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Post by deathroe on Aug 26, 2008 14:16:47 GMT -5
lovesong, I think I found your song My apologies if I came across as slightly testy, earlier. I seem to have been having a slightly hypersensitive week I do appreciate these boards a whole lot.
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Post by outerbankschick on Aug 26, 2008 18:26:27 GMT -5
I'm going to jump in on the weight thing just this once. I'm a drooling fan girl, maybe. I don't know. I personally think that the man looks better now that he's older, but that's me. Personally, I don't usually go for the heavier look, but there's something about VDO that is appealing and it goes well beyond looks. It's the way he plays this character. The total package of Goren. It's not about "Oh, he's so cute!". It's about the whole, not the sum of the parts.
I do think he looks better with the longer hair (didn't really go for that really, really short cut from S5) and I like the beard, too, though I think he looks just as handsome without it. I'm not going to knock someone else for saying they don't like the way he looks or they think he's fat, but I do have to say that, as someone else pointed out, knowing you need to drop some pounds and doing so are two different things. I'm about 50 pounds overweight myself and getting it off ain't easy, especially as you age and your metabolism slows down.
That said, I am more of the opinion that part of it (maybe not all) is on purpose, for the show. And I'm also thinking that his health problems from S4 could have something to do with it, since that is really when his weight started going up more. I don't think it's affected his character negatively. But that's solely my opinion. I also think that some of the way he looks is clearly done to show how far into depression Bobby has sunk. He's wearing his jeans on his hips, to maximize how much of his belly is out of them. The suit jackets seem to fit, but barely. A lot of his appearance has to do with Bobby's state of mind, his emotional health. He doesn't walk tall anymore. He sort of shuffles along, shoulders rounded, head low. He's been in an emotional juggernaut and floundering around, trying to find his way out. IMO, VDO has played this out perfectly.
CI isn't your average cop show. It's more of a Shakespearean tragedy with cops and villains as the main characters.
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susan1212
Detective
Yeah. I get that.
Posts: 444
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Post by susan1212 on Aug 26, 2008 18:35:11 GMT -5
Lovesong:
For the record, I am not a drooling fan girl nor are my opinions balderdash or silly. Because I am a feeling person, does not mean that my opinions are any less important than yours. I believe Vincent's weight is none of our business, whether or not he is on TV. I believe calling him fat and in need of a gastric bypass is downright rude. And if you are going to say these things, please own them. The reader does not need to infer the negative connotation, you imply it, whether you want to admit it or not. I find rudeness pretty creepy.
Dragonsback:
I believe that Vincent's weight is none of our business, and that it is very appropriate to say so.
Diablo:
Negative comments about the show are one thing. Negative personal comments , I feel are impolite and uncalled for. And rudeness toward another poster..a la balderdash or silly...does cause hard feelings.
AL- Vincent does a superb job doing what he was hired to do.
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Post by annabelleleigh on Aug 26, 2008 18:43:59 GMT -5
As you must realize, S1212, all of the above are your opinions, and while I vigorously disagree on all counts, I would defend to the death your right to post them.
AL First Amendment Absolutist
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susan1212
Detective
Yeah. I get that.
Posts: 444
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Post by susan1212 on Aug 26, 2008 18:50:14 GMT -5
As you must realize, S1212, all of the above are your opinions, and while I vigorously disagree on all counts, I would defend to the death your right to post them. AL First Amendment Absolutist Well of course they are my opinions. As your posts are your opinions.
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Post by outerbankschick on Aug 26, 2008 19:04:06 GMT -5
About Declan and Jo. . .wasn't there some mention that she had "finally" agreed to see him? I thought Bobby said that to him in the aria.
Must go rewatch. . .
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eames47
Silver Shield Investigator
"What are they saying now???"
Posts: 173
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Post by eames47 on Aug 26, 2008 19:09:29 GMT -5
Just a quick question: Can someone tell me what Bobby says in Ross' office when Ross asks him about his father? The lines before Eames says "this is not what this is about". Somehow I can't understand him. Thanks. I believe the line you are wondering about is "You guys wanna pry? Knock yourselves out." And then he tosses the paper proving his paternity at them.
