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Post by Patcat on Jun 8, 2008 21:05:24 GMT -5
Well, that was one heck of a ride.
Predictable in some ways, but wonderfully acted by Mr. D'Onofrio and Ms. Erbe. I thought Eames was rather unfair to Goren--there's been plenty of time where she could've said the same things to Goren. Perhaps this was the moment when it all became too much.
And that rat at the end--God, I hope there are more Bobby Gorens than Stoats or Copas in the NYPD.
But it's good to know that the good, moral, Bobby Goren is still there.
Patcat
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misty98
Silver Shield Investigator
Posts: 61
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Post by misty98 on Jun 8, 2008 21:21:24 GMT -5
Yes, it certainly was one heck of a ride! I found myself getting dizzy, dodging the plot-holes! (LOL)
I don't know, Patcat. I actually thought Eames didn't go far enough. As fond as I am of Goren, I found myself cheering her on.
I've been up since the crack of dawn, and I'm more than ready to hit the hay. I think I'll wait until I'm more rested before I attempt a full critique!
G'night all!
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Post by deathroe on Jun 8, 2008 21:30:22 GMT -5
Well, I was on the edge of my chair! Some observations: --I was relieved to see that the negativity in those spoilers was due to the people writing not really knowing the show or the backstory. This wrung my heart, at times, but it seemed like an excellent way of resolving what had gone on before. -- Pace those of you who think this is the Bobby G network: Erbe can carry the show in some form. The last speech was magnificent. I'm sure I'll take some flak for this, but I think she stole the show. --As to whether that speech befit Eames: I'm as shippy as the next shipper, but I found it to fit perfectly. Would anything less than full disclosure fit the intensity of their relationship (because I do think the two characters have a more intense relationship than anything we see in the other franchise shows, and have for a long time)? Translation: the reason she reads him the riot act is because she cares about him, but she also feels like that's what he deserves. Good for her. --But seriously--WAS that all he had to say to her??!! --Speaking of shippiness, I'm betting we all caught Eames' lingering look at Goren's desk in the first part of the episode--and forgot it later on, in all the drama! --And she very much, they both very much, looked the part this evening. They age well, IMHO. --Helpful to know that youlenz provides email in addition to video services! --Nice joke about Eames' coffee at the beginning--glad they weren't above that. But me no likey the new cups!! --Ross in Olivet's office was very Get Smart, somehow. Especially when they talked about "barely controlled chaos" later on. I'm sure that wasn't intentional Liked the reference to Olivet and the parallel with the other shrink's office. --Walking in on the therapist and patient was such a classic L&O moment. There were lots of those! Goren's "I'm a cop, I lie" was also straight out of mothership season 1. Nice. We like this around here. -_Equally classic was Goren's invoking the memory of the drug fight's innocent bystanders at the end of the episode. Classic Goren. ** Still I'm on tenterhooks for next week. Eeeeeeeeee.
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Post by outerbankschick on Jun 8, 2008 21:48:24 GMT -5
Nice roller coaster ride we had tonight! Since I love coasters, I was all for the ride but there were a couple of loop-de-loops that had me biting my nails.
Watching Bobby watching that drug deal going down, it was plain to see how agitated he was that he couldn't do anything about it. It was all over his face. Way to go VDO (as usual!) for giving us facial expressions that say more than words ever could! I spent that whole scene saying out loud "Come on, Bobby. Don't do anything. . .don't do anything. . ." I mean, really!
And the moment Alex reamed him about the fact that if it had been any other cop that burst through that door, he'd be dead! I was like, Whoa! And Bobby just stands there staring at her! I'm thinking, Dude, you need to say something here! I'm hoping that he will think hard about what she said and that they'll have a nice "make-up" chat whereby he thanks her for being tough on him when he needs it.
I thought the stories came together well and I agree that Erbe was great. She always is and her colors have really been shining the last few seasons, since they've given her more really good stuff to work with. Alex has moved way beyond being the foil with all the sarcastic quips. She's still got that, but she's much, much more than that, and we're getting treated to that on a much more regular basis than we used to.
I hate the whole rat in the drawer thing. I'm so sick of cops who use the "thin blue line" to try and choke other cops. If you don't play by the rules, then you deserve to get busted. And if you break the law and kill people. . .well. . .DUH! I believe it was Ben Stone from one of the early seasons of the mothership that said something to effect of . . .You commit murder. You go to jail. You don't get out. . . So that whiney baby Copa and the pissing and moaning Stoate need to get a grip. Copa was physically unable to keep doing his job. Stoate was just an opportunist looking for a way to get ahead. Both of them need to cowboy up and take their lumps.
Funny how it was Bobby that got the nickname "cowboy" from Testarosa. Seems fitting, since Bobby was the only real man among them!
