Grade 'The Triangle'

I have some mixed feelings about this one. I loved some of the team interactions. I liked seeing Lindsay and Adam working together and adored the Mac/Danny/Hawkes tower scene. I thought Danny was cute with the whole 'let's get it done before someone (i.e. 'I') wets themselves'.

The case was a bit 'blah' but I kinda liked that the girl got away.

I thought it was totally weird that Mac was able to be taken from a crime scene without anyone seeming that concerned about it, particularly as Stella and Flack had a conversation about it. Surely they have protocols for that sort of thing?

As for the chemicals, I like how they used that conversation for Stella to find out (because yes, she's not silly and she knew damn well that Lindsay was referring to herself). But, overall it was a lame attempt to deal with the issue and one they'd have been much better leaving well alone or dealing with it properly.

I thought Danny's proposal was as adorable as Anna Belknap said it would be. I am so glad that Lindsay said 'no' but agree that the whole 'Lindsay walks away' thing is way beyond tired at this point. I actually had some hope in 'the box' that they'd stop with all of that. We saw a glimmer of a pissed off Danny with the 'you can't just lay this on me and walk away' and I would love to see them to explore exactly why Lindsay walks away and basically have her stop! Having said that, it doesn't help that all of their interactions are at work. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong but I'm pretty sure their only non work interactions have beein in 'SOOH' and 'snow day'. I'm not saying I want any overtly personal 'date' or 'home' scenes but how hard would it be to have them walking home from work together and having a conversation, it would make it much more realistic.

I really went into this with no expectation of being convinced Danny was in love with her. It is all too rushed at this point and while I can see that he loves her I think it's all a bit too much for the whole 'in love' thing to come across as believable and not Danny just trying to do the right thing. Obviously the proposal was him doing just that. I think the 'I love you' is genuine but they haven't given it any depth at this point. I hope that the depth will come over time.

Even though it was a little sappy at the end I really, really loved the scene with D/L telling Mac. I think what I loved was the way Mac seemed to react to Danny. Even when he was pulling Lindsay into a hug it was Danny he was looking at. There seemed to be a lot of affection there which was so nice to see given some of the past tensions between Danny and Mac.

Overall, a B+.

 

Before I start banging my head on the keyboard in abject frustration and enumerating the myriad instances of absolute fail in this episode, I'd like to start with the one pleasant surprise of the night:

Lindsay Monroe showed a flash of maturity.

There. I said it, and you bet your ass I'm baffled. Lindsay has never been known for her clear-headedness or an ability to put others before herself. If anything, she's been the poster child for meism, a narcissist of the first water who believes that the sun rises and sets out of her ass and the world hinges on her every angsty bleating. But last night, she demonstrated for the first time an ability and willingness to think outside herself.

And it's about damn time.

Granted, it's possible that her refusal of Danny's impulsive marriage proposal is just more narcissism couched in purported concern for the unborn child, that she's simply dressing up her alarmingly manipulative control issues in more palatable fashion, but I don't think that's the case here. It reared its knobbled, warty little head later with her smug and disingenuous declaration of, "You're not going anywhere; I'm not going anywhere, either," but I believe that conversation with Danny following his rejected proposal is the most honest and sympathetic she's ever been, and the most intelligent. As she says, "Would you rather walk down the aisle or be pushed?" She realizes that shotgun marriages of necessity seldom end well and often cause more emotional damage than they avert. It's an astute observation, and kudos to her for having that foresight.

While her refusal was certainly the right thing to do, I felt horrible for Danny. Yes, it was ill-advised and wrong-headed, but he clearly meant well and was trying to do right by her as he saw it, and it's another rejection atop so many others. He's been rejected or felt rejected his entire life and developed a hellacious inferiority complex as a result, and this latest rejection, no matter how reasonable or how gently given, isn't going to salve any wounds on that front. It's obviously on view during Danny and Lindsay's subsequent conversation when he asks pointedly, "Not the right time, or not the right guy?" He clearly worries that Lindsay finds him inadequate to the tasks of fatherhood and marriage, a fear that was no doubt exacerbated by her snide, "I know how you are" of the previous episode. Danny has a long memory for slights and hurts, and that one's going to draw interest for a long time.