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Post by cadesdad on Aug 26, 2008 19:09:58 GMT -5
[glow=red,2,300]CI isn't your average cop show. It's more of a Shakespearean tragedy with cops and villains as the main characters.[/glow] Well said. I posted a few weeks ago about the similarities I saw between Goren and Hamlet. Did anyone catch the "Hamlet" reference in "Frame": "O this is the poison of deep grief." These are the words of Claudius when he first encounters the mad Ophelia, driven insane by the grief of her father's death. This was a very literary, very smart episode (like Goren and, in his demented way, Gage). A couple of observations: 1. Did anyone notice how Ross referred to Goren as "my detective"? I found that oddly touching, especially given what a thorn Goren has been in Ross' flesh. How many times should Goren have been fired in this episode? 2. In his perverse way, I think Gage loved Goren as much as he was capable of loving anyone but himself. What do you make of Gage's name? Is he the "gage" by which we realize how comparatively sane Goren really is? 3. Gage forces Goren to break with the past. The Goren we're left with at the end of "Frame" is certainly not whole or healthy, but this may be the painful but necessary break that he couldn't make on his own. 4. Eames was amazing! What a great partner, even when Goren was being a complete jerk to her ("Don't you take that side!"). Notice that she was the only one could calm the raging Bobby! 5. Did the aria with Gage remind anyone of Goren's arias with Nicole. Not as histrionic, but the shape and the form ("The subject was daddies, Bobby." "Were we talking about father issues, Declan?") CI, even when operating with "diminished capacities," is still the smartest detective show on TV. I can't wait to see how Robert Goren emerges in Season 8.
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Post by deathroe on Aug 26, 2008 19:34:03 GMT -5
I’ll tell you: this one keeps right on not disappointing me. I keep watching it, and it’s really regenerated my interest in the series. It’s like we’re being handed a paradigm through which to read the first seven seasons—Bobby’s difficult early passage. At the same time, we’re being shown how Bobby can get a new lease. Yes, many questions have been raised—but I am more and more convinced as I watch of the bill of clean health that Bobby is being given, at the very least, the possibility of. Still more thoughts, geek that I am:
--I can’t think of a time that the writers have been more astute about the totality of Goren’s presentation. Fascinating to me how they choose to highlight Nicole’s assertion that “descent into madness is usually characterized by obsession.” This is what has happened to both Nicole AND Gage since we last saw them. They have become more and more obsessed with Bobby, with redeeming themselves against Bobby. This is what undoes them and leads them to death: madness through obsession.
And this would make Bobby a counter-force to their madness: for all that we have been worried about him, still a representative of sanity, reason, of the triumph of intelligent empathy.
In the flashback to Nicole’s lecturing in “Anti-Thesis,” the writers also highlight the line about man’s potency. Obviously, this line was a hallmark of Bobby and Nicole’s twisted pseudo-flirtation. Yet, this has been both Nicole’s and Gage’s problem. They have become so convinced of their ability to wreak evil that they have gone mad. Perhaps it’s fitting, then, that they fade out as ghosts or shadows, giving Bobby his life back.
--Eames is a huge part of this. I love how this final exorcism of Bobby’s, how turning the tables on Nicole and Gage, seems to have brought them back together. In contrast to Nicole and Gage, she has never catered to him and has expected him to behave like a man. But we see so clearly that, despite her emotional outburst in “Purgatory,” she has continued to support him. Her “insubordination” with Ross when Goren becomes a suspect is nothing short of fetching.
Eames is the person who works to pull Bobby back to reality. I simply love how she has been able to do this without compromising her own integrity, without getting wrapped up in his world. I have been frustrated with how the writers kept her so detached from him, at times—now I see that this love of him, with detachment, has been a great part of Bobby’s presumed salvation. The scene where she tells him they’re going for a walk, after he’s been “roughing up” Rodgers in the morgue, is classic. He doesn’t follow her so much, I don’t think, because she’s got him whipped as because he wants to. For some reason that I can’t put my finger on, or quite, restoring his relationship with Eames seems intimately bound up with Bobby’s “choosing life,” with his choosing or being forced to choose, as I think we all do, between being stuck in the Nicole!world, or in Gage’s dream world of puzzles, killers, and being in the real world.
