3:16 - "The Saint" 2004-03-14

[NikkiGreen]

To start things off, as Trisha won't do it!

Very complex episode. Had my complete and undivided attention for the whole hour...this hasn't happened for a few episodes this season.

I enjoyed it very much. I need to see it a second time before I can make any more comments other than to say that "Louise" was Mrs. McLeish in the first season.

[darmok]

I liked it. The expert who turned out to be the culprit reminded of the Wally Stevens episode. They were both brilliant.

[trisha]

Thank you very much, Nikki

It held my attention, too. I did find Steven Colbert a bit distracting at first and found myself waiting half of the show for the snark that never came. I must say he did a splendid job of bringing out the sniveler in his character, and by the end I didn't see snarky Steven, senior corespondent of the Daily Show at all. So, props to you, Steve.

[janetcatbird]

Yes, it was sort of nice that the writers gave Colbert a chance to go out of character. I'm not a drama critic, but I thought he did a decent job. His work at the end, when he went back to the resentful, confused little boy who lost his world, was especially sympathetic.

One thing that bugs me--shouldn't Goren have brought up the mother's disease? All we heard was his talk at the station, classic manic-depressive symptoms. In "Probability" he told Wally what the problem was, so why didn't he say so here? Of course, Goren's not gonna let her just self-destruct, we can be fairly sure he'd take action after the events seen to help. Maybe it was just too close to home to deal with her and COlbert's character at the same time.

"The sinner raised himself"...I was upset when Eames didn't give a quiet pat on the arm just to say without words "I'm here, I know it's rough". Course she's not gonna fall all over him, but surely that would have been acceptable?

Hey, North Carolina! BIg whoop, I know, but it seemed an odd choice--if the Saint Jerome was located in the Bronx in the 1800s, why would those documents be down in Fayetteville? (For those of you who don't know, Fayetteville is a fairly small town in the eastern part of the state. Located with Fort Bragg, which is where, I believe, Delta FOrce is based.) But maybe the forger character--help me with the name, please!--wanted an obscure place. I mean, y'all are Yankees, in my expereince the only thing people up north know about NC is "Hey, don't you guys have a basketball team or something?" (Yes, we have the big four of the ACC as a matter of fact, all of them in the tourney! Pttppp!)

[Rose]

Janet, I don't think that Eames is that friendly to Goren lately. I'd like to see her just be pleasant to him as she used to be, let alone pat him on the arm to give support.

[Metella]

I was to distracted by personal matters to give full attention to this episode - sorry writers!

Goren does seem to go wild with admiration over well honed skill, however it is applied. I share that - sometimes to my detriment. At least Goren doesn't let that stand in the way of his ramrod straight morals. baha ha.

I truely will have to watch this one more time before doing much more commenting .....

I did pick up on the goat=devil angle at once. Gotta beware of those goats. I was a bit tired of the "oh, my poor childhood" angel again. Can we get on to the real life things - such as just plain bad guys because they choose to be? Sure, it is more twisted and intricate if you tie it in with a sordid childhood; but that is not always the case and not always possible to find out. Let's get back to some freaking detective work again.

[darmok]

janetcatbird said:

One thing that bugs me--shouldn't Goren have brought up the mother's disease? All we heard was his talk at the station, classic manic-depressive symptoms. In "Probability" he told Wally what the problem was, so why didn't he say so here? Of course, Goren's not gonna let her just self-destruct, we can be fairly sure he'd take action after the events seen to help. Maybe it was just too close to home to deal with her and COlbert's character at the same time.

I think he did bring up the disease, to the son. When she starts talking about how he was a lazy boy, Goren says, "Is this why you can't bring yourself to blame her?" Goren knows the son is aware that his mother has a problem, although he may not know the exact diagnosis. The son confirms this when he says, "They took advantage of you."

Even though he's resentful for what she did, he still loves his mother. That's why he has to admit that the goat letter is a fake. He's is a loving son, making sure she's taken care of by putting her name oin his account (although that wouldn't have worked - she would have just given it away), and by taking his frustatrations out on the people that "took advantage" of her.

This is different from the other (as Metella put it) "oh, my poor childhood" episodes because he is not resentful of his mother, although he is resentful. There haven't been that many of that type of episode, although there've been several latley. I think it doesn't help that they just rerean "Suite Sorrow" and "Cherry Red." That makes it seem like more of a theme.

[Metella]

Interesting.

that's true, he didn't hate his mother & just barely seemed to resent her. He got angry with her actions, but seemed to forgive her immediately - knowing it was her mental problem, not her doing "something" to him. Look how quickly he got over the watch thing.

So - then you would be saying he was reacting from a position of perceived weakness? striking out to trick those that kept interferring with him and his care of his mother? When in actuality, he had a skill that could have gained him professional admiration and steady work. (he did do enough work to get jobs for the church - but imagine if he put all that effort in furthering his skill in a different direction)

[trisha]

Well, he was a brilliant forger, what kind of profession would suit him better than what he was already doing? Prop making, maybe?

I also agree that this episode was not in the same category as Cherry Red or Suite Sorrow. It was a well told story that was interesting enough to get me involved in solving the crime, but as far as CI episodes go, it's not my cup of tea. I'm more into the episodes that dwell on psychology. This episode was average in that area, but it fell on the heels of Shrink Wrapped, which really overshadowed it.

