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Post by trisha on Apr 10, 2004 8:17:40 GMT -5
Yeah, thanks Nick I guess we're all a little behind on our 1930's German films and Nazi trivia. Now there's a fun sounding game, Trivial Pursuit: Nazi Edition
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Post by domenicaflor on Apr 12, 2004 23:40:34 GMT -5
In the end, I think that whether Goren has Jewish heritage is certainly interesting to speculate, and would give insight to his reactions, but is not critical to the understanding of the story. Lance Brody certainly thought Goren was Jewish, and repeatedly made reference to the phrase "you people". The first time he said it, I thought "you people" meant police officers, but it became quickly apparent that Brody was referring to Jews. Goren realizes this and uses it when he questions Brody's next-door neighbor, and also when he interrogates Brody the second time at the factory.
In that scene, Goren goes after Brody with fighting words first, not with a weapon. He only picks up the pipe and says "Whoa" when Brody makes a motion to pick up a pipe. He swings it in a manner that may look wild and uncontrolled to the untrained eye, but like a trained martial arts practicioner, he is well versed in controlling his weapon to land just short of its mark every time. And on top of that he pulls back when Brody tells him to stop, indicating a higher degree of control than many people would have in that explosive situation.
Regardless of what his heritage or family history may be, it is obvious to me that Goren understands what it means to be in a minority that is discriminated against, ostracized, hated, misunderstood, and feared. How he has this knowledge I do not exactly know, but the look on his face and the tone of his voice as he swings that pipe with a rage so palpable, yet so controlled, says it all to me. It's a mark of a superior episode when every time I watch it I am on my feet, front and center to the television screen, with sweaty palms gripped into fists. This is a very similar reaction for me to the scene in "Nunzio's Second Cousin" when Tony confronts the gaybashers, only that Randazzo uses sardonic humor to mortify the teenagers while Goren baits the anti-Semite with taunts.
There is another very poignant similarity for me as well. Every time Goren swings that pipe in front of Brody, he recites in full one of the names of the Jewish men Brody murdered. When I was in college, the Hillel group and other Jewish organizations on campus would always commemorate Yom Hashoah, the Holocaust memorial, by doing a mass name-reading on the college green of all of the Holocaust victims. I have also seen the AIDS Memorial quilt both in travelling shows, and also at the Gay and Lesbian March on Washington, where a reading of the names of AIDS victims was conducted along with the exposition of the quilt panels. If you have never been present at either of these types of memorials, they are extremely chilling and powerful. In this episode, both Lena Brody and her daughter worked with immigrants who had suffered at the hands of military juntas and death squads in Latin America, which is another example of commemorating the death of thousands due to political repression.
In all cases, the message is the same, silence does equal death: let no one forget, as we MUST remember in order to prevent such loss of life from ever happening again.
Domenica
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Post by trisha on Apr 13, 2004 15:59:20 GMT -5
Great post, Dom I recall a few posters from another board writing about how "out of control" they though Bobby was while swinging that pipe, but I saw that scene the way you did. He was very controlled, and if the calling out of names didn't help to demonstrate that, the fact that he dropped the pipe when Brody cried out for him to stop certainly should have. Sometimes I wonder if some of us watching the same show Anyway, back to the possibility of Goren being Jewish, I also agree with you and Metella that it only bears weight on the episode because Brody believes his mother was assaulted by a Jewish man. Like Metella wrote, if his mother had an affair with an Asian man, Brody would have hated Asian men. He wasn't a nazi, or really anything like one. He didn't see ethnic superiority, he only saw good vs evil. It's psyche 101: classic transference.
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Post by Metella on Apr 13, 2004 16:39:16 GMT -5
Yes, very nice and well thought out post & very organized from point to point.
Goren (being my hero) I can't imagine him out of control in that situation - I thought he was doing it to off-balance his "target" as he does with so many other suspects. He was in fact (according to how I see things) in tight control.
I liked this episode as it showed how an understandable reaction to his mother & father's situation/actions transformed in this way. His feelings as a youngster were valid - his reactions as an adult were horrible.
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Post by Kahlia on Jun 10, 2004 6:22:21 GMT -5
Last Sunday we Aussies saw A Murder Among Us. I thoroughly enjoyed this episode. The way that it was put together, how the wife committed suicide to show what her husband was really like.
I don't believe that Goren has a jewish background, he may have gotten a little involved but isn't that what he always does to catch out a murderer?
This SUnday we get to see "Sound Bodies" YAY! I can't wait, it looks like a really good episode... i have to find a more appropriate place to explain the wicked-arse ad for you all!
-Kahlia
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Post by Metella on Jun 11, 2004 4:43:41 GMT -5
Can anyone see a person committing suicide in order to frame someone?
When I was younger, I just really couldn't. Now I can see how a person could feel a brick wall all around & feel they can't make a new start but yet want some justice. I still think she was wrong ..... if she had gathered her info and gone to the police .... but then again, if she did that & got a lazy police officer, she would have been toasted by her husband & he would still be getting away with his freaked up emotional transfer/release.
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Post by darmok on Jun 11, 2004 8:47:10 GMT -5
I don't think she committed suicide just to frame him. That was certainly a large part; that's why she tried to get the wounds right so that they would look like his MO. But Goren said there had to be something she couldn't live with. And that was the uncertainty about what Brody would do about his daughter when he found out she was Jewish. And, perhaps, it was also the thought that her daughter would be devastated to find out what her father had done and what he was. To their credit, they didn't raise a bigot, and she had a hard time believing her father was a bigot.
