Grade 'Criminal Justice'

[talkingtocactus]

i have a few thoughts, probably incoherent because of lack of sleep but here goes:

1: the whole slomo court room was beyond cheese, as was the rewinding scene to take it back 24 hours but that was also quite funny, i liked that they used actual rewinding noise over it (it made me want to sing that song "re-e-wind and the crowd say bo! selecta!" :lol. also what's with the text on screen to say what day it is - have they gone all 24/L&O on us? i mean i see why they did it of course, but it was a bit irritating. but all of those were stylistic details so meh.

2: mac said "i'll put everyone i have on it!" - isn't that what usually happens?!

3: victim's mum said to stella "tell me why" and i instantly yelled "i don't like mondays" :lol: clearly they were pushing the "scenes evocative of songs" angle

4: danny & lindsay - i liked their interaction more today, although taking danny down the painkiller addiction route seems more and more likely, which is a shame because it's kinda old. i thought lindsay being bait again was good, her being bait in not what it looks like worked well and i think it's nice that she's kind of getting a bit more ballsy again instead of just a foil for danny. i liked that she was helpful when danny called her about the locker theft (although that was silly in itself: a locker that doesn't lock? a b&e in a spa? most clinics let you take your valuables in a small bag with you etc) and i liked that he called her, it showed a nicer side to their ship that isn't just angst/mush/both. oh and i have to say, the acupuncture needle at the top of the nose, that one always hurts like hell. i felt danny's pain!

5: i thought hawkes was great, it was nice to see more of him this time and doing what he does best in the field. when i saw the snow blower i thought it was something else and i thought "ooh! he combine harvested him!" oops...

6: adam being interrupted by mac & stella was great, classic adam, i loved it.

7: what we did see of mac i liked - how smiley was he at the start?! it's nice to see happy mac sometimes (although i do love dark and moody mac), and it was a nice continuation from the last ep. i really liked his chat with sarah hansen, as someone else said, he wasn't judgemental so much as sad for her, her husband etc. i think he handled it well, and i really liked his interrogation of rob too.

8: stella - it's been a while since we had such a stella centric ep, i liked it. as much as i adore mac, it is nice to see eps focussed on another character once in a while, and this was definitely melina's time to shine. she did a good job. i really liked her scenes with lindsay, it put a clear highlight on the female members of the team and i quite liked that they put the blokes in 2nd place for an ep - obviously it was a team effort but it seemed like stella was definitely in charge, with lindsay as her number 2 and the guys just kind of supporting them (with the possible exception of hawkes).

also on stella - does she have a new office? she always used to share an office with ... well, it seemed to vary who took the 2nd desk, but it was definitely a two desk office. this was a single desk office with a sofa, a bit like mac's - some one said they thought it was mac's office but i really don't think it was - there was no military memorabilia and mac's sofa is black, the one in this new office was red. maybe they've just finally realised that stella as mac's number 2 deserves an office of her own! either that or... well, new office, centric episode, very much the lead detective on a case - should mac be worried?!:lol:

oh i have a question too: in the original case, it was saying that antonio was going to get murder 2 - why was that? surely if he was in the house specificallly to murder the girl, and then murdered her, it would be murder 1? i don't know enough american law to judge, perhaps someone could enlighten me?

one more thing - as for sophie, i thought she did ok. her dialogue scene, such as it was, wasn't great, but i would imagine doing a first scene that could be critical to a career with your dad standing a few feet away would be a bit tough - god knows my driving deteriorates dramatically when my dad's in the area. i thought she did a better job in her non speaking scenes - she has a very expressive face.

overall i really liked it - i could've done with more mac (as ever!) but what i saw of him i liked, i thought stella did a great job as lead, i thought lindsay was pretty good too, and the boys did a good supporting act, although it was also nice to see hawkes have a good ep.

i really liked the way it felt like 2 cases again, i know technically it wasn't but it kind of was, and it worked really well. they should go back to that format more often.

i enjoyed it the whole way through, i really wasn't sure if the lawyer had done it til almost the end, i thought the twists worked well and was never quite sure if there was another one on the way, which is good, being kept guessing at least a bit is always nice. so i'm giving it an A.

 

[CSI Cupcake]

This one was a good one. I liked the tangled web they created, even though it wasn't that hard to figure out. I paid more attention to the emotions surrounding the crime than the crime itself. That poor girl that got killed was only a vehicle for the entire story. Yet it started and ended with her and the tension between Stella and the mother.

