"Ghost Town" Discussion *SPOILERS*

I know with a mom that cares that much, I wouldn't blame the kid for being some form of "messed up". I mean the poor kid was accused of murder, even when they proved he was innocent his mom wouldn't even pick him up? Nice of Sara to offer to drive him home though.
 
Yeah, I mean even Mrs. Jones was a better mom. When she found out her son was involved in those beatings, she defended him. When her other son was under investigation, she stood up for him and demanded that he be proven innocent. But, Mrs. Mason just walks away from her son because he's a horny teenage boy? :lol: Does she even know how many teenaged boys would have done the same thing? :lol:
 
She was married to a psycho-killer with dual personalities and managed to be unaware of it. Probably not a really perceptive, sensitive person.
LaSquisita
 
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DeaditeSlayer said:
Yeah, I mean even Mrs. Jones was a better mom. When she found out her son was involved in those beatings, she defended him. When her other son was under investigation, she stood up for him and demanded that he be proven innocent. But, Mrs. Mason just walks away from her son because he's a horny teenage boy? :lol: Does she even know how many teenaged boys would have done the same thing? :lol:
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True and even though I disliked that woman at least she did defend her kids like moms are suppose to! Heck Mrs. Mason doesn't know anything about raising a son in comparison, seriously like you said aren't most teenage boys know to have overactive hormones? Then again like LaSquisita said she was living with a psycho-killer and didn't know so not the smartest tool in shed :lol: Combine the two and you got some bad parenting skills.
 
The thing about that is, people like Judge Mason/Paul Milander are extremely good at hiding their true/evil natures. It's possible that even the smartest person in the world wouldn't realize what they really were.
 
Yeah I guess I can agree to that with the good at hiding identies. Now that I think about it if they weren't good at hiding in "plain site" they would be really easy to catch.

I'm guessing Mrs. Mason was afraid he was going to end up being like his father AKA Paul Milander. But not being there for the kid would make it more likely he would end up like him thinking that his mom didn't care that. I don't understand the woman's logic of not being there for him, pushing him away is never a good answer to the problem if anything it could escalate into something in the future.
 
Overall, I liked the episode, the thing about the music aside.

I really liked Nick in the episode. I love the way he interracted with everyone, showing his trademark empathy to the guy who ended up being the killer.

I really liked the interractions between Doc Robbins and Ray. It's really cool that they've developed a nice banter together. The joking at the beginning was really nice. I also liked Cath's commentary about being able to tie a bow from a cherry stem after a few drinks.

I also liked Super's TMI. That was really cute. I loved Nick's response to it, too. Sort of "Okay, I'll pretend I didn't just hear that, and take him to Sara."

Lot's of nice Nick and Greg scenes. That has been missing for quite awhile. definitely cool to have that back.

Didn't mind the Sara comments about being married to Grissom. Just a throwaway line, didn't detract. And honestly, would you have expected her to take Grissom's name? I wouldn't.

I also thought Mrs. Mason was being kind of heartless towards Craig, but having had her husband to turn out to be a serial killer like that probably scarred her. Then to have her son accused of murder like that...yeah, I can see how she'd be a bit leery. Still, IMO, she should have tried to be empathetic. Honestly, Teenagers ARE like that with the Hormones.

I loved how Ray took the time to actually speak to him and get some perspective on it, and realize that he could not have done the murders.

I am intrigued about the Dr. Jeckyl stuff, 'cause that's seriously messed up. I also am curious about the stuff with Ray. I know there was something said about him having the "genes of a serial killer" so I'm wondering if he was swabbing DNA of his dad's to get a comparison? It'll be interesting to see how that pans out.