(Telling in this regard, and fascinating: at the end of the episode, Goren asks Declan, “Did you think I needed [Nicole] to stay in the game?” The implication is, I think, that he did not. But there on the other side he had Eames, whom he didn’t think he needed in “Purgatory” to get back in the game: that is what his concealment of his life from her meant, that he didn’t think he needed her. One message of “Frame” seems to be that he did, in some way. Not because they were involved or because he needed a woman but because she is a life force for him, kind of, a bridge between his world of dreams and the world outside. I don't ftr think that one person can redeem another. But engagement with other people, being cared about, can certainly help.)
Some of you will have seen Dream with the Fishes—and while I’m not suggesting a parallel, there’s a scene in there where the Brad Hunt character says that KE’s character is his “reality.” Eames seems to be this for Goren—and again, I love how she has managed to do it simply by being who she is, as opposed to being sublimated to the Goren persona. And I love her bravery: I can’t think of anything like it, certainly not in tv land. When she asks Gage, wouldn’t I have to have suffered some big trauma to do what you’re pretending I did (kill Frank and Nicole)?—the characterization is nothing short of brilliant. We know she has. We’ve seen it. But she’s clearly also dealt with or is dealing with it. She doesn't want to wallow, or she wants to keep that part of her private. It's just--beautiful. Gah.
I think that Erbe’s level of skill and engagement must be quite deep to show all this. I can think of reasons why she doesn’t get her due, but they still don’t seem especially fair.
--I still think that one reason that Bobby is safe now—or as safe as we any of us can ever be—is because he is emotionally safe. Changes with Eames, as well as the push to new understanding that being profiled and puzzled out by Gage should give him—the ultimate opportunity to walk in his own profilees’ shoes—these things seem to have given him more emotional depth. I can’t agree with the reviewers who saw Bobby as passive in this. Interior, yes, but never static—never Fate’s patsy the way he might have been tempted to be in “Endgame,” “Purgatory” (I think “Untethered” is a little different, because it shows him being active and trying to make himself one of his own puzzles, a process that becomes more fully realized in “Frame.”)
There’s a marked contrast between his alone in the darkness in “Endgame” and how at the end there’s a reconciliation of sorts with Eames, an understanding of sorts with Gage—and he’s in his own milieu, not stuck in a hospital or on the street by himself. He can’t be totally safe, what with the rats of major case and with Donny out there. But he has come through better equipped to deal with new challenges, I think. I certainly hope he has, because I do think that the character is worthy of it.
I’m sure there’s more. I have to stop re-watching it and focus on some other things now, though. It’s like eating a bag of candy!
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Post by deathroe on Aug 26, 2008 19:36:17 GMT -5
Cadesdad, ITA with your remarks about Gage and his twisted love of Goren.
Yes, I commented on the deliberate symmetry between Gage's father issues and Nicole's "the subject is daddies." That last scene was insanely clever. I'm sure we still haven't plumbed it. Why can't they write like this all the time? Seeing what they can do, I have high hopes for Season Eight.
OBC--I'm glad there's somebody else out there who prefers VDO older. I think he's aged very gracefully, weight or not. I thought they all looked really good, actually. Don't know if it was the filiming or what. I thought Erbe looked gorgeous.
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eames47
Silver Shield Investigator
"What are they saying now???"
Posts: 173
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Post by eames47 on Aug 26, 2008 19:46:32 GMT -5
Wow. I'm not sure whether I want to rewatch Frame right now, or just reread your beautiful post, deathroe. Eames is by far my favorite character on that show. I'm fascinated by her. I remember just two episodes prior, I was hoping that the tension would be coming to a close with them. And now, I believe their relationship has never been this strong.
