It's a nice explanation, RedHot, but, in all honesty, I don't think Horatio's execution of the guy with the sword can be justified in such a way. It's justifying murder and just because your enemies are lowlife who have no regard for life, it does not justify you turning into them and killing someone as they would.
The thing is, the Mala Noche are insiduous gangsters, but Horatio, no matter where he is and/or why he is there, is an officer of the law first. He has, or should have, the training of restraint backing him up. He also has a code of honour to uphold that goes with the badge that he wears. This action that he took concerning the guy with the sword, it was nothing short of murderous. There was nothing 'civilised' about what he did. It was cold and calculated, and no smart line will make it any different for me.
But you are trying to apply realism to his character, when the show is done in a comic book style...sort of reminds me of sin city or snatch type style in a tv show. It isn't supposed to be realistic in anyway, the Horatio character has this superhero personal, and it is part of his character. While this might be unethical and wrong in a realistic setting, in miami setting it was an entertaining action sequence.
And most likely if he didn't kill them all...he probably would have been killed. Its killed or be killed. It was over the top and ridiculous, with him shooting each one with a bullet, but it is supposed to be like that. I don't want a serious miami, i love the style for the show. It is entertaining as hell...
Hello xfCanadian – The way I used to view CSI Miami and Horatio Caine was ‘Comic Book situation with a Semi-Realistic Character and a wonderful backdrop’ – and that worked for me. However, there were certain elements about the Horatio character you could believe in, such as his sense of justice, his sense of doing the right thing over doing something that would only satisfy himself – and
MiamiRocks mentions an excellent example concerning Otis – The Child Molester.
In all honesty, I think all of us are aware that CSI Miami is a fictional show with fictional characters, and that Horatio has been in some situations where Comic Book has been an accurate description of such a situation, (the “Burn, baby burn!” comes immediately to mind), however, the ‘Burn, baby burn’ situation still maintained the core of the character and also showed us just how far he would go to save those that he has been charged to protect. Yet, in my opinion, his execution of the guy with the machete ( thanks
Lady10 ) stripped everything that made Horatio who he was and also conveyed something that was motivated purely by self-gratification rather than by something that had anything to do with justice.
I thoroughly enjoyed the
way that it was shown, but the content left a lot to be desired for me. I was entertained up until the last moments of the beginning sequence because I understood the need for Horatio taking out the ones who had the guns, the ones on the motorcycles and then the one in the car, but the one who had the machete, he had already injured him, the man was disarmed (he’d dropped his machete and Horatio had blocked him trying to retrieve it again) and yet Horatio still executed him. It was, as someone else said, completely unnecessary. It was that step too far all for a smart line and it really ruined the character for me.
Just for the record, the guy with the blade had a machete, not a sword. And, as someone who knows swords, what they can do and how to make them do what they do best, which is to kill people; that guy was definitely NOT unarmed. Just because they're not a high tech firearm doesn't make them butter knives. They can be potentially deadly if they get close enough to cut you or fatal if they get inside your arm's reach. Just because a weapon isn't modern doesn't mean it's lost it ability to kill.
When I mentioned ‘disarmed’ basically the man with the machete was disarmed at the time he was murdered by Horatio because he had dropped the weapon when he’d been shot and had fallen, and Horatio had stomped on it when the guy had tried to reach for it.
If the guy had charged at him waving the machete threateningly at him, and Horatio had shot him then, it would have been understandable, and there would have been no question that he had done it out of self-preservation. But that didn’t happen and the scenario that was shown had nothing to do with self-preservation, but all to do with self-gratification because the line that a few are raving about “Mala Noche justice meet Miami Justice” basically told me that the Miami justice was no better than the Mala Noche justice, and also that Horatio got as much self-gratification as they would have had had they taken Horatio down.
In my opinion, Horatio should be shown to be better than the Mala Noche because of the badge he wears and what that should instil in him, but the execution scene effectively showed him to be worse than the Mala Noche, and that really incensed me.
Now not to be really rude here, since I am a brand-spanking-new member, but can I give everyone who criticizes the "reality"
of the situations in this episode a *little* slap in the face?
Welcome to the boards, RampRat...
In all honesty, my complaint has nothing at all to do with the "reality" of the "situation", because the "reality" in such a "situation" would be that Horatio would have been killed outright the moment he had stepped through the gate.
My complaint is that they sacrificed all that the Horatio character stood for by having him execute the guy with the machete and, thinking about it, they also undermined what exactly Miami justice stood for as well.
~ ~
Um, I know that I’ve gone on and on about this one scene and that perhaps I may be making a mountain out of a molehill, and I do apologise for that, but as far as I’m concerned it was a very important scene, and I feel that the core of the Horatio character was sacrificed just so that he could utter one stupid, smart line.
Simply put, I don’t believe in the character anymore and I can’t see myself cheering him on now, because I will always wonder what his true motivation is - Something like "Did he kill to protect or because he enjoys it so much?"
Phew! Sorry about this looooong post
