Grade "Lat 40 47'N/Long 73 58'W"

[MakeTracksCowboy]

i gave the ep an A-

ok i love D/L but it's time to throw some water on them and pull them apart for a while. i get that Danny has a lot of crap to work through. yes i know that D/L are married with a baby it doesn't have to be mentioned every episode. they are separate characters they don't need each other all the time they can (hopefully, maybe) do things on their own.

uh Lucy is ten months? when the hell did that happen? this just proves how bad this show is with their time lines.

i really wanna give Flack a hug. i feel so bad for him with each ep so far. i was mad at him though that he didn't go in and celebrate her bday with her family. i understand he's having a hard time getting over her but still it probably would have meant a lot if Flack was their for Jess's dad. i like Stella's line to Mac that Flack used to shave everyday. my grandma even pointed out that Flack has been looking sloppy lately. poor guy is in such a lousy state he's allowed to look like hell. i will say he looks really hot without the suits on and some stubble lol.

Adam feeling threatened was hysterical. he's like a little with the attention taken away from him to another kid. i have a feeling he and Haylen are gonna hook up eventually..... i will scream bloody murder if that happeneds!!!! after tonight's ep i am officially saying i do not like the character or actress.

the rest of the ep was really good. i liked the story and knowing who the killer before everyone else. i'm looking forward to seeing more of the killer he seems to have a lot of issues that will be interesting to see more of.

 

[Faylinn]

I'm wondering if they are taking the route of the men not taking Haylen seriously as an educated professional woman, which sets up the scenario of her "wowing" them with her intellect and keen insight .

I think they're firmly trying to establish Haylen as hot Maybe trying to go with the stereotypical 'they think she's just a pretty face until She Proves Them Wrong LOL' storyline.

Ugh, you guys. Just ugh. That would be so laaame. *whines* When you work with Stella Bonasera, you should never assume that someone is just a pretty face.

BTW, I wasn't going to bother with the timeline stuff, but...if the finale took place in May, and the premiere was established to take place a month later (June-ish) - this episode established that it's now 'caught up' to the present (October, obviously), which means that they could have skipped ~4 months between the premiere and now. That doesn't explain all of the timeline discrepancies, but it does perhaps help a bit?

Oh who am I kidding, it's all one bit clusterdoodle. *sigh* I guess the Black Hole of Continuity has that effect on any show that ventures too close - gravity and magnetic fields get all wonky or something.

 

[racefh853629]

The only reason I can reconcile such a time jump with Lucy being ten months old is if they plan on having Danny walking around any time soon. Because it's not like after two months of physical therapy, he'd be magically able to walk around (then again, this is CSI:NY, so that might happen). So that time jump didn't bother me.

What time thing did bother me was this: There was clearly more than one day presented in this episode. Did no one think of changing?

I've gotta say that this season really isn't doing it for me with the cases. It's a bad sign when I can't even remember what the first two episodes were about, and they weren't that long ago. I hope they get better as the season goes on.

That having been said, this is the most I've liked Lindsay since she was introduced in Season 2. Despite the D/L home life, she's been really good with Danny and supportive, which is nice to see. I was afraid we'd get the opposite from her, so I'm glad to see her being pleasant.

I wanted to hug Flack so much this episode. Scruffy is a good look on him, but I feel bad for him. I'd love to give him a hug.

I'd like to hug Adam, too. Hawkes' comments that led Adam to thinking he could be replaced was mean, but funny. I loved Hawkes there.

I want to like Haylen, but it's not working. She's diving over the line between persistent and pushy head first into the latter, which is not an attractive quality. I hope she settles in with time.

B-.

 

[PerfectAnomaly]

BTW, I wasn't going to bother with the timeline stuff, but...if the finale took place in May, and the premiere was established to take place a month later (June-ish) - this episode established that it's now 'caught up' to the present (October, obviously), which means that they could have skipped ~4 months between the premiere and now. That doesn't explain all of the timeline discrepancies, but it does perhaps help a bit?

Oh who am I kidding, it's all one bit clusterdoodle. *sigh* I guess the Black Hole of Continuity has that effect on any show that ventures too close - gravity and magnetic fields get all wonky or something.

