Episode 8x16 - "LA" ***CONTAINS SPOILERS***

[electra]

I still think it all goes down to acting skills.With a storyline like that where Jesse wife was killed,I am suppoused to feel sorry for him.Instead I was annoyed with the way he treated Anna and handled the whole situation.Storylines and Miami tend to be crazy but a good actor can make the best of it.

 

[silentdisco]

H is wonderful but he isn't perfect, no one is.
Calleigh can't only rely on H's judgment for everything. She is an intelligent woman who can think for herself. That why H and Calleigh are such a great team!
She is also Jesse's superior as second in command, a fact which Jesse has not paid much attention to.
She was right to bark orders to him under the circumstances. And if Jesse hadn't backed off and opened the trunk, she should have pulled her gun.

Calleigh did Jesse a HUGE favor by not taking another team member to witness, or worse a uniform officer who will not have the team loyalty. She kept him from being under criticism from other team members and from IAB by having only herself there.

Calleigh is protecting Jesse just like she protected H, Ryan, Eric. She considers Jesse apart of the team, and treated him as such.
I doubt Jesse realized how fortunate he actually was.

I agree with absolutely everything you just said. I admit, I have no experience in law enforcement, so I don't know what the appropriate protocol would be, but as an avid viewer of the show, I don't see anything terribly bad about the way Calleigh handled the situation. She was firm when she needed to be (like telling Jesse to open the trunk), but at the same time refused to jump to the conclusion that Jesse was a Bad Guy™.

 

[silentdisco]

With a storyline like that where Jesse wife was killed,I am suppoused to feel sorry for him.Instead I was annoyed with the way he treated Anna and handled the whole situation.Storylines and Miami tend to be crazy but a good actor can make the best of it.

Completely agreed.

I admit, sometimes the character of Horatio really annoys me. However, the way he is portrayed is successful at getting me to empathize with him, even when he oversteps boundaries. I can simultaneously feel annoyed with his actions (as in, "Oh, H, that really wasn't a good idea. You know better than that!"), but empathize with his feelings and reasoning (more like "Yeah, you shouldn't have done that, but I can see where you're coming from").

For example, I found the whole Julia/Ron Saris baby momma drama saga kind of annoying, but I definitely got the sense that Horatio truly wanted to protect his son Kyle, and Kyle's mother. He cared about both of them.

On the other hand, when Jesse started following Anna, under the guise of "protecting" her from the guy who killed his wife, I got no sense that he gave a rat's patooty about her. To me, his actions came across as controlling, not from a place of concern for her. No matter how I tried to look at it, I just couldn't really feel sympathy for him.

To be honest, I'm not sure why this show has made it so hard for me to empathize with the character. Is it Eddie Cibrian's acting chops? Bad writing? Or a combination of both?

I'm hesitant to place all the blame on Eddie Cibrian. I did see the episode of Criminal Minds someone mentioned earlier, in which he guest starred as the unsub. I thought he did a good job, so I don't see him as a bad actor across the board. Maybe portraying this kind of character is just not something that he's skilled at.

And, of course, we all know how bad the writing on this show can be. Plot holes, out-of-character scenarios, etc. It's definitely plausible to suggest that the writers, at the very least, didn't make it any easier to sympathize with Jesse.

My best guess is that it's a combination of the two: Eddie Cibrian has difficulty portraying Jesse as someone to empathize with in this kind of context, and that the way this character was written makes it even more difficult for him to do so.

 

[Jag Lady]

I did see the episode of Criminal Minds someone mentioned earlier, in which he guest starred as the unsub. I thought he did a good job, so I don't see him as a bad actor across the board.

That was me. And yes, Eddie Cibrian made a good unsub, even though he really didn't look like one, but then again he was a father who was dying of a brain tumor who, in what was left of his mind, cared about his son.

Honestly, Silentdisco? I think it's the writing, or lack thereof. Seems like, since S5, they've wanted to make Miami "flashy", "shiny", sort of a fantasy compared to the other CSI's, and if you ask me, it's not working. I thought "LA" was just a LITTLE too much like "Rio", all the way down to the aerial view high above the city on a helipad or something. Think about it--Horatio and Delko go to a supposedly flashy, sexy, exotic city to avenge someone near and dear to Horatio. The only thing that didn't happen in this one was the knife fight near the Monte Cristo statue. But it's safe to say the writers aren't having any part of Horatio's Catholic faith anymore, which was a big part of him in the early years.

Now that you mention it, I really don't think they properly built up Jesse's love for his dead wife. Of course, the dead spouse storyline seems to be getting reused as well, but I digress.