Lindsay's assurance that she's "not going anywhere" rings hollow in light of her previous behavior. She's pushed him away time and again when his neediness has proven inconvenient, and I've no doubt that she'll do so again the nanosecond she needs to get her angst on without the bothersome buzzkill of a support system. It's much easier to angst and be put-upon when you're alone, after all, and I'd bet ten Internet dollars that she'll accuse him of emotional abandonment before the obligatory birthing scene during May sweeps.

Dear Writers,

I see what you did there, trying to defuse concerns about potential dangers to fetal development. My, what a dreadful, awkward, flippant gloss job that was. You should've simply held up a sign that said, "Gaping plothole patch in progress."

And while I understand that Mac would've been a raging hypocrite to censure Danny and Lindsay for dating when he once shtupped his coroner, I do not buy that he'd greet the news with a handshake and a hug. Fraternization between co-workers is discouraged in the department, and as their supervisor, he is duty-bound to transfer one of them out of his department. I didn't see him drawing up any paperwork.

I'm not an idiot. Stop assuming I'll swallow any pablum you spoon out. I'm not thirteen, and I can keep the Astroglide in the drawer and two hands on the keyboard while watching your show.


Dear Mac,

Congratulations on your lobotomy and personality transplant.

The rest of this episode was a plodding, choppy disaster. The case was boring as library paste, and the flash drive didoes were shoehorned into an already overburdened episode. The flash drive chicanery belonged in another episode altogether, not stapled onto a bloated borefest.

And really, I have issues with the subplot. The Men In Black grabbed Mac from a crime scene and interrogated him for an hour in the back of a sekrit gubmint SUV. For an hour mind, though Stella said she couldn't contact him "all night". Notice, also, that when Mac was first grabbed, it was daylight, but by the time they've reached the Isolated Manhattan Parking Garage of Nefarious Government Machinations, it's full dark. The MIB must've been doing their part for the environment by pushing their Gubmobiles to the garage.

So Mac is now involved in a shadowy government conspiracy over the flash drive. Really? Are you kidding me? I liked Mac much better when he was more Grissom and less Horatio Caine. Since when did NY CSI become MI-5? Between Stella and her Greek consulate mystery and this, I feel like I've been roped into watching a fourth-tier X-Files.

And if next week's preview is any indication, it's not going to get any better. You know, since fifty-year-old Mac is so hot that Elle from the secrets website is going to become obsessed with him. Please. Gary Sinise, God love him, is not the only cock in the room.

Dear PTB,

You lie. According to your official Flack bio on CBS.com, Don Flack has been a cop since 1997. It is now 2008. Therefore, he cannot have been both a detective for seven years and on the Bank Robbery Taskforce for four. Yes, that handily adds up to eleven years, but alas, it fails to take into account the required eighteen-month period as a uniformed patrolman that every officer must complete before even being considered for promotion to detective or appointment to a a specialized squad such as Narco. Either Flack has been a cop since 1995, a feat that would be improbable at best if he joined the NYPD right out of high school(which is also impossible unless he was grandfathered in because of familial connections to the department), or your math is faulty.

If Flack joined the academy immediately after high school at eighteen in '96 and joined the force at nineteen or twenty in '97, then he's been on the force a maximum of eleven years and cannot possibly have held all these positions. It's possible that the four years on the bank robbery squad were included in the seven years with the detective bureau, but Flack implied those were separate stints.

If Flack joined the academy directly after high school, then he would've been nineteen in '97 and seventeen in '95, too young to be a cop before '97, and certainly too young to be a detective by that year. Even if Flack didn't join the academy until he'd completed the requisite two years of junior college, he would still be too young to have held both positions, especially since "The Fall" had established that he had been a patrolman with Gavin Moran at one time. Though a patrolman is eligible for promotion to detective after eighteen months, few receive said promotion in fewer than three years. If Flack was lucky and received his shield at eighteen months, that leaves only nine and a half years of time, not eleven. If he received it after three years, that leaves a scant eight years.