It is one big clusterf*ck because it still wouldn't explain that they met Haylen in the premiere and in 6.03 it's only been "a couple of weeks" since they met her, but Lucy went from being a newborn to being 10 months old in the same time frame.

 

[La_Guera]

Dear CSI:NY,

Just because your director and cinematographer are devoted Criminal Minds fanboys who aren't above stealing their techniques, that doesn't make them capable of delivering an episode the quality of most Criminal Minds fare. Why? Because every evildoer, no matter how unhinged or crafty, will always and inevitably make it All About Mac. Rather than ply his nefarious trade in the dark and remain unnoticed, he MUST draw the attention of the inimitable NYPD, an acronym which here means the private fiefdom of Mac Taylor. No killer can operate within Mac's environs without him taking it as a personal challenge to the size of his wang, and Mighty Mac doesn't rest once the awesome infallibility of his wang has been questioned, not until the challenger has been subdued and turkey-slapped into a properly reverent stupor by the tool in question.

I want to like the Compass Killer arc; Skeet Ulrich has clearly donned his working boots, and my TV brain, after years of patient training by Criminal Minds and the early seasons of CSI, is happily chewing over the significance of the killer's obsession with 1964, but I just know that the interesting intricacies of motive and stressors are going to be subsumed by Mac's ten thousandth vengeance quest. Screw the killer's mindset. We're going to be subjected to at least three self-righteous screeds from Mac about how the case affects him, and how failure to catch the Recurring Bogey of the Season is his personal failure in his sworn duty to be the Big Damn Hero protect the city. It's tired and irksome, and frankly, I don't care that the firmness of Mac's Police Pecker is threatened if he doesn't get the bad guy.

I am, however, greatly interested in Flack's downward spiral. He is Not Okay. He needs help. I had hoped Jess' father might have noticed the subtle but alarming changes in the normally composed Flack. He might not be blowing busts or nipping from a hip flask at his desk, but his disheveled clothing, unshaven face, and general air of anger and indifference should be raising red flags for everyone. Maybe Cliff Angell's misinterpretation of Flack's lack of contact with the family after Jess' death can be explained by the fact that he's still coming to terms with the death of his daughter(and why the hell would Cliff need to point out to Flack that Jess was his only daughter? That was a chunky bit of dialogue vomit in an otherwise wonderful scene), but I can't shake the feeling that things might have gone differently if Cliff had said something else instead of attributing Flack's absence to his zest for the job. In truth, I think Flack expected him to say something else, and when he didn't, Flack was disappointed.

Flack doesn't feel entitled to his grief, I suspect, which is why he couldn't bring himself to join the Angell family for dinner even after he promised he would. While the family was clearly able to celebrate Jess, Flack is still mired in the nasty, sucking, isolatory twilight of grief. He's no doubt struggling with the sneaking suspicion that he was at least partially responsible for her death. I'm sure he's wondered what might've happened if she hadn't been on the phone with him that morning, or if he'd let her have her wicked way with him in bed instead of answering the phone, or if he'd gotten her to the hospital faster. He's still in pain, and because he's always watching out for everyone else, he chose not to inflict that pain on her family and ruin their joyous recollections. It was a noble, reckless, and unfortunate decision, because I think the Angells would have embraced him, but Flack isn't ready to reach out. He's going to hit hard when he finds the bottom, and though Mac is probably going to be his savior(because no one on the show can shit without Mac there to show them how), I hope it's Mama and Papa Angell who are there to clean him up. "You're a mess, but Jess loved you, so we're going to help you whether you like it or not." It wouldn't displease me to see Papa A deliver a "You're not the only one who misses her" bitchslap later in the season. Grief and guilt have made Flack selfish, and methinks he's going to be doing a lot of apologizing once he's begun to heal.

The less said about DL and their insistence on shoehorning a Married Moment into every episode, the better, especially since Haylen Bacall is already spiking my rage-o-meter to toxic levels. What about her doesn't scream Mary Sue like Pavorotti getting a colo-rectal exam sans anesthetic? She's ridiculously young. She found evidence more experienced techs missed. She pulled $100,000 out of her ass, even though the city(not just the department) is in a budget freefall. Two of the regulars think she's hot. She was hired by a supposedly dubious Mac in .5 seconds even though he usually scrutinizes his employees very carefully prior to accepting them. Other techs feel threatened by her awesomeness, and Mac is impressed by her ability to perform basic lab tasks. If she were presented in any fannish medium, i.e., fanfiction, she'd be dismissed as wish-fulfillment fan-diddling, but because she was trotted out by the pros, we're supposed to think she's spunky and plucky and OMG awesome? No, thank you. She's a joke, and if she doesn't go the way of the ill-conceived Riley Adams character on CSI by season's end, I'll be surprised.

