The CSI:NY writers are like sexually inexperienced teenage boys. They know how the act of making out, er, writing a good story should go, but they have absolutely no clue how to put that nebulous and grandiose intuition into practice. They know a good serial killer arc needs a steady, meaty buildup, lots of suspense, and a thrilling, satisfying conclusion, but they are utterly incapable of delivering any of those things with any consistency. They either lay on the melodrama with a garden trowel and trudge toward the predictable conclusion of SuperMac getting his man, or they bumble ineffectually along until they get bored or frustrated and hastily wrap up the dull, childish proceedings with an ending pulled from the pages of Cliched Writing 101 or the ass of a dyspeptic yak. Like so many other CSI:NY villains, the Compass Killer could've been interesting and exciting. I was initially intrigued by the presence of old dust on the evidence. I wanted to know more about his modus operandi and methodology. I wanted to know why he chose his victims. Maybe I've been spoiled by Criminal Minds, which does a superlative job of humanizing the killers while preserving the audience's desire to see them caught, but I'm beyond tired of being promised an intriguing killer, only to have the focus shift abruptly and unceremoniously to the wonders of Mac Taylor and his l33t Justice Fu. He's the dog with the biggest dick in the pack; we get it. Now can we see something other than his supreme awesomeness, please? The arc suffered for the three-and-out constraints of the preferred NY format. It would have been better served had the middle episode stood on its own rather than being haphazardly shoehorned into the excellent and vastly superior Flack "subplot". The advancement of the Compass Killer arc and the flaccid, by-the-numbers backstory we received for the hapless Hollis Eckhart was roundly eclipsed by Flack's graceless introduction of rock bottom, and if it hadn't been for the handy summary on the weekly review, I would've been hard-pressed to recall the details. The fact that he was a psychiatric patient who had calmly walked out of the hospital unobserved was blithely mentioned and then swept under the rug. Had the arc been given another episode unto itself, Eckhart could've been fleshed out. As it is, his flimsy backstory makes him little more than the stereotypical tragic villain. And once again, it's all about Mac. Mac's determination. Mac's urgency. Blah, blah, yeehaw blah. Danny and Flack have a nice moment during the surprisingly tense chase through the alleys, but aside from that, it's Mac cracking the whip on his exhausted employees while he...I don't actually know. Aimlessly searches the streets, I suppose. He's so determined to catch the killer that he orders Stella to keep him on speakerphone and usher him through the lab like some demented Verizon maitre d' just in case new evidence emerges. As if Stella has nothing better to do than play phone valet. Does anyone remember when Stella used to be an accomplished CSI in her own right and not the expository gopher and lab coordinator? I miss that Stella. Maybe she really did get fired after the monstrosity that was "Grounds for Deception" and the "Stella" we see now is a pod person. And of course it's Mac who gets through to Hollis. Of course it is. His loss of Claire in 9/11 grants him the magical power to connect with any bereaved nutjob. Never mind that Flack, who watched his girlfriend die in his arms in the backseat of a squad car and murdered her killer in grief-stricken revenge should have a stronger and more immediate connection(and bless Eddie Cahill for having Flack be aware of that connection even if the writers chose to ignore it in order to further perpetuate Mac's inviolate greatness.). Nope. Mac has to be the mouthpiece of reason. So great are his powers of persuasion that a ghost--a ghost, for God's sake--immediately senses his holiness, er, goodness and urges her husband to listen to him. Not only that, be he cures Hollis' longstanding psychosis, if Hollis' dazed, "What have I done?" is any indication. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised since he cured Flack's depression and crisis of conscience last week. And don't even get me started on the dinner scene. His "I approve" glance at Flack and Flack's deferential acknowledgment thereof made me want to cut a bitch. It wasn't enough to have him licking Mac's boots last episode, even though Mac told him to shove off and suffer in silence? Gag me with an elephant's dildo. Boy, those Messers must have the world's most obliging babysitter. As far as I could tell, no one had gone home since Eckhart's escape into the sewers, and at least twenty-four hours--closer to thirty-six--had passed over the course of the episode. I bet that fourteen-year-old with the hunk of Double Bubble in her cheek like a chipmunk with goiter is just counting the days until she can afford that bellybutton ring. Either that, or an elderly pensioner is losing her retirement to the malodorous joys of changing Lucy's filthy diapers. I don't want to hear about Lucy's every grunt, but to introduce a child and then pretend she doesn't affect the parents' ability to work is maddening and insulting. I spent the episode imagining a poor teenage girl waiting resolutely by the phone for someone to call and tell her she could go to bed before she fell to the floor in a sugar coma. And it's December 4th in New York, and no one is wearing anything heavier than a light jacket? Mac is running around in short sleeves? Flack is creeping through the sewers in a vest and light cotton shirt? No gloves? No scarves? Screw you, lazy producers. I can only suspend my disbelief so far for so long. I'm in North Carolina, and it's butt-ass cold. Cold enough for sweaters and flannels and heavy pants. You're telling me that New Yorkers are running around in light, short-sleeved, cotton shirts and khakis? I don't think so, Scooter. Pretend a little harder next time. At least Flack is back to his chow hound groove, and damn, did he look scrumptious in that black shirt. Mmmm. D-, and that's as a reward for Flack in that sexy, sexy shirt.
