CSI: New York--'All Access'

CSI Files

Captain
Synopsis:

Nick Russo, <font color=yellow>Kid Rock</font>'s limo driver, is found dead outside the venue where Kid is performing, but Mac Taylor barely has time to examine the scene before he hears a disturbing call on the police scanner: shots have been fired and an officer may be down at an address he recognizes all too well: Stella's. He and Flack find Stella in her apartment, unconscious and beaten. The body of her boyfriend, Frankie Mala, lies nearby, dead. Stella is taken to the hospital where she will undergo a complete work up. The CSIs are relieved to learn Stella hasn't been raped, but they need to piece together what led her to kill Frankie, whom she shot three times. Flack sits down with Stella to help her piece together what happened.

Danny and Lindsay tackle the Russo case, their suspicions first landing on Blake Mathers, Kid's original limo driver, who was fired for bringing groupies up to the parties. But Blake maintains his innocence, so Danny turns to a CD found in the limo, which contains Kid's new song, and was apparently used by Nick to release the song onto the net. Could Kid have killed him? The rocker denies it; he wanted Nick to release the song, to build buzz for his new album. Lindsay is able to match up a slip of paper with a phone number from the limo to leaflet in a CD a fan named Felicia Badman gave to Kid. Felicia tells the CSIs she hooked up with Nick to get an All Access pass into the show, but when they notice her pass is missing a chain, they match it to a mark on Nick's neck. Danny and Lindsay confront Felicia--after she and Nick hooked up, he refused to give her the pass. She found a gun in the glove compartment and threatened him with it, and when he tried to grab it from her, the gun went off.

Stella and Flack piece together what happened together: Frankie confronted Stella in a parking garage about not returning his phone calls. She broke up with him over the website he made, aresanob.com, which showed the two having sex. When she got home later that evening, she found Frankie in her apartment; he had stolen and copied her key. She told him to leave but when she went for her phone, he grappled with her and overpowered her. He tied her up, and she tried to convince him she loved him so that he would let her go. Frankie didn't fall for it; he punched her and knocked her out. When she came to, he dragged her into the bathroom, but was interrupted by the doorbell. Frankie left her in the bathtub while he went to get the takeout he'd ordered for them, and Stella managed to free herself using a razor. She hid behind the bathroom door and slammed it into him when he came back. She ran into the living room and got her gun, but he leapt on her and knocked her down. Frankie grabbed the gun and pulls the trigger, but he didn't load the chamber so no bullet fired. Stella used his momentary distraction to grab the gun, which she armed and fired into him three times, before collapsing. IAB deems the shoot a good one, and Mac insists Stella take sick leave. She returns home to her apartment but thinks better of it and instead packs an overnight bag and leaves.

Analysis:

I'll be up front right off the bat and admit that I had serious reservations about this episode as soon as I saw the extended preview at aresanob.com. When I first heard about the idea of Stella killing Frankie and not remembering what happened, it sounded like it had the makings for an exciting episode. However, I found what ended up on screen to be so excessive and graphic that it was downright distasteful. CSI shows depict violence against women with regularity due to the nature of the franchise, but never have I have seen it played for cheap "thrills" in the manner in which it was done in this episode.

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To read the full reviews, please click here.<center></center>
 
Awesome and unlike some of the writing this season on the show I could feel the depth of your conviction as you wrote.


Ali
 
Thank you! :D

I guess I do feel pretty passionately about this one. I felt really, really insulted and, well, offended by this episode. It's one thing to have a bad episode, it's another to have one that is downright offensive.
 
Being over in sunny (yeah) old Blighty we're only half way through the season, but as I'm the type of person who always reads the end of the book first, I like to know what's going to happen. I was a little surprised to hear of two consecutive character driven episodes with RS,RD and then this. Although I like NY because I feel they are delving more into characterization than the other two, I hope they don't continue with such a focus. I was really surprised by the response to this episode, and I have to say I agree with Top about the direction the writers take with regards to female characters.
 
I love New York and I love the character episodes--I think that the more they do that, the better. But one thing that made me like NY all the more was how strong it's female characters were in the first season. Stella is still strong of course, but I feel like the exploited her and tried to take her down a peg or two with the way this episode was done. And I hate that.
 
Top , I agree with the aspect in your review about the blatent brutalization and vicitmization of strong women that the show portrayed last night.

plus, you bring up a good point, the first season of NY, there were two strong female characters, Stella and Aiden. Stella was beaten and brutalized by her BF and from what we found out on a spolier, Aiden doesn't fair to well either. I find it reprehensable, to say the least.

Not to discredit Melina's acting, which was outstanding.
 
I'm a little surprised about it - I saw the preview on the website, and it startled me. I love knowing more about the characters, but from what I've read on this site about the episode I don't like that they've done this to Stella - I don't think it was necessary at all. I like CSI (all of them) for their subtlety, whereas if this episode does delve into gore a little too much I think the writers need to a little thinking. Why do we have to be so behind in England?? Just not fair!
 
^That preview really put me off. Combined with the Kid Rock song, it really seemed like an attempt to glamorize what Stella was going through. It was in pretty poor taste IMO.

ThumpyG said:
plus, you bring up a good point, the first season of NY, there were two strong female characters, Stella and Aiden. Stella was beaten and brutalized by her BF and from what we found out on a spolier, Aiden doesn't fair to well either. I find it reprehensable, to say the least.

I didn't get into that too much in my review so as not to spoil anyone (and I'll keep it vague here), but the idea that within three weeks two strong women who are/were central characters are going to be victimized is really disturbing to me. Add that to the precedent the other CSI shows have set and it's just pretty darn worrying. And upsetting.

Not to discredit Melina's acting, which was outstanding.

