It's all about the body language.

The show that I chose to watch was Rake.  In the beginning it showed what looked to be recaps from previous episodes.  The scene starts off with a man having what I am assuming is his girlfriend pull out one of his teeth.  He seems to be convincing her to do it, and she does.  Maybe he does not have insurance and has a bad tooth, who knows?! It is possible that he cannot afford insurance, because he got a ride with a neighbor to go to a funeral.  The main character seemed to be upset at the funeral, but it does not seem like he truly knows the person.  In one second there seems to be a heated argument between the main character and someone else at the funeral, and the next second they are hugging and talking together. 

In the next scene the main character goes to a bar to meet up with an acquaintance, but he leads him to the back of his bar and beats him up.  The main character gives nonverbal cues at what looks like to have the man punch him in the face.  His acquaintance does so, and the main character ends up pulling out his tooth!

As it turns out the main character is a lawyer, which would explain why everyone he comes into contact with either seems angry, upset or hurt.  There seem to be a lot of heated arguments with other characters.  I do not know if this is typical for this show, or if it is because it is not the first episode either. 

I thought that this assignment was going to be easy, and it was just the opposite.  I found it hard to stay interested in a show I have never heard about, and never watched before, on mute! 

Turns out he couldn't afford a dentist, and is having money issues.  At the funeral he was listening to a football game that he had made a bet on.  Inside the church at the funeral, he dropped his phone and the football game started echoing through the church.  The man that he started talking to at the funeral was a friend of his that he was trying to get to open up about his fathers death.  He was encouraging him to express his true feelings towards his father now that he has passed. 

The man that he went and saw at the bar was his bookie.  He made a bet on the football game he was listening to at the funeral, and now he is in a huge debt.  So his bookie had to beat him up to demonstrate the seriousness the situation, and to let him know when he needed to pay his debt.

What type of show did I get myself involved in?!?!  Turns out the lawyer has more people upset at him because he is defending a cannibal.  Many of the characters do not understand why he is defending a cannibal, but it turns out that it is not against the law to be one. 

There are a lot of things that I did not pick up with just the nonverbal communication side of it. 

I do think that my assumptions would have been different if it had been a show that I was more familiar with, and knew from the beginning, instead of jumping into a show on their 4th episode.  Trying to understand the characters at this point while the show was on mute was hard and challenging.  It is definitely beneficial to be able to listen!!