The essential episodes of Lie to Me*
Watch these 15 in order and you've got Lie to Me* — each pick states its reason.
- 01
Dr. Cal Lightman, an expert in how facial expressions and body language betray emotions, solves cases for law-enforcement agencies and whoever else hires him in this whodunit. In the pilot, a high-school teacher is murdered, and one of her students is caught running from her house; and the chairman of the House Ethics Committee is accused of patronizing a prostitute.
- 02
While Cal tries to determine the truthfulness of a female soldier's rape accusation against her sergeant, basketball fan Gillian probes a charge that an influential college alum bribed a promising inner-city prospect to attend his school.
- 03
The murder of a federal judge's teen daughter leads the Lightman Group to her highly competitive prep school. Meanwhile, a NASA test pilot is accused of intentionally crashing a plane.
- 04
The team is assigned to protect the South Korean ambassador, a presidential candidate in his country and the object of death threats, during his son's wedding. The ambassador isn't shot but his son is, and Cal doesn't think it was the result of bad aim. Besides, everyone in the wedding party seems to have something to hide.
- 05
A governor weighing a pardon for a reformed gang leader imprisoned for killing a cop hires Cal to determine if the guy has really reformed. Meanwhile, the death of a black probationary firefighter in a burning building might not have been accidental. Gillian must find out if it was murder and, if it was, who did it.
- 06
An FBI agent enlists the Lightman Group in the hunt for a serial rapist. Cal's assignment: infiltrate a prison and befriend a convict whom the suspect appears to be copycatting.
- 07
Following a terrorist attack outside Washington, D.C., FBI agent Reynolds enlists the Lightman Group to find the perpetrators. Then the case becomes personal for a member of the team. In addition, Cal and Zoe fear that their daughter could be in danger.
- 08
A woman with multiple personalities could be either a witness to a murder---or the killer. Meanwhile, the government hires the Lightman Group to question a possible Supreme Court nominee.
- 09
Cal spends the holidays in Afghanistan, where he relies solely on an American expatriate to help a mission to find a pair of missing Marines.
- 10
Cal is a witness at the trial of a woman accused of murdering her much-older husband, a business tycoon.
- 11
Cal confronts unsettling truths in his past as he and his team try to save the lives of an Iraq War vet and his family.
- 12
After a housing-project shooting, the D.C. police ask Cal to read the face of a paralyzed victim, who can move only his eyes.
- 13
When a gubernatorial race in Virginia turns deadly following the death of a young woman at a campaign event, the Lightman Group is tapped to explore conflicting scenarios of foul play.
- 14
Lightman defends a falsely accused man from an angry mob. In the course of proving his innocence, Lightman unearths a secret that allows a mother and daughter to begin to heal.
- 15
Cal probes the death of a social-network cofounder who had feared that she was being squeezed out by her partner.
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