Life on Mars Episode 1.03 Recap

Life on Mars Episode 1.03: “My Maharishi is Bigger Than Your Maharishi”

Airdate: Oct. 23, 2008

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We begin with Sam, Chris and Ray cutting through a park to get to a crime scene. The park brings back vivid memories for Sam, he remembers playing there as a child.

There’s a bunch of hippies there to see The Maharishi, a guy who passes for a brilliant philosophical leader. Ray really hates hippies. The murder victim turns out to be a Navy veteran, Robert Reeves. Chris and Ray explain to Sam that Lt. Hunt gets angry when vets are killed. I mean angrier than usual. They called it right, Hunt is not at all happy about this.

Ray, Sam and Annie meet with Robert’s wife. She remembers Robert got a call from an old squad mate, John Fisher. Sam and Annie try to console the victim’s 12-year-old son. Sam remembers his dad taking him to see the New York Knicks in the NBA Finals. That means Sam was living in New York in 1973! Sam now wants to track his past self down and see if that fixes things.

John Fisher is now a successful businessman but still resentful about not getting respect for his military service.  John says both he and Robert got spit on and hit.  John still has a limp because he got hit by shrapnel during the war. Sam and Ray see things differently, Sam defending protesters’ rights to do protest and Ray calling them an “unwelcoming committee.”

The detectives go to find Stickler, a vigorous anti-war protester. While they’re questioning him, Sam sees what appears to be his three-year-old self. He tries to track himself down but instead ends up surrounded by the Maharishi and his followers. The Maharishi lays “Now is all there is,” on Sam, who goes into some kind of trance.

The next day Windy visits Sam with coffee and Sam says he was calling around trying to find his family. In Robert’s car they find a business card from an accountant and talk to him. Lawrence Jones, the accountant, tells them Robert may have come into some money. Annie thinks Lawrence is gay and suggests Robert might have been as well. Hunt’s not buying that a gay man could be a war hero. Sam is shocked by the prejudice.

Annie and Sam talk to Robert’s son, Robbie, again. Sam describes one of his childhood memories in an attempt to comfort Robbie, but Sam realizes he’s describing 1973 as if it was 30 years ago. It turns out Robbie was trying to hide some cigarettes that were his dad’s. Sam notices an apartment building with three diamonds, like the symbol on the Maharishi’s head. He reenters the trance and is drawn to the building. He’s convinced that he and his family lived there when he was small. He remembers hiding his GI Joes in a Thom McCan box under the floorboards but when he looks there he instead finds girly toys and a photo of a black family.

Robbie’s matchbook is from a place that turns out to be a gay bar. The bartender says Robert frequented the place but he and Jones had no relationship. The bartender tells them thugs beat up the bar’s patrons all the time, so they decide to have Chris pretend to be gay and wear a wire. Ray walks off the case, saying he doesn’t care about crimes against gays. Hunt tells him murderers should be the priority, not prejudices.

Chris doesn’t get beat up too badly before the cops haul off his three assailants. The weakest one, Jimmy, cracks under the pressure. He tells the police they saw a man kissing Robert, but that man pushed him away and that man began punching Robert repeatedly before walking off – with a limp.

John Fisher is the killer and the police take him in. He and Robert had a relationship in Vietnam and Robert wanted to continue. John didn’t. Sam wants to tell Robert’s wife the truth but can’t bring himself to do so because Robbie enters the room.

Sam says he gets it now, he must believe this is all real. Then he sees his three-year-old self and dad on their way to a Knicks game.