So the mother killed herself 1) to frame her husband, 2) to protect her daughter, and 3) because she couldn't live with the thought of what the knowlege of what Brody was would do to her daughter.
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Post by romulanavatra3 on Jun 23, 2004 3:53:09 GMT -5
trisha,mettla,kahlia in response to this intresting thread, ipersonally dont belvie that goren himself has a jewsih backgorund but rather that he one or two very close friends who are jewish or of jewish decent. i also have this very unsual feeling that eames may have come from a mixed family background, there is something about alex which makes me think that she may be part jewish and proabbly bought up as a catholic much like briscoe in the original. as for wether or the his wife commited suicide i belevie that she set up a sitaution so that he would kill her in order to expose him. in otherwords i dont think she killed herself but rather that he did but delberitly so that so that would be caught. i thoguht goren wa little out of control at the end with the pipe, bishop in my oppion in htat scene was to cautios and was a little unprepared, i think alex would have been more preaped for that sort of event and would have porabbly been more inclined to throw caution to the wind and stop him. mind you i really can see why that creep did not help matters he was evil pure and simple and he really got to goren and given that goren was missing eames at the time and that he was angry and he was uncertain wether bishop would listen his worries( which i think a lot of the problem was between them was that they werenot certain aobut how they should react to one another), it led to one explosive effect at least goren did not pull out his gun and shoot the man otherwise he owuld have been arested himself. reagrds all rom.
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Post by Techguy on Jun 23, 2004 16:52:31 GMT -5
The problem I had, and still do, with Lena Brody killing herself to expose the hate crime/murders committed by her husband is, after she's dead she has absolutely no way of knowing if her plan succeeded or if her husband was exposed for the hateful bigot he is. Without the expert investigation of elite detectives, Lance Brody could very well have eluded detection, gone on his merry way, and Mrs. Brody will rot in her grave for nothing. Good thing Goren and Eames are on the case, but how could Mrs. Brody know for certain her husband's crimes would be uncovered?
As for Lena Brody's fears about what her husband might do to their daughter Claire--again, how is Mrs. Brody's death going to help the young woman? By permanently and irrevocably removing herself and her influence, Mrs. Brody might actually have put her daughter at more risk, especially if Mr. Brody wasn't exposed as a murderer.
For a number of reasons, Lena Brody's actions were not only very desperate, they were also very very risky if the intent was to incriminate her husband and protect her daughter Claire from his evil influence.
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Post by trisha on Jun 24, 2004 17:02:23 GMT -5
Rom, how could the husband have done it and then gotten back out of the bathroom and still have her propped up against the door? It's a physical impossibility. She had to have done it to herself.
Techguy, I don't think that what the cops thought was the top most reason she killed herself the way she did. Once her husband saw her, he had to have known she was sending a message to him. She knew what he had done and why, and she refused to be the trigger for his rage, fear, and bigotry anymore. But, she didn't just take herself out of the equation, she laid out a very brutal and precise message for him to think about the next time he came upon a "threat."
The problem with that is not that her daughter would be in danger. Brody had no reason to think she was Jewish. But with his wife gone, Brody would inevitably move his daughter up to the role of Immaculate Mommy, and hunt down any "threats" to her, thus putting more innocent people in danger.
But just because the main message was for her husband, that doesn't mean it doesn't stand to reason that, considering the bizarre nature of her suicide, the cops wouldn't retrace her last footsteps and follow the same bread crumbs that lead her to the terrible truth.
Obviously, it's not the most realistic of stories, but it does work.
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Post by romulanavatra3 on Jun 26, 2004 8:58:52 GMT -5
trisha very good point i really did not think about that until i rewatched the episode last night. okay then why did she kill herself when she could have just gone to the police with the infomation(now iam confussed). reagrds rom.
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Post by trisha on Jun 26, 2004 10:59:12 GMT -5
Rom, I sort of covered that in the second part of my last post. The main message of her suicide was to her husband, not the cops. I do also think it is reasonable that she believed the cops would also see that there was a message there, and retrace her footsteps leading to her death to find out what it was.
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Post by Metella on Jun 28, 2004 7:38:00 GMT -5
I vasilate between her main reason to let her husband know she knew what he had done & what was in his heart (or lack thereof) and she wasn't going to take it anymore
And, that she was scared & had no where to turn & did this to frame him for murder & have him put behind bars. You have to admit, even a normal homicide detective would have suspected the husband.
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Post by trisha on Jun 28, 2004 14:57:59 GMT -5
No, I don't have to admit that, and I can't even if I wanted to. How could her husband have done it? He couldn't have gotten out of that bathroom and still have her propped up against the door. He just couldn't have done it, and I think that's the way she wanted it, or she wouldn't have barred the only exit like that. Everything she did was very precise ... too precise for that to have been a mistake.
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Post by Metella on Jun 29, 2004 11:12:27 GMT -5
oh, gravy, it did sound like I ment the HUSBAND KILLED her. typing too fast ..... what I meant was that the way she staged it, it assured that the husband Would be looked at during the investigation ..... so that it would not be obvious at first that she killed herself until the entire scene was picked over & all the clues were spread out ....... not that any homicide detective would have figured it all out, but it would have put the husband on defensive for a little while.
did that make more sense from me?
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