Definitely a girls night. Stella had a great opportunity to show how hard it is to do the job with all the emotions involved. The mom, Craig, Sarah and her lover. Sort of a pandora's box.

The idea that these were people Mac and Stella had known for years was a bit hard to swallow since we had never seen them before but that is something I have to look beyond. I liked the awkwardness it brought into the case. It made it personal, which made Stella's job harder to do.

Lindsay was good in all three scenes she was in. The show needs to take advantage of the tough cop she can be. Its really great when she gets the opportunity to bring that out. Didn't Trey Calloway write this one? He writes very well for Lindsay, giving her room to grow and shine.

Danny did well also. His scenes with Lindsay had something different this time that I liked. They seem much more in tune with one another and involved emotionally, as a married couple should be. At first I thought those were pain pills he took but when he chewed them (yuck!) I began to think that maybe they were something else. Perhaps something the acupuncturist gave him as part of his treatment.

Picky parts: the courtroom scene was completely over dramatic, would a real detective storm into a courtroom and interrupt like that?

The judge was pure cardboard.

Sheldon popping out of the bathroom like a jack-in-a-box made me jump. But then you know me and Sheldon...

The snowblower as a murder weapon. I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around that one. Wouldn't the dogs be able to pick up scent from all the bits and pieces of human body blown all over the place somewhere on the property. Yet they seemed totally neutral until one got to the storage barn. Hmmm.

I'm always happy for an episode that has Lindsay in it but I do miss the other characters when they are absent. I will be glad when things get back to normal.

 

[wildcat]

The idea that these were people Mac and Stella had known for years was a bit hard to swallow since we had never seen them before but that is something I have to look beyond. I liked the awkwardness it brought into the case. It made it personal, which made Stella's job harder to do.
.

I finally realized what was bothering me about all this idea of a close friend involved. THere is such a conflict of interest that I cannot understand how it was missed! :devil: Both - Mac and Stella should have been taken off the case as soon as it's became clear that their friend may have tampered with the evidence! In all previous cases Mac took off the case any CSI who was involved personally much less then that. - For example, remember the story with Hawkes" telephone number found on the victim? That always have been a question of integrity with Mac. And what now? Where is this integrity when it came to him and Stella? Unbelievable! :brickwall:

 

[CSI Cupcake]

This is something that has been debated before with no good resolution. It does seem like a conflict of interest but the real victim was the girl (neither of them knew her) and the suspect in that case, which is the case they were working, was Antonio whatshisname, and neither of them knew him either. Craig and Susan and the paralegal were all mixed up in it and became the story for the viewers. However, they were just persons of interst with a hand in it until they had hard evidence against one or all of them. At that point, when Craig was arrested, they would have had to bow out I imagine. Does that help?

The CSI's sort of become neutral in a lot of instances. The only times Mac has taken them off the case is when they had personal contact with the victim. With Hawkes it was the girl he gave his phone number to. With Danny, it was the evidence that he was at the stadium. Stella did get to work the case about her foster sister but I think only because it was a cold case. That one was a stretch for me.

And you notice that Mac was hardly in this one at all? He sort of managed from a distance. I don't know what they would do because they are the only police crime lab in the city. With Mac being the head of the entire lab, and the lab working so closely with the DA's office, what else could they do? Could they hire out a contract lab to process the evidence? Call the lab in New Jersey to come do the work for them?

 

[talkingtocactus]

it crossed my mind they maybe shouldn't be on the case too but that line is so blurry on csi i don't think it was too bad...

 

[Messers fan]

I liked this one - I missed the time they worked two differents cases and it was almost that this episode.

I like Adam he is cute, Stella was concerned and I like the new Lindsay, she is supportive now and Danny trusts her, he calls her when he gets in trouble..thats good

I wonder if it's Carmine or Danny who gets a new tattoo Do we have to believe he dated his injury's scare ???? I thought he was supposed to be shoot in lower back and not between his shoulder blade

 

[Fwuzzfwuzz]

I thought he was supposed to be shoot in lower back and not between his shoulder blade

Well in accupuncture they won't just put the needles where it's hurting. There putting it in certain "meridian" points that supposed open up "gateways" or "channels" for the flow of qi/blood. It's a little confusing to explain but that's why he was way up there in the shoulder blades

 

[ladyhunter]

I can give a review now that I have seen the whole episode.

