Title: Life Born of Fire
Directed by: Richard Spence
Written by: Tom Mac Rae
Air Date: March 9, 2008
Previous: Music to Die For
Next: The Great and the Good
Guest Starring: Philip Battley, Rachael Stirling, Deborah Findlay
"Life Born of Fire" is the third episode of the second season of Lewis, aka Inspector Lewis in the United States.
A young man, Will McEwan, kills himself in St. Mark's Church, in the presence of the vicar, Rev. Francis King. Will's blood and brains splatter all over a flier for a Christian support group called The Garden. Detectives Lewis and Hathaway are summoned to the scene, only for Dr. Hobson to tell them that, yes, it was a suicide. However, the theatrical nature of Will's suicide, killing himself on a church altar after staging the flier, leads the cops to investigate further. It turns out that Will was gay. His suicide note was found written on the back of a photo of himself and his old boyfriend Feardocha Phelan—but no one can find Feardocha, who hasn't been seen since he left England for Brazil three years ago.
The investigation takes a turn when Rev. King is murdered via a hot poker shoved into his eyeball. The detectives discover that Rev. King was tied up with Lady Anna Hugh, the Chair of University Grounds, a homophobe who refuses to allow the scheduled gay pride march to proceed. King, Hugh, and an Oxford don named Dr. Melville were all involved with The Garden, which begins to look increasingly suspicious. That isn't the only connection: Will McEwan's father Henry, a local construction magnate, bribed Dr. King to sell a church that Henry has turned into a dance club.
Aside from everything else, DS James Hathaway has a personal connection to the case. Hathaway knew Will McEwan when they were schoolboys, but after teenaged James laughed at teenaged Will coming out as gay, the boys fell out. Upset at his old friend's death, Hathaway turns for comfort to Zoe Kenneth, Will's "girlfriend"—it seems that Zoe and Will were in love of a sort, but couldn't make it work due to Incompatible Orientation. Soon James and Zoe are developing feelings for each other.
In other news, Robbie Lewis is getting into gardening, and has gotten a plot in a community garden (an "allotment").
Tropes:
- Astonishingly Appropriate Interruption: As the detectives go to interview Henry McEwan, Hathaway says that while Will was "gentle and softly spoken," Henry was "a little bit more—" and is interrupted by Henry charging out of a building and screaming into his phone, "Listen, you dickless little inbred!"
- Call-Back: Lewis asks if Hathaway is gay, and Hathaway mocks him, saying that being straight must mean reading Loaded (a T&A men's magazine aka "lad mag") and eating Yorkies (a candy marketed in England as "a tough chocolate bar for truckers!"). At the end, when Lewis and Hathaway meet up, Hathaway is ostentatiously reading Loaded, and he hands Lewis a Yorkie.
- Camp Gay: Conan, Will's good friend, who leads the Gay Pride march that Lady Anna Hugh wanted to stop. When he's taken in for questioning he theatrically shouts "I killed them! I killed them all!", then brags about how he has a date that night with a 6'4" Brazilian.
- Cure Your Gays: "The Garden" turns out to be a 12-step program dedicated to turning gay people straight. Lady Hugh, Dr. Melville, and Rev. King, homophobes all, ran the group. Hathaway knew this all along, which enrages Lewis when he finds out. Will's guilt over his sexual orientation, and the abuse he suffered at the hands of The Garden, led him to kill himself.
- Dramatic Gun Cock: Will theatrically cocks the hammer of the gun he's pointing at Rev. King, before pointing the gun at his own forehead and pulling the trigger.
- Driven to Suicide: Will McEwan shoots himself on the altar of a church.
- Fish out of Water: Nova the lawyer uses this exact phrase to describe Lewis the straight cop, after Robbie shows up at the party after the Gay Pride march.
- Gayngst: Will's guilt and shame over his sexuality, which the disapproval of people like his father made worse and which The Garden made much worse, drove Will to kill himself.
- Gilligan Cut: Zoe tries to get James to go clubbing. Hathaway says "I can't. I really can't." Cut to Joe and James entering the nightclub.
