The Liar – Episode three begins with Eli (Billy Crystal) discussing his and Noah’s (Jacobi Jupe) most recent session with Jackson (Robert Townsend). After Jackson states the obvious, Eli mentions feeling as if Noah is trying to send him a message but he’s missing it. Despite this, he certainly doesn’t appreciate it when Jackson suggests that he might be looking for a message from Lynn (Judith Light). Things only appear to get worse when he returns home to work on Noah’s case and discovers the downstairs bathroom window open.

Denise (Rosie Perez) has a bit of a strange encounter of her own when Noah asks about all the testing at the hospital. She evasively tells him that there are some things they need to figure out before further distracting him with a lullaby. As Eli continues to work on Noah’s case, his notes suggest that his diagnosis is leaning toward PTSD or anxiety. At the same time, his strange visions/daydreams not only become more vivid but more frequent.

Eli later attempts to discuss these experiences with his Therapist (Julia Chan), but she almost teases him by bringing up his earlier claims of retirement. He takes this in stride and claims he is in the process of handing over his cases but it would be negligent to overlook a unique case like Noah’s. He doesn’t respond when she asks if he’s possibly making the case more interesting than it actually is. Despite this, he does acknowledge that he needs to confront Lynn’s death in order to move on.

During their next session, Eli gets Noah to recall and draw one of his earliest childhood memories while under hypnosis. Noah draws what appears to be a small child with a knife near his neck. Other than claiming that he hurt the child, Noah offers little more at the moment.

Eli continues to work with Cleo (Ava Lalezarzadeh) to uncover his and Noah’s past connection. They will, once again, fail which inspires Eli to focus Cleo’s efforts on tracking down the origins of the farmhouse photo. Later that evening Eli has dinner with Barbara (Maria Dizzia) and Sophie (Rebecca Ruane). This goes bad from the moment he arrives and Sophia asks if he brought grandma, Lynn, with him. Barbara carefully reminds her of Lynn’s death. The moment Sophie is gone, Eli admonishes the way Barbara handled the situation. This briefly escalates matters but eventually ends with him apologizing.

Despite Eli’s apology things continue to spin out of control at the dinner when Barbara not only brings up Sue Ann (Miriam Shor) and selling the home but walks in on him in the bathroom during one of his visions. At the same time, Noah appears to be visited by some type of invisible entity. Eli ends up rushing out of the diner when Sophie knocks his work to the ground and sees Noah’s earlier and points out that the knife at the boy’s neck is trying to kill the ‘bad thing.’

Eli immediately freaks when he arrives at the hospital to learn from Gail (Sakina Jaffrey) that Noah nearly drowned in a cup of water. Even worse, the doctors are treating the incident as a suicide attempt, meaning he will be put under higher security. Eli offers to take him but Gail instantly tells him that would not only be against policy but incredibly bad for his current state of mind. Despite this, Eli is granted a brief visit with Noah where he indicates that he knows Noah was trying to protect that other boy from the thing on his neck. Eli briefly returns to his swimming pool vision when Noah says that it was Eli who harmed him.

As troubling as Eli’s revelation is, it inspires him to share Lynn’s death with his Therapist. As soon as he shares the story, a vision of Lynn appears and indicates that he isn’t being completely honest. Much to his Therapist’s dismay, this leads to him running out of the office. The episode ends with memories, indicating that he strangled Lynn.

 

Before Review

I wish I could say that I was surprised with the way this is going, but unfortunately, I cannot. That said, I am almost betting that there are still several twists to come. Either Lynn agreed to him killing her to prevent suffering or he felt as if he was doing it out of love. Whatever the situation, I am enjoying the series. I wouldn’t by any means say that it is great but the short run time helps.

Despite the shorter runtime, most of the episodes could easily be shaved to anywhere from 18 to 20-minute episodes, but I am not that much of a stickler. I don’t really care for the way Noah’s situation is turning out. I’d give the episode a 5.2 out of 10.

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