This is one of the better NY episodes I think as of late. No personal drama, no angst between Danny and Lindsay (although I do find it funny that Lucy loves Danny more, and I can say I'm not surprised. )

Stella was 'game on' during the whole show. She never looked unsure of herself, not that she is anyway but sometimes I feel she looks to Mac too much for advise, but here she was right on point. I love that about Stella, when she's 'on', she's 'ON!'.

What turned me off was this was the second CSI episode in the franchise that involved killing an animal. CSI Vegas's Better off Dead had a dead dog, now this case? Do they really have to go there with the dead animals? Isn't killing someone enough? Sorry, but that soured me on the Vegas case but in this case it wasn't as blatant, I wasn't as put off by it, but STILL????

Anyway, a good episode

Grade A-

 

[~Sarah~]

I thought he was supposed to be shoot in lower back and not between his shoulder blade

Well in accupuncture they won't just put the needles where it's hurting. There putting it in certain "meridian" points that supposed open up "gateways" or "channels" for the flow of qi/blood. It's a little confusing to explain but that's why he was way up there in the shoulder blades

I think the original poster was talking about what looked like a tattoo on his back.

 

[La_Guera]

As soon as I saw the opening scene of the episode, I knew exactly what I wanted to say, and I searched fruitlessly on Youtube for the video clip that would be the perfect mot juste with which to summarize the episode, and indeed, much of the series. Alas, Youtube failed me, and so I am left to describe the clip as best I might.

It's an episode of G.I.Joe, the eighties military cartoon in which nobody died, no matter how many bullets flew or how many cosmic death rays Destro or COBRA unleashed. Cobra commander, at his wit's end because of a string of failures and fed up with his minions' gross incompetence, pounds his fists on the table, throws back his head, and screams, "Morons! I have MORONS on my payroll!" with the anguished conviction of a man being hurled headlong off a cliff.

Well, Cobra Commander was thirty years ahead of his time, a true prophet, because he could have been describing the knuckle-chewing monkey who penned "Criminal Justice."

I'm sure it sounded like great television on paper; a lot of scenarios sound great on paper or in headspace fantasy, but as the T-rex told Bowler Hat Guy in Meet the Robinsons, I don't think this was a very well thought-out plan. When the judge undermines the entire premise on which your angst fest rests with a single sentence, screenwriting, you are doing it wrong.

"You couldn't have waited five minutes until he was remanded to custody?"

Yes, Stella, why couldn't you have waited? I mean, aside from the demands of plot contrivance and the opportunity to overract so hard that your drama teacher rose from the grave and punched you in the hotbox? Wouldn't it have been smarter to do just that? While a criminal must be arraigned within forty-eight hours, trials might not start for months. If you had waited, you could have analyzed the planted evidence at your leisure and still gotten the evil, murdering DA. As an added bonus, Anthony Reyes wouldn't have been free to stalk a witness. I realize that such restraint would have robbed you of the opportunity to get your badass on in open court, but a killer would have stayed behind bars, a witness would have been safe, and a grieving mother would have been spared further trauma and heartache.

Stella never answers the question. The scene was obviously meant to highlight the conflict between sworn duty and its effects on innocent bystanders and illustrate the difficulty of following procedure when "the right thing" causes more pain to already-suffering victims, but aside from one wretchedly-acted scene wherein the distraught mother confronts Stella at the precinct, the setup never pans out. Stella never has a moment of doubt about her choice, never confesses to Mac that she's feeling guilty. She never hesitates. She just bulls ahead and hopes that she hasn't set a killer free in adherence to the letter of the law. And her mandate to "do the right thing" would be more compelling if I hadn't watched her let a killer go free in S3 because they used to be blood sisters and kidnap a foreign aide and ship him to Cyprus in a shipping container in S5. If I hadn't seen her lie like a rug to Mac for much of that season. Lack of consistency makes her assertion that she's disclosing the information in the interest of justice ring hollow and further underscores the pitiful, wafer-thin plot contrivance.

The hammy acting doesn't help, either. She was so over the top during her exeunt from the judge's chambers that I expected her to point and scream, "Witch! Witch! Burn the witch!" and harrow her cheeks with her nails. The confrontation in the precinct was equally dreadful. The mother looked like she wanted to throw up or shit her pants, as though she couldn't believe she had gotten the gig and was desperate to make a good impression. "Oh, my God, I'm on TV!!! Please don't let me crap my pants." If that was the best take, I don't want to see the worst.