 

[electra]

Like silentdisco,I think is a combination.I really hated Marisol but I loved Alana de la Garza as Connie on Law and order.Maybe playing stoic characters is not for EC.And I have to feel the characters before deciding how I feel about them.Eric was sort of a playboy after Speed died so even if I do not like him going from bed to bed I get that he can easily can get a woman to sleep with him.And I can feel how much his friendship to Speed meant for him.I can relate with Ryan desperation to save Billy even if I do not agree with his actions later.But Jesse leaves me flat bored.I can not even feel his big friendship with Horatio.

 

[mjszud]

Jesse hasn't convinced me of his 'loss' -- I did buy into his anger though. I thought Eddie did great with that.
Personally, I just don't think this storyline is good for the character, he's too new & there isn't enough background on him. IMO, the biggest mistake here (& main fault) is TPTB introducing him with such a heavy storyline -- they should have taken this entire season to settle him in & get him meshing with the team first, imo.

 

[Solitaire]

^ I agree, they seem to have rushed into the storyline too fast. It should have been built up to this point slowly, it all seemed a bit thrown together.
That said I enjoyed the episode, it was average, but ok.

I liked the fact that Natalia had the connection with Anna. It showed off her compassionate side and stuck to her backstory.
Although I didnt like H and Eric's little trip to Rio I enjoyed this road trip. Eric's reaction was sweet and it got major points from me for playing Mammas and Papas California Dreaming, love that song!

Im not sure on the Jesse thing. He did come off as a prat with Anna, but I suppose if you were in that situation that is the way you might act. I have also seen the Criminal Minds epi, so I know he is a good actor. I think it is more down to the writing. Jesse just didnt come across very sympathetically to me- but truthfully I am more into big emotional breakdowns on these things so it wasnt quite angsty enough for me!!

 

[snowbunny]

In my opinion, the reason I have missed Eric so much this season is because he was so emotional on the show and Jesse just doesn't come close to replacing the emotional void left by him. I have seen the episode of CM with Eddie, he makes a great crazy man, even if it is brain tumor induced. Let's just hold our breath that TPTB shock us all by making the transition to next season without messing things up.

 

[mjszud]

In my opinion, the reason I have missed Eric so much this season is because he was so emotional on the show and Jesse just doesn't come close to replacing the emotional void left by him

I don't feel an emotional void there at all with Eric gone -- it may not necessarily be seen in Jesse, but a few others there, namely Horatio & Natalia, do perfectly fine in that department, imo. Besides, Eddie/Jesse was a person to fill the CSI void, he wasn't intended to be an Eric Delko clone...no reason to compare as far as I'm concerned.

 

[snowbunny]

And how is that void being filled, by giving the new guy the storyline's for the season instead of going to the character's that have been on the show alot longer. And for me Eddie/Jesse doesn't come close to pulling it off. I would much rather see Ryan or Nat getting the screentime and the season long story arc because they could pull off the emotion I feel Eddie/Jesse is lacking.

 

[silentdisco]

Now that you mention it, I really don't think they properly built up Jesse's love for his dead wife. Of course, the dead spouse storyline seems to be getting reused as well, but I digress.

I agree completely.

Like silentdisco,I think is a combination.I really hated Marisol but I loved Alana de la Garza as Connie on Law and order.

Same here! She's great on Law & Order, but the whole Marisol story was poorly done and unnecessary. I think the writers/producers were really to blame for that, not Alana de la Garza.

Jesse hasn't convinced me of his 'loss' -- I did buy into his anger though. I thought Eddie did great with that.
Personally, I just don't think this storyline is good for the character, he's too new & there isn't enough background on him. IMO, the biggest mistake here (& main fault) is TPTB introducing him with such a heavy storyline -- they should have taken this entire season to settle him in & get him meshing with the team first, imo.

Once again, I agree completely. I definitely sensed the anger, which is a perfectly normal reaction to loss, but that's about it. And I agree that it was definitely too heavy a story to introduce Jesse with. The show would've been better served by having his character more focused on getting to know the team, not dealing with an isolating personal issue.

 

[Enhinti]

I completely agree, Silent Disco!
I say Eddie C isn't a good actor, because I see him boch up the few good parts on Miami he gets. It is quite possible that stoic is not his strong point, and he would do great in a more physical role. I've never seen him on any thing else, an actually didn't hear of him until rumors of him joining Miami came up.

The writers are certainly to blame for half of the problem with his character, as well as Eric, Ryan, Calleigh, and the recycled plots as well.

As much as I am up set about how many plot holes there have been from mid fifth season on, I really hope they do not continue the Jesse/Tess/Anna story. It has done nothing to help connect with the character.