[Lilee]

Good point. What I did like was that Goren, when he sat with the mother and held her hand as the lead-in to the poem, he also got it out of her that she had major depressive episodes. So he didn't just diagnose her sight unseen when he suspected her illness. That one short scene has so much going for it.

[popularlibrary]

It seems to me this episode revolves around children and dangerously inappropriate religious behavior. Brother Jerome's sanctity springs from his love of children and his heroic kindness to them. The foundation established in his name is meant to help sick and damaged children, and the episode begins with a woman, cured in adolescence by (as she believes) Brother Jerome, passing on her religious beliefs in the most delicate and lovely way to her grandchild. This is the template - this is how religious belief should function in the world.

It doesn't. Louise is killed, and her grandaughter's faith damaged, probably irreperably, by the actions of a man whose childhood was devestated by the misapplied religion of two people: his mother, and Richard Sullivan.

Everyone has discussed the relationship between James Bennet and his mother, but ignored the equally important relationship between Richard and Sean Sullivan, and the effect of Richard Sullivan's abuse of both his faith and his stewardship of the Brother Jerome Foundation on the Bennets. I think this episode is about far more than just another dysfunctional parent-child relationship. It seems to me that it is concerned with responsibility and ego, and -yes - sin.

It is Sullivan senior's mistaking his obsession to get Jerome canonized with doing good that is at the root of the entire tragedy. He pulls the foundation off its proper child-caring orbit and turns it, as his son says, into a 'cult of personality' - like most obsessives, he is able to justify to himself any wrongdoing, from taking money, to ignoring the wrong-headed gifts of Lois Bennet (who has no right to give away all her son's things), to covering up anything that threatens his own view of the world. The result is that instead of protecting children, he inadvertantly helps cause them damage by diverting attention and help from their real world problems as well as from those of their parents. He prefers to live in the vainglorious world of creating saints than the harder one his faith teaches of doing good without recognition or reward.

His own son sees this, but is helpless to divert his father. Yet Sean stands in direct contrast to James as a man who chooses to do the good his father is failing to. James loves his mother, as most have pointed out - he sees that she is compulsive and can't help her behavior, and he correctly blames Sullivan's organization for taking advantage and turning his own childhood into chaos. But unlike Sean, he does not try to improve things, or to help his mother. The venom Goren identifies consumes him very early on and turns him to an elaborate, obsessive revenge inspired by 'the goat that walks upright'. Like Richard Sullivan, he is so self-absorbed as to have lost touch with reality, but unlike Richard, he becomes a criminal in the process. He is the nightmare child Brother Jerome could not help because his mission has been buried under the burden of 'sainthood'.

I found it a fascinating episode, and like many this season, far more intellectually, emotionally and dramatically complex than most earlier episodes. And darker.

Elena

[janetcatbird]

As mentioned on another thread, I've been in a big "Daily Show" mood lately and found this interview with Stephen Colbert. Kind of long, but depending on your interests it's neat to hear the different stuff he's done. Starts out with Lord of the Rings, his college theatre involvement, and then they get to talking about characters and performance, which I related to this episode. Neat quote, Stephen Colbert says around page 4 of the interview that he is drawn to characters "Who feel like they should have a better place in the world, but are too weak to assert themselves in any way." James Bennet, anybody?

filmforce.ign.com/articles/433/433111p1.html

[Patcat]

Stephen Colbert was interviewed on National Public Radio's FRESH AIR program this past Monday (January 24, 2005). It's an interesting interview--I don't agree with everything he says, but he's very funny, very intelligent, and, rare for a comic, kind. You can access it at www.npr.org/templates/rundowns/rundown.php?prgId=13&prDate=24-Jan-2005

Patcat

[Sirenna]

Wow.

This sounds like a good one. I'm sorry I missed it.

PopularLibrary! So nice to see you posting again. :-D Have posted before? I've missed your insights. I'll have to catch this one in the reruns.

Sam

[janetcatbird]

Well, I got to see it again on USA this past Saturday. Interesting to watch it a second time after reading interviews with Stephen Colbert. (Also, I was just starting to get into "Daily Show" first time around so I kept mixing up all the dark-haired, glasses-wearing correspondants.)

As noted earlier, I thought Mr. Colbert did a good job emphasizing the scared, resentful little boy at the end. I thought it odd that he was so formal through most of the episode ("I'm very angry"), especially as he kept calling her "Mother". The one time he used a common endearment was when he confessed at the end: "I made it all up, Mom". I was a little annoyed that he seemed to get so angry so often, but I wonder if that was the writers. At least it showed stuff going on under the surface. (The actress who played the mother seemed pretty believable to my mind, kudos to her.)

I couldn't help but think of him being 1) a practicing Catholic and 2) This Week in God. I especially remembered a quote on the Fresh Air interview where he won't make fun of an actual belief or tenet of faith, but if the behavior "is destructive or hypocritical, it's fair game". I wonder if an agent saw the part and got Mr. Colbert in there, or if the writers knew he'd make an appearance and wrote the role specifically for him. Curious bit to mull on.