She was really excellent.
 
Yeah, seeing the female characters on the show getting physically abused really disturbs me. I adore Stella but last night made me sick. Can there ever be a female character on tv who doesn't get abused by her boyfriend or who lives a normal life :rolleyes:. That part where Frankie slapped her really got me mad. Anyway, back OT. I always love the reviews posted here but this one was just awesome.
 
Top41 said:
^That preview really put me off. Combined with the Kid Rock song, it really seemed like an attempt to glamorize what Stella was going through. It was in pretty poor taste IMO.

I thought that... could they have picked a better guest star? A guy known for his "hos and bitches" attitude, in an episode where the lead female character gets beaten and tortured. It was questionable, at best, and downright distasteful at worst.
 
I detest Kid Rock. His whole attitude (IMO) is disgusting and I think that his music sucks. I think that the show could have fared much better with a different guest star.
 
When I heard about the 'Stella shooting Frankie' episode, I thought it would be great. But after seeing it, it was just sad. I always saw Stella as a strong character and this has totally been ruined by what the writers did. Frankie also wasn't convincing as a boyfriend turned mad. But the entire storyline felt awkward. Actually, the entire episode felt awkward. The Kid Rock case and the Stella case just didn't work together.

It's not like I thought it was offensive for women in general (I can completely understand this though), but I found it offensive to Stella as a person. After a great episode like last week, this was a downer.
 
Fantastic review, Top!

We've never seen a woman on a CSI show in successful relationship. Over on CSI, Catherine seems to jump from one bad man to another. Ironically, the episode "Weeping Willows" was rerun just recently, and it's another perfect example of the trend. In my review, I noted how it seemed in the episode that Catherine was being punished for wanting to have a social life. Certainly that appears to be what's happening to Stella here. Other CSI show women follow the trend: Sara had a paramedic as a boyfriend who turned out to be no good, while on Miami, Calleigh's ex-boyfriend Hagen was revealed to be unstable (he held a gun to her head) and Yelina was abused by the man she was dating, IAB Rick Stetler (ironically, he's still on the show; she's not).
*le sigh*

While I like the whole CSI franchise, the way the writers treat their female characters slowly begins to unsettle me.
It's true, becoming a victim of sexual assault/spousal abuse/an abusive relationship is higher when you're a woman, it still doesn't mean it has to be exploited the way it has been. I'm not expecting every human being to live a happy life in TV-land as that is just not the way life is.

Television needs drama.
Exploitation of that drama, however, makes for bad television.

I'm waiting to see one of the female (main) characters on any of the three CSIs to lead a fairly happy life.
Sara had that body-moving boyfriend that cheated on her, Catherine's husband was a downright jerk, Hagen put a gun to Calleigh's head, Stella's boyfriend nearly killed her.
And oh, lest I forget, Aiden doesn't seem to do too well. And oh, another thing: Lindsay's dark secret? I think I know what kind of secret that might be. /sarcasm

edited 'cause my computer ate the dark-secret part
 
I'm not too familiar with Kid Rock, so I didn't mind him, but if his attitude really is "hos and bitches" (and certainly the scenes shown in the episode do nothing to dispel that notion), that just underscores my point all the more, I think.

jorja_fan86 said:
Yeah, seeing the female characters on the show getting physically abused really disturbs me. I adore Stella but last night made me sick. Can there ever be a female character on tv who doesn't get abused by her boyfriend or who lives a normal life :rolleyes:. That part where Frankie slapped her really got me mad. Anyway, back OT. I always love the reviews posted here but this one was just awesome.

When Frankie hit her in the face, that was when it crossed the line for me. This wasn't just being used as a stunt episode to draw in viewers--this was showing violence towards women in a way that plays it up and almost glamorizes it.

I'm rarely one to say there's too much violence on TV (I don't believe in creative limitations for the most part), but in this case, where it was being played up and glorified, I found it disgusting.

Bunny said:
While I like the whole CSI franchise, the way the writers treat their female characters slowly begins to unsettle me.
It's true, becoming a victim of sexual assault/spousal abuse/an abusive relationship is higher when you're a woman, it still doesn't mean it has to be exploited the way it has been. I'm not expecting every human being to live a happy life in TV-land as that is just not the way life is.

And that's exactly my beef with it--the way the characters are exploited for ratings or cheap thrills. Whenever they want to show a character in danger or vulnerable, they usually pick out a woman. OK, Nick got buried alive by a psycho, but there wasn't the implication that it was his bad choice that got him there--just pure happenstance. He had the bad luck to be at the scene of the crime.

OTOH, there's a subversive condemnation of the women CSIs on the show--they keep picking bad men. And yes, that happens in real life, but not with these numbers--almost 100% across the board for regular characters. Alexx stands as the sole exception over all of the CSI shows. The jury is still out on Lindsay given that we don't know her dark secret.

So, out of six regular female characters we've seen on CSI shows (Lindsay and Aiden are being excluded--Lindsay because we don't know yet, and Aiden because we never saw her in a relationship), 5 out of 6 of the women have chosen badly in the romantic department. 5/6. I know the odds are high in real life, but they're not five out of six.

Contrast that with the men. How many of them have ended up in bad relationships, where they've gotten hurt, emotionally or physically? Nick, in season one with the prostitute might count (does it? I haven't seen the episodes)? So maybe one. It's absurd.
 
Re: Nick with the prostitute - that was actually quite an interesting example. The implication was she was using Nick and had lied to him from the start. He evidently liked her a lot (we know Nicky is a romantic) but was used for sex.
We've also got Warrick - who's relationship is currently in "unknown" status.

Is there a male character who is currently in a stable relationship? Apart from Horatio.
 
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