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Post by Patcat on Jun 8, 2008 21:50:03 GMT -5
I think Goren is still shell-shocked, although there were lots of glimpses of the old Goren. I think that's why he can't react to Eames--that, and the fact he knows she's right about a lot of stuff.
Did everyone catch that Ross called the Chief of Ds "Boss" the same way Stoats and Goren called Testanova "Boss"?
Patcat
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Post by deathroe on Jun 8, 2008 22:01:23 GMT -5
Great point about Goren being shellshocked (so funny how he's become the gentler of the two partners), nice catch on the "Boss" paralllel. I'm sure when I watch the next airing (because who am I fooling, really?!) I can find more parallels (starting with all the intersecting partnerships).
Something else I noticed: the neat flashes of the old Goren in the new (detecting the wire was a great example).
Oh--lastly--I just figured out who put the rat there! Nicole, clearly!!
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Post by random on Jun 8, 2008 22:07:15 GMT -5
It's kind of ironic. Goren is so anxious to get his shield back, willing to go through Purgatory for it, and yet he's so focused on that that end that he ignores some of the the human aspects of the case. As a result, he's still in Purgatory with respect to his human relationships. Eames is angry at him, and the opinion that he's a rat seems to be more widespread.
Eames had a point, and his breezy, let's-pretend-nothing-happened, "See you Monday?" approach worked about as well for him as it did during "The War at Home" Interesting that he can't profile Eames.
The rat thing is a bit puzzling, since Goren and Eames have trampled on the thin blue line before. I don't know how much more Goren could have done for Stoat; he did try to warn Stoat. I'm sure Goren doesn't regret the mobsters etc., but I wonder if he regrets Stoat, who seemed to be in the same position as Goren. Over the course of the episode, he saw plenty of evidence that Stoat wasn't like him, and he even said so. At the same time, on some basic level, he gave Stoat up to save himself. Did he feel that regret at the end, or was it just the ostracism that he felt?
Incidentally, when Dean Winters (Stoat) and Lauren Velez (Malago) were both on Oz, Dean Winters' character was in love with Lauren Velez' character. The irony even pervades the casting.
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Post by deathroe on Jun 8, 2008 22:32:23 GMT -5
Nice catch on the Oz casting. I always forget!!
Interesting that he can't profile Eames.
In a nutshell!!! It's one of the more brilliant devices on which the series turns, IMHO.
All that about how he needed to get his shield back was indeed a little jarring. Random, you are taking it as Eames takes it, that he could care less about her in his unrelenting quest for the shield? But isn't it just as much because he wants, has wanted forever, back in to the partnership?
I still don't think I can wait two weeks *s*
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Post by outerbankschick on Jun 8, 2008 22:43:14 GMT -5
Nice catch on the Oz casting. I always forget!! Interesting that he can't profile Eames.In a nutshell!!! It's one of the more brilliant devices on which the series turns, IMHO. All that about how he needed to get his shield back was indeed a little jarring. Random, you are taking it as Eames takes it, that he could care less about her in his unrelenting quest for the shield? But isn't it just as much because he wants, has wanted forever, back in to the partnership? I still don't think I can wait two weeks *s* I'm thinking back to "Gone", when Bobby said to Alex at the end about how when you don't let people do what they love. . .what they're good at. . .it makes them insane. And I think about how for the last few years of his life, taking care of his mother and doing his job are the only two things he really had. He seems to have no one in his life, romantically speaking, and the "friends" he used to have don't seem to be around either. So. . .now his mother's gone and all he has is his job. He also depends on Alex for stability. She's always there. . .always has been. So getting back the job that was taken from him will get him back the stability, too. I'm not a shipper, but I'm not anti-shipper either. I think the two of them have a really intense partnership that could go either way. Romance or friendship doesn't matter to me, as long as they stay together. The on-screen chemistry of the actors is not like Hargitay and Meloni. SVU has all that pent-up sexual tension going on that comes even before the emotional tie. What I see in Bobby and Alex is a strong emotional bond, which is why Alex felt so betrayed by him not telling her about the case. She trusts him and now feels betrayed and like he didn't think enough of her to let her know what was going on. So he deserved the tongue lashing, but they need to clear the air between them. Let forgiveness reign!
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Post by quietfireca on Jun 8, 2008 23:53:20 GMT -5
Interesting that he can't profile Eames. Is it that he can't profile her, or that he doesn't dare.....? Perhaps a line he's drawn in the sand? Love the thought that he just can't!
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Post by quietfireca on Jun 8, 2008 23:57:03 GMT -5
--Speaking of shippiness, I'm betting we all caught Eames' lingering look at Goren's desk in the first part of the episode--and forgot it later on, in all the drama! Interesting that he still *had* a desk after so long. Was his binder on it? Keep talking!!!!! It will be days more before I can see this episode - if I'm lucky! I want to know what to watch for when I do see it!