The Flack drama kept it interesting, but since I've a good idea of how the Compass Killer arc is going to wind up, I'm not getting excited.

C.

 

[Top41]

B-

I'm hoping the Compass Killer will eventually prove more interesting than this so-so introduction, but there wasn't a lot here to get me excited. Hopefully this will be the taxicab killer from season four in reverse--that started out exciting and floundered in its final installment. Better a slow start than a weak finish.

I don't mind the Danny and Lindsay stuff, surprisingly... Anna's terrible acting has more or less been neutralized by making Lindsay a supportive wife. There's still not a lot of depth to her performance--I don't get the sense that Lindsay is suffering behind her smile--but she's definitely been inoffensive so far this season, and that's saying a lot given how very, very grating her performance has been in the past.

Danny is somewhat less interesting than he has been in the past--not that I wanted to see him totally fall apart over the shooting, but what's always made Danny such a fascinating character is just how emotional he is. Wanting to walk for Lucy is sweet... but it's not especially compelling or surprising.

Flack's erosion is just the opposite--pretty unexpected and handled with depth and subtlety on the part of the writers and Eddie Cahill. Flack's not a total wreck yet, but he's sliding... and it's nice to see that slide and how others around him aren't quite sure how to handle it. I felt so bad for him when he was sitting outside Angell's family's house--you could really feel his isolation in that scene.

Like many others, I'm not really liking Haylen. La Guera pretty much sums it up--she's a grating Mary Sue type. And it's so not something she can help, but I hate her voice! It's so annoying. :lol: Who knows, maybe she'll grow on me. For now, not so much.

Shit, can't anyone just be a law breaker anymore? What happened to motives like lust, greed, carelessness, and good old fashioned crazy?

But he is crazy. That's sort of the point.

The woman he's with is obviously some sort of hallucination. I'm guessing that it's his mom based on the clothes she's wearing. They looked like they might come from the '60s and all of the material (astro turf, the paper) are from the '60s.

I wondered about that, too, actually. But then Hawkes mentioned the engraving was recent... though I guess the killer could have had it done. I think you're probably right--she's most likely a figment of his imagination. Maybe her death was what sent him over the edge.

 

[melgeo]

Eddie Cahill aside, CSI:NY is damn near unwatchable these days. It breaks my heart to write this, but I'm about two episodes away from cutting my ties. The episode did not hold my interest and was dishearteningly predictable. I know others have said it, but exactly how many serial killers are in New York with Mac Taylor fixations? The music, the lighting, the sorry excuse for a plot twist (that was about as twisty as chop sticks), we've seen it all before. Danny BORES me. DANNY bores me. How is this even possible?

Oh CSI:NY why do you do me like this? You had such potential in season one, such charm in season two. Mark my words, I do "know how to quit you." I'm just hoping it won't come to that.

Grade = D

 

[Maya316]

Originally Posted by La_Guera:
Just because your director and cinematographer are devoted Criminal Minds fanboys who aren't above stealing their techniques, that doesn't make them capable of delivering an episode the quality of most Criminal Minds fare. Why? Because every evildoer, no matter how unhinged or crafty, will always and inevitably make it All About Mac. Rather than ply his nefarious trade in the dark and remain unnoticed, he MUST draw the attention of the inimitable NYPD, an acronym which here means the private fiefdom of Mac Taylor. No killer can operate within Mac's environs without him taking it as a personal challenge to the size of his wang, and Mighty Mac doesn't rest once the awesome infallibility of his wang has been questioned, not until the challenger has been subdued and turkey-slapped into a properly reverent stupor by the tool in question.

:lol: This is precisely why they need to bring back the two-case (or even three-case) episodes, ASAP. There's no way Mac could form a personal vendetta with the perp from a case he's not even working on, and he couldn't (hopefully) work two cases at once.