^ ROFLOL!! That is one of the awesome-ist critiques ever!! I'm a shameless, self-admitted SuperMac lover, but I love the way you describe how the writers treat him. And I couldn't agree with you more about the New York weather!!! lol, I'm in Michigan and it's obviously not even Dec. yet, and we woke up to an inch of snow on the ground! Maybe it's a paralell dimension New York that we can visit one day!!:hugegrin: I never even thought of the poor teenage Messer babysitter!! :lol: :lol::lol: Of course he is! He's Super Danny!!!! :hugegrin::hugegrin::hugegrin: I agree though. A temporary paralysis that he was told he'd get over in a few weeks would have been way more believable, but then you wouldn't have had the whole emotional basis for Epilogue......... Oh well, he'll just have to be Super Danny!
yeah i figured it was either a sofabed type thing (which some people do have in their spare rooms especially in cities where space is short) and/or a joke, i did notice it but not to the point where it bothered me particularly
I agree with you on this. Unless you watched S3 you wouldn't know about the parallel. It was just a nice inside touch for those of us who know her past. Also, I can't see Lindsay making an open reference to it anyway...not the type. But in reality, since it has been three seasons ago since we watched her deal with it, I think any deeper reference to her past might have drawn attention away from the current case because the amount of explanation necessary for it to make sense. I think it would be a lot different than, say, Danny referencing the coastguard having to scoop them up when their rowboat got out into the shipping lane on the river.
I don't think they need to actually reference back to the quadruple murder because it's something that the characters already know about. It's totally different than Lindsay & Flack (back in season 4) told Stella about the things they had bought from Laughing Larry or how Hawkes used to want to be a sculptor. After the shooting in On The Job, I thought that might come up again because of that speech Mac gave him at the end, but it never did.
^ Yeah, I'm struck by the number of plots that have just been spontaneously dropped, even though I was expecting them to come up again at certain points throughout the show (Gavin Moran, Ruben, the CotP explosion -- I would've expected to see Flack at least flinch when the lab exploded in "Snow Day"). Huh, BHC: it's way more serious than I thought. However, on referencing Lindsay's quadruple murder -- it was featured a fairly long time ago. And whenever the show does reference a past plot, even if the characters all know about it, they tend to do it with exposition-dialogue, and more often than not, flashback montages. Which might've taken away from the Compass Killer story.
Once again, NY is falling into that same hole they've been doing this whole year, the emotional impact of a storyline. I just don't get why NY is missing the beat this season when it comes to tapping into a viewer's feelings and connection to the characters. Yes the storyline and acting were all solid works and everything in the storyline eventually all worked out very well. But somehow the emotional impact completely faded to the background. This season has been disappointing me when it comes to emotional impact, somehow I just can't connect to the characters and the raw emotional feelings of the episode anymore and it's starting to worry me. No NY episode this season has had me all excited and jumping up and down yet and I'm really wondering what's going on here because normally NY's the best at extracting emotional feelings from me out of all the CSI series. NY writers really need to stop focusing on just the case storylines alone and stop shortchanging their character moments with just big action scenes. NY really needs to find the heart of their stories this year.... Overall, this is a great episode from both the storyline aspect and the acting aspect, sure a little wonky on the timelines, but I can forgive that mistake.....so for me, this is gonna be an A-.......if there had been a raw emotional feeling for me, it could have gotten a perfect rating.....