In short, hire Charlie Eppes and suck less in the math department, please.

The case was eminently forgettable, though it's novel that the killer eluded justice for the time being. This was a case of too much character and not enough crime, and I don't hold out hope for much improvement on that score. Further, the writers did the episode a disservice by including too much in those forty-four minutes, and I was frustrated and disappointed by all of it.



C-

 

I gave this episode a C. The case wasn't that great and the DL crap just made everything worse. Seriously, I hope this is the end of what seems like DL taking up the entire episode. Can we get back to the cases now or at least move on to other characters?

~The pacemaker exploding was different. I've never heard of that before but I'm sure it's happened.
~Danny, Mac, and Hawkes on top top of the Empire State Building made me dizzy just watching it on tv especially when they'd show them peering over the edge. Um no.
~I did enjoy Flack's scene in the bar and again with Mac in interrogation.
~Mac disappearing at the beginning made me LOL at the fact that other than mentioning it, nobody was really worried about him:wtf:
~Yay for continuity with Flack's superstitions. 'The 3-1-1 gets calls about this area all the time' reminded me of the scene in Til Death Do We Part when he said 'The 2-2-7 gets calls....'

If tptb are trying to make me believe that Danny and Lindsay are in love, they're doing a crappy job at it. We've seen nothing from Danny at all that would indicate he loves her and now all the sudden he wants to get married. :wtf: Sorry, I don't buy it. I get the feeling Danny is only doing it because of the baby, not because he loves Lindsay and I think he's confusing his love for the baby with love for Lindsay. I was happy to see that she said NO to the proposal, lame as it was. It looked like he was going to ask her over the phone which would have been worse.

What would he have done if Lindsay would have said 'yes, there's mental illness in my family', not ask her to marry him? The proposal just came off as forced to me. The 'I love you' scene was even worse if that's possible. I know I said that I would believe Danny loves Lindsay when I heard him say it but NOPE, still don't believe it. It sounded out of place and like Danny was trying to make himself say it. Lindsay certainly had no problem saying it back which suggests to me that she means it and he doesn't. Other than that, the conversation itself was bearable. But again, like the proposal, he chooses to do it during working hours. Don't they ever spend time together when they're not at work?

The chemical thing was lame since Lindsay's known for a while but she just NOW thought to ask Stella about the chemicals. The hug with Mac at the end seemed odd to me too. I wonder if Lindsay will still be working out in the field now or if she'll decide working with harmful chemicals is much safer.

My question is, would Danny have told Lindsay he loved her or asked her to marry him at this point if she wasn't pregnant? NO but my guess is since she's obviously in love, she'll overlook that and marry him anyway just because she loves him and they're having a baby. I don't see smooth sailing ahead for them.

 

-The Empire State Building walk made me feel a bit dizzy, since I have a severe fear of heights. My mom and I saw that and both went "Oh... God! I... I can't even watch this correctly."

-The proposal thing made me happy because she said no. I would have been very upset if she had said yes.

-The hug between Mac and Danny/Lindsay made me smile, though. He seemed happy for them, which is good.

-Lindsay Lindsay Lindsay. No one falls for that. I'm very happy that the writers didn't pull the "this scientist isn't smart enough to figure out simple things" and make her not guess.

Someone mentioned the coworker relationships on the three CSIs. Miami is the only one that, as far as I remember, has ever specifically mentioned a rule about coworkers dating. On LV, the problem with GSR was that he was her supervisor. No rule about fraternization (I believe that's the correct word) between people in equal positions was ever mentioned.

 

A

I loved the idea of the triangle, I just wished they had explored it a bit more. The daughter following in her dying father's footsteps was a nice take, although it was painfully obvious that it had to be the girl from the bar. But she did get away with knowledge on the microwave gun and the Satan's ring so perhaps we'll see her again. Would be cool to see that weird 'triangle' guy again, too (he made me laugh).

It's nice that they are picking up on another episode again with the flash drive, but those two 'men-in-black' following Mac around seemed a bit odd. I hope we learn more about that soon.