All in all, I give it a B+
 
Thanks to all for the earlier explanations!

ghost_writer said:
I'm guessing Mrs. Mason was afraid he was going to end up being like his father AKA Paul Milander. But not being there for the kid would make it more likely he would end up like him thinking that his mom didn't care that. I don't understand the woman's logic of not being there for him, pushing him away is never a good answer to the problem if anything it could escalate into something in the future.
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True, but I think in this case, she's reacting like a human being, not like a mom. She's been through this once with her husband, and now she's terrified that the "sins of the father" have been passed to the son. They haven't, but she's panicking. Hopefully she will be able to reign that in and trust him again, but I think that would take a huge amount of courage and strength, and she didn't seem to have much of that. She struck me as being rather fragile, emotionally, probably too trusting. And maybe that's part of why Paul Millander chose her in the first place. Sad situation for all involved.
 
Well that's true to, yeah that is sad I was kinda glad when he didn't do it. Imagine how that poor kid had to go through growing up with everybody knowing your dad was a serial killer, that would really suck.

Also forgot to mention loved the scene toward the end with the killer and Nick talking. Nick trying to calm him down and have him let his family go, just gotta love how Nick was sympathic toward the guy. I totally expected the guy to shoot himself was glad he didn't though that would've been awful for his wife and kid to see.
 
Summary:
I liked the return of the Millander family, but in a way, it felt wrong. Grissom & Catherine were the two main ones who worked on those cases. It feels sacrilegious to have this brought up without either of those two present. I also didn’t really like the fact that they showed the team (except Ray) as being a bit biased towards them. And what’s with them not checking the evidence on the rubber hand – again?! Grissom made that mistake the first time, wouldn’t that be a main item of interest to follow up on right away here?

I liked the way that they had Craig as just a confused kid and not continuing in his father’s footsteps as a killler. But, as his conversation with Sara pointed out, Judge Mason was his father and he never knew Paul Millander. Thank goodness! At least TPTB stayed away from that overused cliché.

I didn’t like that they didn’t have Catherine involved very much here on a case where she was very much involved in previously – the Millander case. Plus, the similarities to Butterflied, with the gut-tying knot guy seemingly being a skilled surgeon, I think she should be a bit more involved. As Ray mentioned, we could be looking at more to come.

Why does it not surprise me that we get a Marilyn Manson reference & a character that resembles him in an episode written by Dustin Lee Abraham? I didn’t even have to look at the credits to know that DLA had a hand in writing this.

No Wendy, No Henry, No Hodges, No Mandy, limited Ecklie. This is not conducive to a good episode, IMO. However, the one scene with Super Dave was a lot of TMI. LOL

I liked Sara’s short talk with Mrs Mason in the hallway at PD. Incidentally, Sara’s red shirt reminds me of her guest appearance on Drop Dead Diva when she was in jail. LOL

So, they’ve brought back the Millander subject line again, now are they going to bring back the evil doctor from Butterflied as the ‘surgeon with remarkable skills’? That would be way too predictable, so I’m guessing it’s quite possible that’s what TPTB will come up with.

I feel that, considering the subject matter and connection to the past, Catherine should have been used more in this episode. You know that if Grissom was still with the team, he’d have been front & center in the entire Mason/Millander case. That’s the part that still bugs me. They don’t really give Catherine’s character, as supervisor of the shift, the same involvement that they gave Grissom all those years.


Overall, I’d give the episode a rating of 7 out of 10. Still a bit too much predictability in the writing, but the overall premise was good.

My full review can be found here
 
Not as good as last week, but still enjoyable.

Yeah, I figured out it was neighborhood-watch guy early on. First guy on the scene is always first suspect and all that.

I felt they did a fairly good job with screen time. I don't expect to see every character in every ep, as Liz Vassey once said, the show has something like 87 characters on it.:lol: (Though I am sad we saw no Liz :() But Greg had some good lines and several scenes out in the field and away from Archie's desk so that's good. Could have used more Catherine, but hey...

Okay, Langston is seriously starting to creep me out. His angel of death speech from last week and the way he was asking Craig to cut the dummy's throat was all very creepy. The way this ep kept bringing up the split-personality thing has me wondering if they're hinting at Langston being Dr Jekyll. After all, Jekyll and Hyde were split personalities...