Worst of all, the lapses once more into the trap of asking the audience to assume knowledge of things they neither saw nor heard. We're told that the DA has been a friend to the CSIs for years and references are made to numerous cases on which they have worked, but the cases aren't familiar, and I don't remember seeing him in any prior episodes. The last DA I remember was in the S1 episode with Michael Clark Duncan("The Closer"?), and it wasn't him. There was also the squirrelly, hotshot maverick ADA in the Rayburn case, but unless they recast the role, that wasn't him, either.

Likewise Mac's meeting with Robin, the DA's philandering wife. The informal sidewalk chat is meant to imply a warm acquaintance of long standing, but I've never heard of her before. So, we've got a DA of whom we've never heard and an equally anonymous wife. We've never seen them interact with the team in any capacity, and yet we're supposed to invest in them based on a hastily and incompletely-related history related by shoddy chunks of crappy exposition from Stella and references to cases for which we have no context.

I don't.

Nor did I care about Danny's lost badge. Why does he call Lindsay instead of immediately reporting the lost badge? Maybe he was afraid that a lost badge on top of his record of insubordination, striking, and failure to report a stolen weapon would reflect poorly on him and jeopardize his already tenuous position with the department, and he's probably right. I should probably be grateful that Danny actually trusted and communicated with his wife, but the truth is that Lindsay is low on the list of problem solvers. Besides, odds are that the storyline will fizzle like an abortive taco fart. Thus, I am not going to bother caring.

The story would have been more interesting had Robin been the killer. She could have killed Tyler and framed her husband to escape blackmail and a bad marriage. Once the truth was uncovered, Stella would have been faced with the fact that she had wrongly accused a friend and colleague of murder and derailed his promising career. Had that happened, he could have proven a nettlesome adversary for the team for seasons to come. Hell, they were laying on the guilt spackle so thickly that once the wife trotted out the "You don't know what he's capable of" cliche, I thought that was where they were going. Ha.

Yet another boring, embarrassing, nonsensical mess. D

P.S. Was I the only one who wished it was Flack waiting for the baddie in the witness' apartment? I knew it had to be Lindsay, but it would have been hilarious if Flack had turned around sporting a post-shower hair turban and a pair of manly, perky nipples of cop dominance.

 

[Top41]

A-

Despite the fact that I was chuckling and agreeing with your whole review, La Guera (more on that later), I did enjoy this episode, if just for the fact that it broke the mold and presented a scenario that was a genuinely believable dilemma (even if the ADA graduating to murder so quickly was a bit far-fetched). And I was so glad it was Stella and not Mac taking center stage. I may have had my fill of Mactimony this season... and the season is just half over. :lol:

I have no idea why Danny and Lindsay didn't report the badge being stolen. OK, well, I know why Danny didn't--his massive trust issues seem to make him assume he's always going to be judged harshly. But what's Lindsay's excuse? This all might have made sense if they'd kept the financial worries comments from Danny that were mentioned in the original spoilers--but those comments didn't make the episode (I have no idea why--it would have made it so much more realistic), it looks like Lindsay is just acting out of character. Yes, I'm sure she's protective of Danny--something I actually like about her, now that she's not treating him like dirt--but the logical thing to do was to report that badge missing.

Lindsay going undercover was kind of silly. Why would a CSI be chosen for that job?

Anyway, overall, good episode!

A few responses...

(minor complaint though; I’m half-positive ‘Antonio Riaz’ was the same name for the guy that killed Horatio’s 2-week wife on CSI:Miami in S4, the one he hunted down in Brazil. It’s not a big detail, people can have the same name -- but it was beyond irritating throughout the entire episode. Kinda wish the creators would keep tabs on the other shows, if only so characters don’t inadvertently cross over)

You are right! I caught that, too. That, and they cast a white guy to play a guy with a Hispanic name. This show is pretty ridiculously whitebread.

(the thing with the gun at the end – eating my words again, it is fun to see her toting it, though I still think half the reason Riaz was smirking when he was caught was because he thought she wouldn’t have shot him).

Why would he think that? I believed she would, if he hadn't given up. He was surrounded. It was fun to see her in action, but that scene was a little silly.