 

[PerfectAnomaly]

Originally Posted by La_Guera:
Just because your director and cinematographer are devoted Criminal Minds fanboys who aren't above stealing their techniques, that doesn't make them capable of delivering an episode the quality of most Criminal Minds fare. Why? Because every evildoer, no matter how unhinged or crafty, will always and inevitably make it All About Mac. Rather than ply his nefarious trade in the dark and remain unnoticed, he MUST draw the attention of the inimitable NYPD, an acronym which here means the private fiefdom of Mac Taylor. No killer can operate within Mac's environs without him taking it as a personal challenge to the size of his wang, and Mighty Mac doesn't rest once the awesome infallibility of his wang has been questioned, not until the challenger has been subdued and turkey-slapped into a properly reverent stupor by the tool in question.

:lol: This is precisely why they need to bring back the two-case (or even three-case) episodes, ASAP. There's no way Mac could form a personal vendetta with the perp from a case he's not even working on, and he couldn't (hopefully) work two cases at once.

Never under estimate Mac, his importance to every member of the human race or his Mad Marine Skillz. Mac Taylor will not tolerate such insolence.

 

[ladyhunter]

I saw less than half. Unfortunately I fell asleep :wtf:

Here is what I did see....

See I sort of liked the premise, the idea of staged suicide. Top wrote in her last review of Vegas that the Milander case brought back devout CSI fans because that was the very first case .... staged suicides.

That got me excited for NY. I know they pass around story ideas for all three shows, but this got me intrigued to see how NY would handle it. I knew Mac was going to be very involved. I didn't see how the episode turned out, but I did like what I saw of Skeet Ulrich. To me, it did have the sick, twisted premise of the CSI Vegas Pilot with the fake suicides and bizarre yet interesting build up. But again, that's all I saw.

I did catch some Danny/Lindsay scene. Like everyone one else, there is NO WAY Lucy is 10 months. Don't you just love how children get fast-forwarded??? I'm convinced Lindsay is going to crack. Come on, ask any new mother, it's not easy! Let alone saddled with a disabled spouse and a demanding job. I'm not Lindsay's biggest fan but I hope when she does crack it's done well and not taken out on someone like like Mac. But that's me.

I have to say, everyone else sums up the episodes so much better than I do. I usually have a lot to say, but it doesn't always come out the way I want it to. So most of the time I agree with the members. Silly I know

So, I'm off to watch the rest. CBS has it up already.

I'm sure I'll have more to add....

What I saw .. B-

 

[Zipster]

Interesting.. I'm actually not sure what I think of this episode.. I can tell you I didn't like the ending.. clearly they are going to do more with it, but they didn't leave enough for me to remember it beyond watching it 10 mins ago! So unless they plan to do something next week, I can see me having to watch this episode again.

When they did the Taxi killer or the Second Life killer, they had a better (we'll be back) ending.. And walking off into the smoke at the end? All he was missing was a cane, deerstalker and pipe tbh..

No not that impressed really.. Personal drama's were okay, new girl has a very annoying voice!

Ungraded for now.

 

[talkingtocactus]

I viewed Haylen's grant as something like an internship, only one that's paid for by the city government, rather than the NYPD crime lab. It's not like Haylen went for money that would be better spent elsewhere -- they need good forensic scientists in the lab, and the grant was obviously up for grabs, regardless of how stretched the budget was. If it was too stretched to hire anyone, the city/NYPD/whoever wouldn't have made the grant available at all. I think as far as Mac and the lab are concerned, it's like they took on a free volunteer/intern. I thought that was pretty clever of her.

yeah that's pretty much how i saw it too, and i thought it was very clever of her!

My step-dad talked to the guy who is a supervisor in the Mpls. crime lab because my niece who's in college might be interested in working in a lab. He says forensic degrees don't mean jack shit when hiring at the lab. They're looking for people with strong science backgrounds, so Haylen having a Masters in Forensics wouldn't get her a job over people who have Master's degrees in a scientific field.

i spoke to someone working in forensics recently and they said that although it's rare for someone to get into forensics jobs purely on the basis of having studied forensics, it's not unheard of, i believe he said it's a lot more difficult to get into with only a forensics qualification as opposed to some other kind of experience/training, but he said it happens from time to time. i'm also of the view that someone with good forensics qualifications can only get experience by working in the field, even if it's as an intern or test tube cleaner or something, so maybe it makes sense as a graduate to take on an internship, and maybe it also makes sense as a lab with budget cuts to take advantage of someone who has qualifications and enthusiasm if it's free.

the inimitable NYPD, an acronym which here means the private fiefdom of Mac Taylor. No killer can operate within Mac's environs without him taking it as a personal challenge to the size of his wang, and Mighty Mac doesn't rest once the awesome infallibility of his wang has been questioned, not until the challenger has been subdued and turkey-slapped into a properly reverent stupor by the tool in question.