Which brings me to my complaint. Now, it has been awhile since I've seen 'Identity Crisis' and I don't rmemeber everything from the Mason/Millander revelation. However, I don't recall them ever saying that he had split personalities. I was always under the impression that 'Judge Mason' was just a cover for Millander. Am I incorrect here or are they retconing Millander?

Also, I'm not a psychologist but I was under the impression that with split personalities, the different personas weren't aware of the others. Again, I'm probably wrong, but the way Craig was saying how the Judge called Paul a friend bothered me. Can anyone enlighten me on this?

Back to the ep, I was also got freaked when Greg and Nick were watching the webcam and saw the curtain move. When they zoomed on the eye, I totally jumped. It just creeped me out. :lol:

As for Mrs. Mason, I really don't know what to say. She obviously has had to deal with a lot, concerning the revelations made about her husband (not the least of which being that he used to be a she) and she's been seeing the way her son has developed over the years, maybe she honestly didn't know what to do or how to react. But I just don't really know.

Overall, decent episode. The ending hostage situation was very nerve-wracking and Ray taking Ecklie's tie was brilliant. Very enjoyable :).
 
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great episode! i was more invested in the case than i was last week, although the neighorhood watch dude was not the most creative twist in the world. i'm just wondering how he managed to get that perfect timing driving exactly when the girl was running out of the house. plus he would've had to have time to kill the guy, clean his shirt, let it dry, get to his car, drive away only to come back. not to mention he positioned the guy in the tub in exactly the same way Milander used to.

so yeah a bit of a stretch even for CSI, but i enjoyed the episode, nevertheless. and omg, it was so good to see Grissom's face in those few flashbacks! had me grinning. :) i miss him so.
 
I felt a little bad for the masons, but I love how Sara embraced it after little investigation, she was on good terms with Craig.
But I don't think that Mrs. Mason was being unreasonable at all...I mean, if it was my kid, I wouldn't have turned my back on them like she did, but he did commit a crime that was a federal offence, and that deserves more than a slap on the wrist.
If my kid had to spend a little time in jail as a suspect in an investigation, I wouldn't bail him out. But I would definitely be there to pick him up.
I would hope my parents would do the same thing should such a situation arise.

I too thought that the killer was a little too obvious, and I wasn't extremely happy with the way the case ended, but all in all, no complaints.
 
PraetorCorvinus said:
Which brings me to my complaint. Now, it has been awhile since I've seen 'Identity Crisis' and I don't rmemeber everything from the Mason/Millander revelation. However, I don't recall them ever saying that he had split personalities. I was always under the impression that 'Judge Mason' was just a cover for Millander. Am I incorrect here or are they retconing Millander?

Also, I'm not a psychologist but I was under the impression that with split personalities, the different personas weren't aware of the others. Again, I'm probably wrong, but the way Craig was saying how the Judge called Paul a friend bothered me. Can anyone enlighten me on this?
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I'm not sure if Paul Millander was suffering from multiple personality disorder. As I recall, he born a girl but later underwent gender reassignment surgery, and he witnessed his father's murder (staged as a suicide). I don't think it was ever explicitly stated that he had multiple personality disorder, but it's possible. His growing awareness of being a male in a female body, along with the horror of witnessing his father's death, might have triggered a dissociative fugue state to help him cope with the trauma, but I can't remember if that was the case. I know there were problems with Paul/Pauline as a witness, but I can't remember what they were.

As I recall, with multiple personality disorder or dissociative identity disorder, it is possible for one or more of the personalities to remember the others, whereas other personalities experience blackouts and have no idea that the other/s exist. Was that the case with Millander? We weren't told either way, but I suppose it's possible.

Or maybe it's just as simple that Millander was lying to his son, but doing it so that he could devote this special time to him. It's bizarre, but it enabled him to let Craig a little bit into his other world and share what I suppose was his "passion" with his son. It's just that Craig had no idea how far it went; he just thought it was a fun time with his dad.
 
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