Sooooo. What do I remember of this one now.
.
I thought it was one of NY's better eps of the season, and it sorta feels it's about time we got one that didn't somehow disappoint.
The case was alright. About average as far as NY goes. Covered wide ground, was fun, and a decent ep for a Halloween nod.
I thought it was fun for Adam to be used in ways he's typically not. Humor, yes, of course. But that he visited the frathouse with Danny was something different for him. Not processing something at a scene, but participating in questioning, etc. Feasible or not, it made sense within the context of the story and within the realm NY operates within with a certain impunity
. It was great to see Adam being in his element, out of his usual element of the labs. He's often the odd man out, or at least outside the box, something he shares with Sid, but here it was Danny who was being guided by Adam, and it was fun. It also gave Danny some fun moments to respond to and comment on. A welcome change for him too.
Sid was magic in the ep. His quirky ever-so-Sid-esque project and his scenes with Mac were fantastic, and as with AJ, it was great to see Bob Joy being given more to do. Was also another fun way to have Mac faced with something a little outside the norm, even for him :lol:.
DL. The invevitable DL. I cannot deny I winced as soon as the scene commenced in the graveyard, but that turned again into a larger ...impatience, I suppose I could call it. I'm not a DL fan, and so I just don't find them terribly engaging. And in a rarity, for me the issue here wasn't with performance (I thought AB was OK here). IMO, the scene very quickly felt clunky. It felt very, very awkward as a mechanism for case exposition, it felt awkward and unfortunate in relying on Cuteness to carry it forward, especially with DL and related banter, and while I thought the interaction between the couple was pretty believable, the whole sequence did run on for far too long. I was again irked at having to sit thru the whole combo of the above just to get to the rest of the story.
Further, when DL went at it again in the labs, complete to dragging Adam into matters, well, it wasn't cute, and it wasn't amusing by a long shot anymore. DL: a 'lil dab'll do ya. Plz to not overindulge, NY. Was all meant to be cyclical, the scenes, yada. Worked far better with Sid than DL, I must say.
I would have liked to have seen more of Jo in this one, but given she'll be featured in an upcoming arc I expect the weight of material was perhaps deliberately less in this one, who knows. I suppose I possibly felt that because her son is newly in college she might have more to say about things. It did feel like a team ep, but she just seemed present a bit less. She did have a strong ending in the ep, which was a great deal of fun.
I forget the name of the actor who played the character running the cemetary, but his face is so familiar on what seems a variety of procedurals playing a bad guy :lol:.
Another mallet was the melodramatic tone underlying Mac and Sheldon's scene about the crypt key, essentially saying, "keep on it, right now there's a young man buried alive and it's up to science to save him." Paraphrasing, of course, :lol:, but that was the gist. It was just a tad laden, and part of me couldn't help but think some suit somewhere was punching a fist in vindication, a la "show mandate emphasized again, ratcheted right up to life and death stakes, with science as the tipping point."
The ending was fun, a group get together reminiscent of pizza in Mac's office or dinner/bar toast, etc. That said, I suppose either none of them had plans for Halloween or they were all simply right then just off the clock. The disassembling of verisimilitude of beheading was a hoot, and also somehow rather meta, and I have to think everyone involved in concocting & playing that had a good time with it.
Danny was a bit livelier in this one, which was good. He and Adam had a fun chemistry, and it was nice to see that match up in ep partnerings. Flack, Mac, & Jo are always fun. Sheldon was more prominent in this one, and it was nice to see him matched up with Jo for a bit. Mac & Jo at the end was also a nice way to have her personality poking at his, SW & GS are just Good, and having Sid return, and Mac having tried out the prototype another way to poke at Mac again - and in this one, Mac didn't seem to mind much in being poked. Far more enjoyable than darkened graveyard fisticuffs, which I was also happy to see wasn't just Mac easily able to subdue the dude on his own. Flack & Mac are also a fun pairing onscreen.
It was a very good-looking and sounding ep, and few things stood out for the wrong reasons. Line of the ep was certainly "Sleep Like A Corpse." A close second was Flack's sentence handed down for Ridiculous :lol:. Decent balance between the humorous, the ponderous, and action. Aside from DL, IMO, a decent distribution of material among the roster. The guest stars were all pretty good, and again, no one stuck out for the wrong reasons.
The overall tone and balance of the ep, the intermix of quirkiness, a certain dark humor, crime, death, murder, bulldozers, crypt keys, group interaction, yada, was reminiscent of earlier seasons, in a very good way.
Call this one in the "B" realm. A fun one, even if not a dense or pithy one; an hour I don't begrudge at all.
(I've scored none higher than a B+ this season, and I'm hoping we'll yet get a couple that raises their game even higher).
Looking forward to seeing what Jo's arc brings.