Danny saying something about the view from the Empire State Building being even greater than from the Statue of Liberty reminded me that he and Mac have now literally been on top of two NY Landmarks; I'd say the Dakota Building will make for some pretty shiny pictures next time

I, again, really liked how they handled the D/L relationship. Of course it was a bit of a quick transition from last week's dealing with the news to them laughing and talking on the phone and Danny's proposal, but if the show follows real time a little they both would've had a week to think about this and talk about it and on a show where they deal with the death of people in a couple of episodes this should not be such a big surprise.

Danny's proposal was indeed a combination of sweetness and nervously asking all kinds of silly questions before popping the big one. Lindsay's "no" sounded sad, but resolute.

It didn't feel out of place to me, he has had some time to think about his feelings, to think about how he truly feels about Lindsay and he still said it even when she had already said no to his proposal; she already knew he was willing to do that for her and their child so the only other reason imo for him saying that he loves her is because he really does. And standing with his arms folded is one of Danny's nervous twitches (like pushing his glasses back ), he never thought he'd say those words to any one a couple of years back and now he was about to utter them for the first time, of course he takes his trade mark stand for that.

About the chemicals, I think it was great that they at least made an effort to explain why Lindsay can keep working in the lab. I do believe that what Stella said wouldn't hold in a real lab, but in a TV show where the CSI's do their jobs dressed like they all do and where the people in the lab are also making arrests and doing interrogations, I think it's the best they could've done.

And the Lindsay('s friend)/Stella conversation to me came across like it was probably meant to be, Lindsay not really being able to hide that it was about her and Stella not really being able to hide that she knew that.

 

Mentioned or not, the rules exist, and for good reason. And since the show purports to be based on the NYPD and uses NYPD protocols whenever it suits it, it's not unreasonable to wonder why the rules of fraternization are so blithely ignored.

Want to bet they won't be when it comes to the possibility of Flack/Angell down the road?

 

The timeline for Flack irritated me too because the numbers didn't add up. Also, Flack couldn't have joined the academy after high school since you cannot join the NYPD Academy until you are 21. Tptb screwed up again, imagine that.

It screws up their storyline if they acknowledge that NYPD rule and nothing seems to stop tptb when they are hell bent on a storyline. In the real world, one of them definitely would be transferred out of there.

 

Could be, but at this moment we don't even know yet how they are going to proceed with Danny and Lindsay. We've seen Mac obviously gratulating them, but we have not heard what was being said, so perhaps there will be some changes (I highly doubt it, but you never know).

BTW, where is Angell? I cannot remember whether she was supposed to be in this one or not.

 

She's supposed to be in next week's episode. At least she was listed in the press release.

 

Yeah, their math always sucks. Stella says she and Mac have worked together for ten years in "Officer Blue", but in the one where her foster sister showed up, it was said that she'd graduated from the academy ten years ago (or something similar). Lindsay's backstory was extremely iffy in the math department as well. It's no surprise that they'd just stick random numbers into the dialogue without busting out a calculator and a timeline.

As a random note, how frickin' off was the press release for this episode?

Um, not at all like what happened - and I'm pretty positive the original spoilers were like the episode, not this press release.

 

They're talking about the preview of next week's episode. They think Mac's got a female stalker next week. I think they believe it's that girl from the episode "Dead Inside" who had that website where people send in their secrets.

I'm with you on that, Ovejaras. I'm definitely with you on that.
Just read this quote of a paragraph from my second post over on page 1 of this thread.

 

It definitely is Ella from "Dead Inside" - but the preview itself could be misleading beyond that. We'll have to wait and see, I guess.

 

Oh boy. If they complain about Flack/Angell after all of this D/L drama, I might have to go the wherever they film this in CA and complain very loudly. I'm not kidding. TPTB would get hell from me if D/L didn't get in trouble but F/A did.

 

I thought it was a great episode..ONLY because of the Empire State Building scene..LOl...I was getting queasy just watching it...a tad fraid of heights here ya know. LOL Some corny bits in it but a entertaining episode.