This is going to sound very technical, but I thought the episode kind of failed because of how it was edited. The storyline and the twists were ok (minus the senator killing Ali. I agree that was a stretch, even though I can totally believe him setting up Curtis), but with the
'48 hours earlier' and
how they edited in the flashbacks, it felt very contrived and rather forced and somewhat boring. It had very little flow.
As for Curtis not realizing there was a bullet in the chamber, that I found hard to believe too. When you load a clip into into a semi-automatic, you initially have to rack back the slide to load that first bullet in. After that, when the final bullet is fired, the slide locks back so that when you reload all you have to do is release the slide and the first round automatically chambers. But since when you initially load there isn't a round in the chamber, I don't know a single person who doesn't rack that first round in before holstering their gun. Think about it, if an officer needs to draw down on a suspect, are they going to have it where they have to take the time pull back on the slide and chamber that first round and keep track of whether there's one in there or not? No. That's what the 'safety' is for. The gun is kept loaded with a round in the chamber and the safety on until the trigger is ready to be pulled. And anyone who uses and is familiar with handguns knows and does the same thing. So no, I found it SO convenient and contrived that Curtis overlooked the round in the chamber.
I also have a huge problem with how he got in the apartment in the first place. There was a single hole in the window.... what exactly was that for? And I'm assuming since he clearly didn't break it while Jo was at the place (since there's no way she wouldn't have heard the window break), therefore we have to assume he was already there. But why? How the hell would he know that other victim had been called to the precinct for questioning about her rape? Again, all very contrived and convenient.
As for the senator caving under Mac's interrogation, they've been doing that with the show since it began. To me it wasn't anything new, but maybe it's starting to feel convenient just because they've done it so much by now. On the other hand, I don't really complain because I love watching Mac's interrogations and how Gary acts them
:lol:
Overall I gave a
'B'. It could have both been better and worse. The storyline had a lot of potential, but it fell flat by how they put it together. But on the bright side at least they had a mostly interesting storyline. The poor execution on the part of the editing just frustrated me to no end.