I realized that I didn't post my notes from the episode. I know everyone was waiting with bated breath
So anywayyyyy ... here's a list of smaller "observations," and then a couple of bigger, more speculative ones.
Smaller (more detail-oriented) observations:--No one seems to have commented on the ludicrously symbolic name "Miles Stone," so let me be the first ;-P
--Carmine really was a memorable portrait. How I've missed those! Nope, Dana and whatsername from "Betrayal" didn't cut it.
--Goren with the uncle: maybe this is why he wants to BE a good Uncle (I know we are all waiting on Donny's next appearance with even more bated breath.)
--Did anybody else's brain jump back to
Stir of Echoes in the scene where Bobby G was digging? Not actually my fave KE movie, but she is great in it.
--Hope everyone saw Hairston's comment about that actually being where Houdini's grave was located. A neat touch in an episode full of them, even if almost to the point of the writer being kind of a "clever student," both of CI and of the genre.
--Eames gets hostile with Holliday from the minute they see him, and there is a little implied flirting (you should stay for my midnight show). That's why he picked up on her relationship with Goren: didn't come just from the card tricks scene but from all of the times they and he interacted.
He was a very nicely-drawn character, too, I felt (the little touch that stands out most to me is when he buries his head in his hands, realizing he's going to be arrested.) It's been a while since I was pulled into sympathy for the villain, the way that classic CI does it.
--I liked the highlighting of Eames' anger issues. Just as a set of character devices, I very much like the fact that both she and Goren have them. It has all kinds of interesting implications for their characters.
--To me, the scene where they find Carmine and the scene with the card tricks are Eames and Goren "flirting," but the scene at the end is much more them reverting to their old selves, playing Holliday for a fool. It was nice to see them enjoying that again; I hope it bodes well for the end of the season and for the coming year. I also liked how it happened on a stage. It was a little like the episode with Claire Bloom being brilliant, whose title is currently escaping me.
--Notwithstanding, Holliday comes in for Goren's scorn. Like the editor character in "Self-Made," he comes in for scrutiny and exposure as a charlatan. That scene about keeping your eyes open/closed/being a fraud/having a gift--that presumably is also about Goren's psyche in some way. I'm not totally sure how. On another note, it is reminiscent of The Gift." The difference is that in "The Gift" there is absolutely a rational explanation for Sylvia's visions. Here, the magic might seem cheap, but it also seems unexplained.
And of course, throughout the series, there's never much of an explanation for Goren's mysterious gifts
Larger observations:Larger observation #1: I'm pretty sure you could go back and read the whole "world of magic" as figurative for the "world of television entertainment." Dk if it's conscious at every point in the script, but it is certainly there. Think how TV has become a world of plastic people and "reality" shows, where simultaneously you have great actors like D'Onofrio and Erbe, following the "code" of acting, by virtue of their association with the L&O franchise, shoved prematurely into the capacity of an "old guard." That's a starting point only, but it seems like a reasonable one. Miles Stone is likely supposed to remind us of David Blaine's stunt on
Oprah, but also of how people will do anything, ANYTHING to get television exposure. And it's as cheap as it is self-destructive.
(In light of this, do we think there's any significance to the fact that Stone had a deal with "NBC"?
One wonders.
Related to this is Larger Observation #2: "Respect" as a theme bookends this episode (not Eames pulling on an Aretha, although perhaps she might
... more a respect for the craft dealy). Carmine mentions it close to the beginning; Holliday cites it as his motive (Stone lacked it), says it is good the detectives show it. Incidentally, this strikes me as a departure, and an interesting one. Usually if something like this happens during the aria, the perp will accuse Goren of N
OT appreciating his craft, his game--whatever (the coach in "Mad Hops," Spencer in "Posthumous Collection" spring to mind).
For both of these ideas (magic=acting/tv and "respect"), I've not read through the episode systematically to find supporting details. I am supposed to be doing other things *blush* But I would definitely like to.
Sooo that's it ... for now *g* ...