- Hand of Death: Seen multiple times, as a mysterious gloved hand heats a poker to kill Rev. King, or wields the statue of Vulcan used to bash Lady Hugh's head in.
- Impairment Shot: Hathaway's blurry vision gradually clears in the hospital, as he wakes up and sees Lewis.
- Incompatible Orientation: Zoe Kenneth says that she and Will were in love but couldn't make it work because Will was gay, so "Romeo and Juliet turned into ''Will & Grace." The truth, when the detectives find it out, is much stranger.
- Meaningful Name: Zoë claims she's an expert on the meanings of names. It takes Lewis an absolute age to work out the significance of hers. It's a Title Drop—"Zoe Kenneth" actually means "life born of fire."
- Murder-Suicide: Zoe plans to end the episode's Roaring Rampage of Revenge by dying alongside Hathaway, the last and most sympathetic of the people partly responsible for Will's suicide.
- My Greatest Failure: Back when Lewis was a seminary student, Will McEwan, who hadn't talked to him for a while, went to him for advice. Will asked if James thought The Garden was a good idea, and Hathaway answered that people who engage in homosexual activity go to hell. As a result Will went back to The Garden and their Cure Your Gays "therapy", and disaster followed. Hathaway is deeply ashamed. This, in fact, is why he dropped out of seminary school.
- Never One Murder: As usual. Dr. Melville is poisoned by having magnesium sulfate injected into his IV drip (Melville was dying of cancer), and Lady Anna Hugh gets her head bashed in with a Vulcan statue.
- Pay Evil unto Evil: Zoe, murdering all the people who were responsible for Will's suicide thanks to their Cure Your Gays therapy.
- Pop-Cultural Osmosis Failure: Dr. Hobson sees Lewis coming to the crime scene alone, and wonders where Hathaway is. She then says she almost called him "your Mini-Me", but she thought he wouldn't get "the pop-culture reference." Lewis scoffs, saying "Don't be daft. Even I've seen The Italian Job."
- Rage Against the Reflection: Hathaway thumps his mirror, though it isn't damaged. His friend, whose funeral he is getting dressed for, was gay, and Hathaway had given him homophobic advice that had led to his eventual suicide.
- Roaring Rampage of Revenge: The killer, Zoe, is murdering everyone she holds responsible for Will's suicide.
- Sex for Solace: Hathaway's slightly inebriated decision to get into bed with Zoe comes after the suicide of an old friend that he was partly, if innocently, responsible for and a bad falling-out with Lewis. Unfortunately, Zoe is a serial killer avenging the suicidal friend's death and tries to kill him
- Smart People Play Chess: Naturally, the hyper-intellectual James Hathaway has a chess set out in his apartment.
- Swiss Bank Account: Rev. King was receiving payments from a Swiss bank account, so the detectives can't trace it. They discover that Will was taking a lot of money out of his own bank account, so they wonder if maybe King was blackmailing Will. (As it turns out the payments are unrelated.)
- That Man Is Dead: Zoe always speaks of Feardocha as if he is dead.
- Theme Serial Killer: The killer, who uses the phoenix symbol and various items related to fire, like killing someone with a statue of Vulcan, the Roman god of fire. Lampshaded by Lewis:Hobson: The Phoenix Killer strikes again.Lewis: Phoenix Killer...do I have to start calling him that?
- Title Drop: "Life born of fire" is the message that the killer writes at the murder scenes. It's inspired by the logo of Mayfield College, a phoenix being reborn in flames.
- Trans Tribulations: Played for tragedy. Zoe Kenneth was originally Feardocha Phelan, who was Will's boyfriend. After the Cure Your Gays group they were both attending causes Will to start to hate their relationship, Feardocha jets off to Brazil to become Zoe so that Will could finally love a girl. Sadly it didn't work out, and Will's suicide becomes her Despair Event Horizon which turns her into a Serial Killer.
- Two First Names: Zoe Kenneth in "Life Born of Fire". Both of which were chosen very deliberately.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Lewis is apoplectic after he finds out that Hathaway knew all about The Garden this whole time and didn't tell him.Lewis: You lied! To me!
