hitting her because she wasn't interested in sex And who would? Her sob story works on Sam and he invites her into the flop and makes her a grilled cheese sandwich with an iron while they talk about time travel physics.

Sam attempts to interrogate Adrienne who avoids the question then tells Sam that she used her looks and body to clear her father's debt.

She then lifts the heavy moment by taking off her dress.

Sam is shoved into a tight corner when Annie calls asking why she's been stood up by her movie buddy. Adrienne doesn't help by cheerfully talking to Sam at the same time.

Sam escapes the phone call and then explains to Adrienne that he's involved with someone. We're supposed to think it's Annie, but then it twigs that he's talking about Maya Really,
has anyone even thought about her for the last couple episodes? Sam, attempting to be a gentleman, goes to sleep in his chair and takes a drink.

We're then treated to a very deeply disturbing montage/flashback.

Sam's either:

On his bed being ridden hard by Adrienne.

On his bed being ridden hard by Annie

Seeing Richard Nixon.

Seeing Vietnam.

Seeing his mom in the red dress calling for him.

Giving figurative birth to tiny robots via his mouth.

Watching Gene dance the tango with his mother.

And I never want to  see HK dance ever again and please kill that moustache before it does something really, really evil.

Oh, and ew to seeing your mom while having sex at the same time.

After going on the trip of a lifetime without leaving his home, Sam wakes up naked and cuffed to his bed.

Only to be found by Ray. Ray and Ray's hair are estatic to see Sam in this position and that was not a slashy statement despite how it was worded. Ray gloats as only Ray can gloat and once again gets the best lines in the show:

"[she] blasted you into outer space to explore the vast reaches of her crab nebula."

Yeah, it's insulting, but come on, that's an awesome line despite the suggestion that Adrienne is diseased.

Ray, in a rare show of camradrie, tells Sam that he's been had by the classic honey trap where Adrienne dosed him, sexed him up and took blackmail pics.

This is probably the nicest we've seen Ray. The bonding moment is destroyed by Annie walking in to see sam in the altogether. Love how Sam glances down - what? Was he afraid his penis might have a say in the matter?

I'm disappointed we didn't get an ass shot but this is network tv.

Sam confronts Adrienne and makes her feel like dirt by pointing out the obvious.

Gene and Casso walk in together and Casso and Sam grow at each other. Gene scoops Sam out of the club and Sam finally tells Gene the truth about his 'relationship' with Casso.

Gene might be in bed with Casso, but he does clean up after his boys. He gives Sam the photos.

Sam gives Rose money to pay off the loan, but his mom refuses the money and twitches a lot. Her accent also slips.

Sam goes home to find a note from Adrienne slipped under his door. She has decided to walk away from her current life and reach for a new 'beautiful life.' As an apology, she tells Sam where Casso keeps his drugs and gives him the negatives. Well, the feds got Capone on tax evasion.

Seriously, why is it when we see Sam asleep it's with a beer or two? Anyway, Sam is woken up by Chris who tells him a girl has been fished out of the river.

Sam totally thinks it's his mom, but as we all probably know, it's Adrienne.

Ray reverts to self and blames Sam for Adrienne's death. Sam throws it back on him by saying Ray (and by extension, Gene) didn't do their jobs because they were in bed with Casso.

Gene looks shifty in the background and decides to share a story of his younger  days as a patrol cop.  Harry O'Brien was a cop on the take. Eddie, another young shiny cop ratted Harry out. The thin blue line tightened around Eddie's neck and Eddie shot himself.

Gene on the other hand kept his mouth shut and tries not to think about it. But his conscience, aka Sam, has made him think about and it's not pleasant.

It only took a while, but finally Gene is ready to take Casso down.

The men go the club (where 'Get It On' is playing again) and bust into Casso's office. Sam finds Adrienne's bag and Gene takes Profaci  into custody while Casso blusters on and on. Aw, poor Casso, no one told him about the change in the rules.

Just as Sam was riding high on Casso's and Profaci's arrests, his disillusionment is finally complete when he sees Rose in the red dress. Turns out she was going to pay off her debt the good old fashioned way - on her back.

Sam has a complete look of betrayal on his face and can barely look at his mom. In fact, at the end of the conversation, he can't look at her.

Casso annd Profaci are hauled through the club signalling the end of an era.

Sam apologizes to Annie for his indiscretion but Annie throws him a curveball by telling him that she imagined seeing him naked under completely different circumstances.  Sam looks pleased and encouraged by that.

Gene sits on the boot of his car in front a fire having a drink. This is paralleled by Rose with the opening scene of the show. I'm not sure if it's a pairing of redemption with Rose's realization how low she was willing to sink to save her family.

It is nice to see that Gene never spent the money as he proceeds to toss roll after roll of cash into the fire.

Btw, that slide of the car isn't so much 'I have the weight of the world on my shoulders' but more 'my hips hurt.' What, you didn 't think I was going to finish this recap and not make an age-crack? We're left with Sam walking through the night with a smile on his face for a job well done.