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In this third episode, and the strongest thus far, Sam and the gang investigate the death of Robert Reeves, a special forces Vietnam vet, who was found beaten to death near a park. Two decades before “Don’t ask, don’t tell” the officers soon learn that Reeves was gay, despite having a wife and young son who waited for him at home.

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“I believe in the curly-cue whimsy of fate. Everything is connected.”

Those words, spoken by Sam’s neighbor Windy (Tanya Fischer), seem to sum up this show – and Sam realizes this a little more each week.

Life on Mars also gets better each week as we embed ourselves in 1973, only 35 years in the past, but a lifetime for many.

The show’s defining dialogue alerts us to that regularly.

For instance, when Sam (Jason O’Mara) mentions that the vets coming home from Vietnam were fighting for the freedom for the “hippies” to protest, he says that if we didn’t have that freedom, we might as well live in Iran.

Ray responds: “Iran? What’s Iran got to do with it?”

While investigating in a gay bar, Sam shocks Lt. Gene Hunt (Harvey Keitel) by telling him that Rock Hudson is gay (a fact that won’t be known for another decade). Hunt’s response?

“Tyler, you sicken me. The Rock? He was doing things to Doris Day that you could only dream of. What’s the matter with you?”

In this third episode, and the strongest thus far, Sam and the gang investigate the death of Robert Reeves, a special forces Vietnam vet, who was found beaten to death near a park.

Two decades before “Don’t ask, don’t tell” the officers soon learn that Reeves was gay, despite having a wife and young son who waited for him at home while he was engaged in war.

When the detectives go to tell Reeves’ wife and son that he’s dead, Det. Ray Carling (Michael Imperioli) grabs Annie “No Nuts” Nelson to go along.

“Saddle up there, No Nuts,” Carling says. “The deceased had a kid. We’re gonna need that dewy-eyed doo doo that only you do.”

One of the best scenes of the episode comes when Sam is trying to convince Hunt that Reeves was gay, and the fact that he hung out at a gay bar with a gay accountant added to that suspicion.

A stunned and indignant Hunt responds: “Robert Reeves was a war hero and a family man. Is this the way you want his son to remember him? …Because he had a drink with his accountant, that makes him queer? I once shared an ice cream cone with a midget. Does that make me four-foot tall?”

But the suspicions are correct, and the investigation surprisingly lags at one point when Carling decides that hunting down the killer of a gay man isn’t his top priority. Hunt sets him straight, and they proceed.

It’s revealed that Reeves had an affair with a senior male officer while overseas. And when Reeves wanted to further that relationship back home, the officer wanted no part – killing Reeves when he made an advance.

In the meantime, Sam still tries to understand his time travel and why he’s in 1973. Through some of the show’s mystical twists, he ends up in his old neighborhood and even his old bedroom.

And at the end, Sam comes face to face with…himself.

This was the best episode so far, and based on the previews, they’re going to get better!

Keep watching.

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