I have to say, I don't think Lindsay was thinking of what happened to her as a teenager as much as she was remembering seeing her husband get shot in the bar a few months ago. She was relating to Eckhart's anger as much as she was to his pain, specifically his anger at watching his wife get murdered and not being able to do anything about it--not unlike Lindsay rolling over to find her husband bleeding and unable to feel his legs. That was the parallel it felt like they were going for, and the one that makes more sense. I'm sure Lindsay felt anger and pain when she was a teenager and her friends were shot, but it felt like on this, she was relating to Eckhart's pain and anger as a spouse being present when the person you love most is hurt/killed. Danny running again feels like way too much, and I'm bummed they cut Flack's moment of concern, though it was cute the way Flack said to him, "That was nice of you" after Danny gave the homeless guy his jacket. That underscored how Danny's definitely the sweetest, most compassionate character on the show.
AAWW I miss feeling that way about Danny he can be a real sweetheartCan he get a divorce or somthing? You remind me of another scene that was cut,that and the "Redhead" scene for Adam and the girl in the bar. What was that about?
that was exactly what i thought too. although i guess i'm surprised they haven't managed to bring up a link, even fleeting, to remind people that from lindsay's POV, what happened in the bar (lindsay and her friends being shot at by bonkers people) was kind of in parallel to what happened to her in montana (lindsay and her friends being shot at by a bonkers person). i'm sad to say i'd missed that connection til someone brought it up here, but it makes sense, it's like she's had this happen twice so could definitely relate hollis. i agree that she was referring to what happened to danny, but they could've really made something of the fact that everywhere she goes, bonkers people start shooting her friends!:lol: agreeed, basically.
I'm a little late to the party but ...hey... I agree with La Guera this storyline had the best intentions but somehow failed. I noticed it last week when we saw the insight into Hollis's psyche. It could have been a lot more interesting than it actually was. It all came down to the chase scenes. Which was sort of interesting. A race against time if you will. Sort of like the original CSI. Which I like. But, who among us didn't figure out that the final victim was himself? I didn't need to see the drawing to figure that out. Which brings me to what Lindsay had to say. I'm not her greatest fan, but to me she wasn't saying anything groundbreaking. Maybe now I just see her as Danny's wife and it's something she's supposed to say. Possibly if I watch the episode again, I'll have more to say. What I can say, is that this Compass Killer had great potential but fell flat. Grade: C
I'm actually torn on this -- while I do think Lindsay was probably thinking of Danny's being injured in the bar shooting, more than she was of her friends when she was relating to Eckhart (what with the bar shooting being far more recent), we've seen this kind of angry focus from her before; in S2 when she had cases with teenaged girls. So it might've been a combination of both the diner shooting and the bar shooting that made her relate to him; because anger and pain seem to be her main reactions too, when loved ones get hurt/killed in shootings. (LOL, and yeah, how weird is it that that's happened to her more than...possibly anyone else on the planet?:wtf If that's a parallel they meant to draw (for non-regular viewers), they probably would've done better with a flashback. On the other hand, doing so would have taken away from the Compass Killer story.
I don't think it was groundbreaking so much as interesting--and there's so little interesting that comes from Lindsay that it stood out. The anger she has bottled up is definitely something worth exploring--I'd love to see her pushed to the point where she acted out of rage. I guess I saw the direct parallel in Eckhart losing his wife while he was right there unable to do anything and Lindsay being present when Danny was shot and being unable to do anything. This wasn't about teenage girls--it was about a person losing his spouse and being pushed over the edge because of that. So while I'm sure both probably crossed her mind, I think it was the more recent shooting that she was thinking about when she made those comments.
Was all of that underground house underground? Was the view of the city just a back drop? Danny can really move fast for a guy who was in a wheel chair a month ago. I really wasn't surprised that the last victim was going to be the Compass Killer. During the showdown between the killer and the cops, have the streets of NYC ever been that empty? The food at the end looked really good. Made me hungry. I prefer the Gordon Lightfoot version of "Sundown."