Random Note: The judge in court was Thatcher Grey, from GA. For that reason, I could not take any of his scenes seriously. This is becoming a problem with a lot of the casting lately.:lol:

LOL, I was thinking that, too! :lol:

I wonder if it's Carmine or Danny who gets a new tattoo Do we have to believe he dated his injury's scare ???? I thought he was supposed to be shoot in lower back and not between his shoulder blade

I imagine it's just a shadow, but I didn't look that closely. Maybe Carmine did get another tattoo. If it's Danny's, with a date on it, I imagine it would be the birth of his daughter. But I kind of doubt they'd go to the trouble of giving Danny a new tattoo.

"You couldn't have waited five minutes until he was remanded to custody?"

Yes, Stella, why couldn't you have waited? I mean, aside from the demands of plot contrivance and the opportunity to overract so hard that your drama teacher rose from the grave and punched you in the hotbox? Wouldn't it have been smarter to do just that? While a criminal must be arraigned within forty-eight hours, trials might not start for months. If you had waited, you could have analyzed the planted evidence at your leisure and still gotten the evil, murdering DA. As an added bonus, Anthony Reyes wouldn't have been free to stalk a witness. I realize that such restraint would have robbed you of the opportunity to get your badass on in open court, but a killer would have stayed behind bars, a witness would have been safe, and a grieving mother would have been spared further trauma and heartache.

LOL, gotta concede this one. Excellent point. Sometimes this show (and all TV shows, really) is over-the-top dramatic, and this was one of those moments.

The story would have been more interesting had Robin been the killer. She could have killed Tyler and framed her husband to escape blackmail and a bad marriage. Once the truth was uncovered, Stella would have been faced with the fact that she had wrongly accused a friend and colleague of murder and derailed his promising career. Had that happened, he could have proven a nettlesome adversary for the team for seasons to come. Hell, they were laying on the guilt spackle so thickly that once the wife trotted out the "You don't know what he's capable of" cliche, I thought that was where they were going. Ha.

That would have been pretty brilliant, if it had been the wife.

P.S. Was I the only one who wished it was Flack waiting for the baddie in the witness' apartment? I knew it had to be Lindsay, but it would have been hilarious if Flack had turned around sporting a post-shower hair turban and a pair of manly, perky nipples of cop dominance.

That would have been totally hilarious! :lol:

 

[Lori K.]

I liked the storyline and I think Sophie Sinise did O.K. for her first job. Looks like her mom by the way! I liked having Stella in charge this time instead of Mac seemed to make him a little more relaxed as well :lol:. I did miss Sid and the "Rambo Lindsey" was abit much so the grade comes down abit for me and by the way does she have plastic hair or what? Not a hair out of place when the towel came off B+

 

[Fwuzzfwuzz]

I thought he was supposed to be shoot in lower back and not between his shoulder blade

Well in accupuncture they won't just put the needles where it's hurting. There putting it in certain "meridian" points that supposed open up "gateways" or "channels" for the flow of qi/blood. It's a little confusing to explain but that's why he was way up there in the shoulder blades

I think the original poster was talking about what looked like a tattoo on his back.

Ah I see, lol. *feels stupid*

 

[racefh853629]

Random Note: The judge in court was Thatcher Grey, from GA. For that reason, I could not take any of his scenes seriously. This is becoming a problem with a lot of the casting lately.:lol:

Jeff Perry also used to play Inspecter Leek on Nash Bridges (which is where I recognized him from... I loved that show).

But anyway...

Adam was adorable, as always. I love him. Cracked me up how he jumped when Mac tapped the monitor. :lol: He's so adorable.

No Sid was disheartening. I love Sid and his creepy place ramblings. Has there been one episode this season that every series regular has been in?

This all might have made sense if they'd kept the financial worries comments from Danny that were mentioned in the original spoilers--but those comments didn't make the episode

Didn't Danny said something about it to Lindsay in the locker room when she saw him putting the pack on his back? Something about how he couldn't go on medical leave because they needed the money? At least, I thought he did. I could be wrong.

B. There wasn't anything really wrong with it, but there wasn't anything that really stood out to me as worthy of a higher grade.

 

[Faylinn]

^^I just re-watched the scene. All he said was that if he took any more sick days, they'd force medical leave on him. So I guess the money issues were implied even if they weren't stated outright. (They also took out a bit where Lindsay said nothing was worth Danny ending up back in the wheelchair, so maybe the altered dialogue is better. )