And you didn't need a scene with two outside characters, commenting on the strength of Goren and Eames. You knew it was there. Because you saw it. We all saw it. Its in the words that KE delivered and in the emotion written all over her face and in her eyes. When Declan turns to Eames and says, "someone close to Bobby is setting him up. Maybe even you.", her look of disbelief says it all. Never in a million years, would she ever think of doing anything this heinous to Bobby. Never.
I'm not sure which portion of this episode I like more. The first half, where they are completely working together. Or the second half, where Eames proves just how loyal she is to Goren.
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Post by outerbankschick on Aug 26, 2008 19:51:12 GMT -5
Deathroe, that whole post is just amazing! I just have to say: WOW! Lots of food for thought. I'll be heading back to my Tivo again to watch for the third time. Bag of candy. . .yes it is!
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Post by deathroe on Aug 26, 2008 20:05:21 GMT -5
Thanks OBC and eames47 <3
Really nicely spotted. That and the scene where she tells Ross and Gage that she doesn't have to listen to them dissect her relationship with Goren are such gestures of strength. In contrast to the confessional world that she works in, Eames' world is deliberately private: she is effectively telling the men that her relationship with Goren is NOTFB, and in doing so, she turns the tables on the "buddy boy system" that bit. (btw, speaking of the buddy boy system: You have Goren engaging with Ross, as he's done in the past. That scene where they lock eyes is an acting high point, I think. Homosociality. But you also have a restored balance, where Eames is brought back into the equation. In key scenes, Eames is the person he's arguing it out with. The scene where they learn it's Nicole's heart: "Don't take that side!" He's engaging with the whole room, but he's also engaging just with Alex. This may be interpreted as full circle from "Purgatory," although we'll see what new challenges arise next season).
I admit--I love Goren, but Eames is my favorite, too. I've said before that I think there's more truth about her than there is about most female characters on tv (about 99.999% of them). Even if you compared her to Benson (and I like Hargitay a lot), there is just so much subtlety there. I do not quite know how KE does it. Watching some tv characters, I have a sense of how they could have gotten to that place because what they're doing is more overt than not? Or the characterization is more shallow? But with Erbe's Eames I feel like I'm watching a real, flesh-and-blood person who in a slightly different form could be in my world, doing my job (even though the clothes in my world might be a little bit cheaper LOL).
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Post by deathroe on Aug 26, 2008 20:16:29 GMT -5
One quick addendum (indulge me )--the idea of female characters who stand for opposed forces in a male character's life (Eames and Nicole) is actually quite an old one. In very early texts, you would have a female personification of Philosophy or Reason who would pull the protag/thinker/seeker back to reality (as it might be Eames); you would have a Siren-like symbolic female who'd pull him the other way, to sensuality and madness (as it might be Nicole). Now I'm not saying that these characters exist JUST to engage with Goren or to symbolize his struggle--Eames doesn't, certainly. But it's a really old literary pattern, and the medievalist in me just had to mention it. Hope you don't mind (Incidentally, with this in mind, I thought it was interesting how one of the flashbacks they chose (from "A Person of Interest") showed Erbe's and D'Abo's faces in juxtaposition as Nicole's led away in handcuffs, with Eames looking back at Goren. Maybe it's somewhat revisionist, given how Erbe effectively carved out her place in the show, to highlight Eames' involvement at that early stage in the Goren-Nicole conflict. But it works, it pulls things together--and anyway, I don't really think so I think her involvement was there all along.)
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eames47
Silver Shield Investigator
"What are they saying now???"
Posts: 173
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Post by eames47 on Aug 26, 2008 20:17:50 GMT -5
LOL. Yes, in that scene at the ME's concerning Nicole's heart. After Goren said, "Do not take that side!" she doesn't waver. Or look down. She follows him with her eyes. He walks behind Rodgers and Eames moves her head. At first I thought she may be looking away. But then I noticed Goren moving and she was actually following him with her eyes. Determined to not break that connection. When he leaves the room, that's when she looks down.
Her strength is astounding. My small hope for Season 8 is that we meet her dad. I kind of wanted a comment in there by her saying, "If you think Goren is a serial killer, based on paternity alone, then I guess I should look into double-dipping." LOL.
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