Never under estimate Mac, his importance to every member of the human race or his Mad Marine Skillz. Mac Taylor will not tolerate such insolence.

:lol: to both those comments! i'm a big mac fan, i don't mind mac-centricity *at all* but it is quite funny how everyone seems to think mac is this evil overlord who will stop them in their tracks. i'm undecided as to whether mac thinks he's that though...

I am, however, greatly interested in Flack's downward spiral. He is Not Okay. He needs help. I had hoped Jess' father might have noticed the subtle but alarming changes in the normally composed Flack. He might not be blowing busts or nipping from a hip flask at his desk, but his disheveled clothing, unshaven face, and general air of anger and indifference should be raising red flags for everyone. ... I can't shake the feeling that things might have gone differently if Cliff had said something else instead of attributing Flack's absence to his zest for the job. In truth, I think Flack expected him to say something else, and when he didn't, Flack was disappointed.

Flack doesn't feel entitled to his grief, I suspect, which is why he couldn't bring himself to join the Angell family for dinner even after he promised he would. While the family was clearly able to celebrate Jess, Flack is still mired in the nasty, sucking, isolatory twilight of grief. He's no doubt struggling with the sneaking suspicion that he was at least partially responsible for her death.

i was quite surprised that cliff didn't realise about flack - i thought maybe he did but decided not to push it. but i think you're spot on about flack feeling not entitled to grief, i think he felt like he wasn't part of the family as well, and why should he intrude on their day? also i got the impression that when he saw them all laughing and being happy, he just couldn't do it, which i totally understand.

Flack's erosion is just the opposite--pretty unexpected and handled with depth and subtlety on the part of the writers and Eddie Cahill. Flack's not a total wreck yet, but he's sliding... and it's nice to see that slide and how others around him aren't quite sure how to handle it. I felt so bad for him when he was sitting outside Angell's family's house--you could really feel his isolation in that scene.

yeah, he's doing really well with it, i hope it continues because at the moment it's just right - it's obvious something's wrong but they're not shoving it down throats.

I wondered about that, too, actually. But then Hawkes mentioned the engraving was recent...

yeah, but i think they meant recent as opposed to antique, although as mac said "bday" and "4ever" are really quite recent.

 

[Dreamboat]

I think the Skeet character was injured. If you look at the last scene, the right side of his face looks like it was burned. The woman is obviously a hallucination. The place where he lives is dusty and broken. No woman would live somewhere in that condition.

Yes, the Lucy timeline is off, but what annoys me more is the current day timeline. Judging just by the clothes the characters were wearing, everything happened in one day. Mac talks to Haylen at Ellis Island after 10am and she is working at the lab by afternoon. Cliff talks to Flack about dinner on Jess's birthday on Sunday and it appears to happen that evening (maybe it wasn't the same dinner they talked about). The "Compass Killer" was picking out a compass and then one is delivered to Mac. Doesn't mail take at least a couple of days? (Or maybe the compass "CK" was looking at was the third one on Sid's autopsy table.) Also, how does mail sent to NYPD end up with Mac?

Maybe I'm just nitpicky, but this episode had more flaws than usual.

 

[roximonoxide]

Shit, can't anyone just be a law breaker anymore? What happened to motives like lust, greed, carelessness, and good old fashioned crazy?

But he is crazy. That's sort of the point.

The woman he's with is obviously some sort of hallucination. I'm guessing that it's his mom based on the clothes she's wearing. They looked like they might come from the '60s and all of the material (astro turf, the paper) are from the '60s.

Anyway, everything he's doing looks like it's based on some sort of compulsion that he can't stop.