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Post by deathroe on Jun 9, 2008 0:04:51 GMT -5
outerbankschick ... could not agree more!!! Further observations (because clearly I have no life):--Copa calls Stoats a “rat” in the very first scene: parallelism with the ending. --Why introduce Copa at the beginning at all? Is this case a prelude to something bigger? I’m wondering if we aren’t up for Chief of D’s corruption drama at some point this summer. (See also: at the end, Goren says “I didn’t look for this [crime].” Eames says, “you could have fooled me, Detective." Will this resolve itself into a longer set up by the chief of D's? Will Eames' opinion then change? [edit: she thinks that the mission was a rogue mission, similar to the one in Tates. Accordingly, it is understandable that she should be upset with him for pursuing it.]) --The spiel she gives him at the end is all about how he could have died, how she could have killed him. It seems very in character for Eames. Not in a romantic sense--a little bit more like a parent and a child, really--but also highly consistent with what we know about her attitude to using her weapon ("a starter pistol! I nearly shot him over a starter pistol!") --No Frank or Donny. I didn’t miss them—did you? --Eames is interrupted on the way to see her family. Very nice, subtle detail. All through the episode, we have a sense of Eames’ travails and mounting suspicion, both very nicely played. And her reaction when she finally figures out that Goren’s undercover—the facial expressions were priceless. --Although I do wonder if Eames’ failure to discern the truth isn’t overplayed. Perhaps she can’t profile him either? It’s love, clearly --Eames says “Happy Easter”—so that would be about five months from Goren’s Tates adventure (October 31st). --I think the reason for the silence between them in the drawn-gun confrontation is that they are both so shocked, numb almost. I would be shocked. (I must say I found all of this confrontation about 900 times more effective than any of the Elliot-Olivia partner drama on SVU of late. Personal preference, I suppose ) --What did you all make of Eames’ telling Goren that his wounds are ALL self-inflicted? She knows all about his childhood; is that what she means? Or does she (more plausibly, I think) mean the adventure in Tates? If that’s the case, then hasn’t her interpretation shifted from what she told Ross then: “All he was thinking was that he had to save Donny.” This is the first time we get any sense of her not supporting him on the jaunt to Tates, one major time that she “lied” for him and had his back. All of this, I can imagine this simply as something she is saying in anger, without considering the consequences. --Winters’ and D’Onofrio’s rapport is just great. All the partner shifting worked much better than it has recently tended to (cf. also SVU). --Milago’s question to Eames (you never drank and drove? The implication is she never did!) parallels Stoats’ to Bobby (you never planted evidence?). Nice bit of parallelism, and another classic LOCI device. --Note D’Onofrio’s almost exaggerated deference to Ross: “Yes, Captain.” “Is now [an] okay time [to tell Eames]? It works in to Goren’s relationship with father figures, and in to how he desperately wants to regain his shield. I thought this was every bit as good as “Brother’s Keeper,” “Endgame,” “Amends,” or “Untethered”—which I consider to have been the best crucial episodes in recent memory.
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Post by diablodeblanco on Jun 9, 2008 0:27:20 GMT -5
Random thoughts......
In the last scenes in the office with Goren, Eames, Ross and the Chief of Ds, Goren was almost childlike in his behavior prior to having the contents of the sack dumped on the desk. It was as if he was about to piss himself with finding out whether he was reinstated or not. Then after he was given the shield back, the Chief shook his hand and the camera showed Goren's face. You heard the Chief say to Goren "good Job" which sounded to me like it was not really heartfelt but more mechanical.....kind of like when someone asks how you are doing and you reply "fine". Goren's reaction to the good job remark was almost gushing. A big smile and he had the same look on his face that my puppy has when I tell him good boy. I think he believed the Chief's remark. I don't think he knows he will never be in the club. He will forever be on the outside looking in. He is about as welcome as the guys from IAD. There will be nothing he can do to ever redeem himself in their eyes. On another issue....when his badge was taken from him, it was as if his "self" was taken. The shield IS Goren. Without it, whether temporary or permanent, he was nothing. The quest to regain the badge was as if it was a quest to regain himself. He was so intent on getting it back that he didn't fully comprehend the collateral damage the recovery would cause. He didn't do much to lessen that damage. He now has himself back, but he is still adrift. Not really fitting in or being accepted.
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Post by diablodeblanco on Jun 9, 2008 0:32:38 GMT -5
Anybody catch what kind of car Goren was driving? Not much of a car expert here but what I caught of the interior it looked like something from the 70s. Very thin steering wheel and I believe it was a convertible. The front seat was leather like.
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Post by deathroe on Jun 9, 2008 0:36:27 GMT -5
to regain the badge was as if it was a quest to regain himself.
and to find a father figure!
something else: the chief of D's just DUMPS the envelope's contents on the desk, doesn't pin the badge on Goren ... strikes me as a little off???
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