2:12 - "Suite Sorrow" 2003-02-02

[Observer2]

ladyday said:

I think that Bobby discovering Francis Goren having attempted suicide is very plausible. This could have been the episode that caused her initial hospitalization and diagnosis.

Hi, Ladyday! Welcome to the board! I’ve been enjoying your posts.

I’m not saying it wouldn’t be plausible for Goren to have discovered his mother after she attempted suicide. I’m just saying I don’t think we have much evidence to support the idea that a suicide attempt involving a bathtub is part of Goren’s mother’s backstory. I think that, if the bathtub drowning scenario was particularly emotionally charged for Goren, we would have seen more of a personal/distressed reaction to the bathtub drowning in Jones. So I don’t think that particular part of the scene was what triggered his obvious distress.

I just re-watched Suite Sorrow today, and not only do his voice and speech patterns reveal distress, but you can see, when he’s sitting with his back to the body, that his blink rate is through the roof. I don’t remember anything like that in Jones. But I do remember other instances during the second season when he reacted in surprising ways to women who were about his mother’s age. In Chinoisserie, for instance, there’s the way he hugs his binder and looks down and away when the old woman is arrested. So I suspect that what caused Goren’s intense reaction is the old woman’s similarity to his mother, coupled with her death and nudity – which makes a person, especially an elderly person, seem painfully vulnerable, as well as triggering other complex emotional reactions.

I wouldn’t be surprised if a suicide attempt by Francis at some point during Goren’s childhood were part of her backstory. I just don’t see it as being central – or essential – to Goren’s reactions to the mother’s death in Suite Sorrow.

[DonnaJo]

So what you are saying, Observer2, is that as early as Season 2 we are witnessing Goren's distaste when viewing elderly women (like Mom) dead, hurt, vulnerable or frightened?

However, I did not notice any distress on Goren's part when viewing the dead body of the elderly woman who was in the morgue in the episode Poisoned (Season 1). Nor did I feel that Goren had any particular empathy for Trudy's mother. He even used her as a pawn to help capture Trudy. Is it because they do not physically resemble his mom, and the other women did? Or because the writers didn't add this vulnerability to Goren's emotional back story until Season 2?

(Isn't this fun? ;D).

[ragincajun]

Maybe because she was naked? In Jones the woman was clothed. Also on Eames knowing about Goren's mom's illness. In See Me at the end Goren is on the phone and Carver ask Eames, and Eames knew he was calling his mom, and wasn't surprised, so she knew before.

[garv403]

Something I have always wondered about with this episode-- why didn't Carver and/or Goren
get into some kind of trouble for this scheme? They knowingly put an unbalanced woman-who
had already confessed to murdering her mother-in the same room as her cheating, lying father. Then she ends up sticking--what was it? a letter openner?--in his back. I would have thought Internal Affairs or the Ethics Comittee would object to that. Especially since it didn't seem to me that the father had done anything illegal. Immoral, but not illegal. He knowingly pushed her over the edge but could he have really been prosecuted for that? It all seemed very reckless with a vague objective.

[Cassie]

Good point Garv, very good point...

I wonder since Carver was part of that scheme, it was easier to hide it under the rugs.

Remember in "The Pardoners Tale", Carver changed the deal he made with the wife of the mafia guy (well he was sorta in the mafia, I think) in order to bring the guy back into the country. He really pissed off Eames and Goren there. Goren, had some choice words for him at the end of the show.

Also in "The Faithful" Carver, told Goren he would have his badge if he pulled another stunt like he did with the priest taking the deal.

Carver I believe can make some issues disappear.

Welcome to the Forum!