Sure he's nuts, that much is clear, but it's this toying-with-the-cops-while-I-turn-all-my-misdeeds-into-some-grandiose-statement kind of way that I'm up to my eyeballs in. How about the serial killer that just kills people as a compulsion? Because he gets his kicks on it Or because, like Lenny, he doesn't understand what he's doing. Not because he's trying to exact justice or send the NY/the world a message, or fuel Mac Taylor's arousal for hunting these show-boating maniacs. This doesn't seem compulsive. Yah, he's definitely hallucinating or something when it comes to the girl, but he's trying to make a point or set things "right" with these killings. Crazy isn't quite so crazy to me and often to a jury, when they're well minded enough to lay out plans for multiple killings all tied together with a running motif of compasses and apology notes, all the while teasing investigators with little presents like breadcrumbs. I think a lawyer would have a hard time arguing they're not of sound mind when they're more organized than I am.

 

[Maya316]

Originally Posted by *lisasimpson*:

Originally Posted by La_Guera
the inimitable NYPD, an acronym which here means the private fiefdom of Mac Taylor. No killer can operate within Mac's environs without him taking it as a personal challenge to the size of his wang, and Mighty Mac doesn't rest once the awesome infallibility of his wang has been questioned, not until the challenger has been subdued and turkey-slapped into a properly reverent stupor by the tool in question.

Originally Posted by perfect anomaly
Never under estimate Mac, his importance to every member of the human race or his Mad Marine Skillz. Mac Taylor will not tolerate such insolence.

:lol: to both those comments! i'm a big mac fan, i don't mind mac-centricity *at all* but it is quite funny how everyone seems to think mac is this evil overlord who will stop them in their tracks. i'm undecided as to whether mac thinks he's that though...

Oh dammit, I'm reminded of the mop-handle-breakage from "Blacklist" now. *facepalm* :lol: I realize Mac as a Marine could realistically be super-strong, but they used that same mop handle to pry open an elevator door. I still have to suspend my disbelief watching that scene. He could not break something that stood up to a few tons of steel at least. But they really are making him SuperMac, and that's what irks me more than the Mac-centricity. Short rant here, blow past it if preferable, but I really like Mac. He's not my number one favourites (totally plural), but imo he's easily the best CSI leader in the franchise, and that includes Grissom and Catherine. I just don't understand this need to have CSI team leaders be superhuman in their crime-fighting zeal and infallibility. I think they're wrecking Mac's character with it. You'd think they'd've learned a lesson from SuperH on Miami. Grissom managed to leave CSI Vegas as a mortal criminalist and still garner tons of respect. What happened to Grissom's idea that CSI-ing was all about impartially gathering evidence; instead of, you know, competing over who can collect/defeat the most personal nemeses in a single season?

Originally Posted by Dreamboat:
Yes, the Lucy timeline is off, but what annoys me more is the current day timeline. Judging just by the clothes the characters were wearing, everything happened in one day. Mac talks to Haylen at Ellis Island after 10am and she is working at the lab by afternoon. Cliff talks to Flack about dinner on Jess's birthday on Sunday and it appears to happen that evening (maybe it wasn't the same dinner they talked about). The "Compass Killer" was picking out a compass and then one is delivered to Mac. Doesn't mail take at least a couple of days? (Or maybe the compass "CK" was looking at was the third one on Sid's autopsy table.) Also, how does mail sent to NYPD end up with Mac?

I didn't even think about the fact that no one had changed clothes in this episode...but yeah, that was definitely weird. Especially with how quickly it means Haylen ended up getting hired and working in the lab on a presumably high-profile case (with no prior job experience :wtf:. That was very Mary-Sue, even for CSI:NY. In the height of Lindsay's Mary-Sue days, they at least acknowledged she was a rookie.). Don't they have to give her basic job training or anything like that?

The thing with the mail bugged me less...it's possible the Compass Killer could've delivered it directly to the NYPD, without using mail. I wondered how it ended up with Mac, too, but then I was wondering something similar in "Pay Up" when it was Mac giving the announcement of Angell's death to the other NYPD officers. (I was under the impression that Angell and Flack had a different boss, and it probably should've been that commanding officer giving the speech.)

ETA: I'm really liking the idea that the woman with Skeet could be a hallucination...but I don't know. That scene where she almost opened the window, and he screamed at her not to? That seemed more like he was interacting with a real person, than with a figment of his mind.