Episode Guide

Season 5

Episode 60- Those Lips, Those Lies


The Case

There really isn't one, but Maddie and David agree to help out Richie, David's brother. It seems that he's fallen in love and is engaged. He and his fiancee Carla want to open up a restaurant and he asks David (and Maddie) to find Carla's former business partner (Benny Largo) who embezzled all of Carla's money and disappeared. Richie thinks he can convince the guy to give the money back.
David doesn't want to help Richie. He's tired from all the surveillance on the Anselmo case he's been doing. He also doesn't believe that Richie is really in love, and would rather spend time on a case that Blue Moon is geting paid for. After a heartfelt speech from Richie, David agrees to help.
David finds out that Carla ran a prostitution ring and sets up a meeting for Richie with Benny Largo (who will think Richie is David). David later discovers that there is a hit on Benny Largo and they think David is the hit man. He rushes to save Richie from meeting with Benny so that Benny won't kill Richie. He arrives to see the paramedics put a dead body in the ambulance. Thinking Richie is dead, David starts beating on Benny Largo. Richie shows up (the dead body was the pizza guy) and both Richie and David end up in jail for the fight. Richie decides he has to ask Carla to marry him and asks Dave to be his best man. Richie goes to ask Carla and they all find out that more than just the engagement ring was fake.

What's Really Going on Chris?

Maddie enters David's office to find him face down asleep on his couch. She starts to rub his back (and Maddie seems to really enjoy doing it) and thank him for all of his hard work on the Anselmo case lately. She suggests that he take a vacation, but then David walks in (asking if she'd be coming with him) from his bathroom. It turns out she was rubbing Richie's back!
While searching for Benny Largo at modeling agencies, David realizes what an "easy" job modeling is. He teases Maddie about leaving the profession, saying that she talked to the wrong career counselor to end up driving around looking for someone for free. At one of the modeling agencies, they need an "average" guy and David fits the bill. He gets his shot to see how "easy" it is. Later, Maddie reminds David they are supposed to meet Richie for dinner to meet Carla and she tells David how lucky he is to have a brother. As an only child, she always wished for a sibling. She accuses him of being unfeeling toward Richie. David replies that just because they share memories, doesn't mean that he and Richie are close. He tells her, "you can't chew over the past with someone and stay close. Hell, look at me and you."
At dinner they meet Carla. David wants to tell Richie about Carla's past, but Maddie doesn't think he should. He does anyway and it turns out Richie knew, he just didn't tell Dave and Maddie. Dave and Richie fight and Maddie attempts to break it up but gets caught rolling on the floor with them. On the way home Maddie tells David that she thinks that he is jealous of Richie's happiness and that he wants to ruin it. He denies this and she retorts that he has a problem and is trying to find obstacles to Richie's happiness. David points out the irony in Maddie saying this (a reference to his belief that she was always finding obstacles to happiness in their relationship.) Maddie tells David that he is jealous that Richie can do what David can't. David mocks Maddie and her implication that "David is afraid of intimacy."
After Richie proposes and finds out the truth. David tells Maddie not to wait up for him (presumably to give him a ride home) and chases after Richie. They wander the streets of LA drowning Richie's sorrows, and end up passed out on a median.

Chris's Obsessive Analysis

Dave and Maddie are still rehashing their relationship and blaming each other for what went wrong. Is there still hope for them? If they really don't care, why do they keep bringing it up? Maddie seemed to get "hot and bothered" giving "David" the backrub. They still act like a couple and Richie and Carla treated them like one too. But are they? Maddie thinks that sharing a history can keep them close, but David disagrees.
What is with Maddie accusing David of being afraid of intimacy? It's true, after they lost the baby, David was the one ready to leave (for Virginia, remember?) He never did, because of the elevator, but if it hadn't broken he would have been gone. This is just one of the infuriating things that Maddie says that is partially true, but not really. Maybe she missed when he asked her out in "The Color of Maddie," "Plastic Fantastic Lovers" and "Shirts and Skins." Maybe she missed the pearls he gave her in "Take My Wife, For Example." I'd say that when a man gives a woman such an expensive and personal piece of jewelry, that is an intimate gesture. But that's just the point, Maddie isn't about feelings or gestures. They always have gone right over her head. She's all about thinking and words, and David did not say the words that I guess she thinks he should've said to get the "relationship" going again. She's waiting for him to say something to indicate that he's still in love with her, he's waiting for her to say or do anything to show she's still in love with him. But they're both too afraid the other one doesn't care anymore, so they don't say or do anything. I wish David had said something to her about the pot calling the kettle black. She obviously has intimacy problems too.
What's with David saying that they're not close anymore? I think David just meant that they're not as close as they were in that they're not having sex and/or saying they're in love anymore. This is just another example of Dave and Maddie not finishing sentences or thoughts and leaving things unsaid. They've been doing it since the beginning. If they would just finish those sentences or thoughts or say those unsaid things, things would be so much easier for them.
(Warning- the following is REALLY obsessive!) They've danced several times before but their dancing in this episode was different. In the past they danced closely like they were stuck to each other like velcro and flirted. This time they keep each other at arms length, discuss the Carla situation, and dance awkwardly while doing the "Cha-Cha." When they're done David admits he hates the cha-cha. Is this a signal that it is over between them, or is it a sign that they are both uncomfortable keeping each other at arm's length? The optimist in me prefers the latter.
David shows in this episode how much he really does care about Richie, despite all the complaining David does about him. The best David/Richie scene of the whole series is when they are in jail and David tells Richie about how he thought Richie was dead. They reminice, and David tells Richie about how he always wanted Richie's nickname from high school "Adman" because it was so cool. But once Richie graduated, no one ever called him that. Richie then asks "little Adman" to be his best man. It's a really nice scene, and they and up singing together.

Memorable Moments

Links

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