'Lie to Me': That's some eventful wedding

Every wedding creates a certain amount of stress in a family. In the words of Lie to Me's Cal Lightman: the bride's pretending to be a virgin, the groom's pretending he's found "The One," and the in-laws are pretending to like each other. But usually, no one has to worry about an attempted murder.

Involuntary expression of emotion, indicating spoilers...

This week, the Lightman Group has been called in to help with security for a wedding: the son of the Korean ambassador is getting married. The ambassador recently announced that he's running for president, and there's been some chatter that there may be an attempt on his life while he's here. We open with Cal walking a group of Secret Service agents through the kinds of expressions that indicate that someone's about to commit a premeditated crime: brows drawn down, raising of upper eyelids, tightness under the eyes. The Secret Service is handling the wedding itself; the Lightman team is going to be walking around during the reception, scrutinizing the guests' facial expressions for signs of anger, anxiety, or resentment. Yeah, that should be a blast.

But Cal and Gillian do notice a couple of things. First, the ambassador's bodyguard is packing a big ol' .45. Second, the bodyguard offers the groom a very shallow bow, as though they're equals. Something's up. And while I would never advocate violence at a wedding, I have to say I'm not sorry that it happened during the bride and groom's sappy video. That alone would make me anxious, angry and resentful. Cal spots the expression on the guest's face as he jumps up to attack, and he gets wrestled to the ground. The groom gets shot and is whisked off to the hospital, and the rest of the party is on lockdown. But the offender isn't the one who shot -- he's a self-immolator, who'd planned to set himself on fire to protest any possible Korean unification.

Which leaves a whole lot of guests, a suspect at large and several people who are hiding things. Ria turns up the best man, who's angry at the groom over his gambling problem and the $5,000 he loaned him. Phoebe, the son's new wife, thinks the gambling's no longer a problem, but the ambassador paid off all of his son's debts, so that's out as a motive. The bodyguard, Cal finds out rather dramatically, is definitely resentful of the groom -- it turns out they're brothers and the ambassador basically doesn't acknowledge him. The bodyguard tells a story about Phoebe meeting some guy shortly before the wedding, which raises antennae about what she's up to and why. I really like this twist, actually -- it would have been really easy to make the brother/bodyguard the culprit and just drag it out for an extra 20 minutes.

Watching the wedding video, Cal and his team spot Phoebe's discomfort during the vows as she says her name. Turns out she's a bit of a mystery -- there's no family at the wedding, no close friends, and no one there has known her more than four years. But even with that, there's no wedding guest on tape who's giving off any signs of homocidal feelings. Which means he was probably behind the camera.

Cal confronting the videographer in question is really masterfully acted. I love Tim Roth anyway, but he seriously has a way of getting in people's faces that pretty much assures that they're going to lunge at him. Which the guy does after Cal describes the anger he felt when he found out that Phoebe had found someone new to replace him. Turns out that they were married, back four years ago when Phoebe was known as Carla DeMaio and they lived in Michigan. She left him, moved to DC, changed her name and pretended as though her old life hadn't happened. The ex-husband is ex-military, and was able to disassemble his gun and remachine the parts to look like camera equipment, which is how he smuggled them in.

But despite Phoebe's confession, the son's gambling debts, and the attempted murder, all may not be lost. The groom, out of surgery at the hospital, is awake and asking for his new bride.

In addition:

• We've firmly established that Gillian's husband is a big fat lying dog -- Ria spotted that immediately and Cal acknowledged it as well, but is keeping his mouth shut. And bravo to Cal for calling the guy out on it, nailing him for lying about being on a phone call to his boss when it was clear he was involved in a, ah, personal conversation. And bravo, I guess, to Cal for pulling back and keeping his powder dry and not telling Gillian. My questions: First, how long is that realistically likely to last? Second, how big a gigantic idiot is Gillian's husband to try to pull one over on her when she's an expert on telling when people are lying -- and when everyone she works with is a human lie detector too? Almost too stupid to even be acknowledged, I say, and certainly not good enough for Gillian. Loved Cal's protectiveness of her at the end.
• Because Gillian really is very endearing: "I love weddings. They're such a beautiful celebration of love and hope. Plus there's cake!"
• Liked Ria's chemistry with Carl the Secret Service guy. Would love to see her have her own storyline. Also really liked that we got to see a toned down, (mostly) serious Eli at work this week.
• The opening video that Cal showed the agents was in Cali, Columbia. Seriously? No one could've copy edited or at least consulted an atlas and spelled it correctly: Colombia?

What did you think? Did you think you had it figured out long before the end? Were you right?

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