Dear CBS,
Please to be shoving your blatant, clumsy-fingered emotional manipulation up your root cellar. I'm not talking about the episode proper, which was surprisingly effective and duly respectful of an exceedingly emotional and painful time in human history. I'm talking about the disclaimer that appeared at the beginning of the episode. "Tonight's emotional episode"? Really? Were you so insecure about the quality of the episode that you decided to prompt the viewers as to how they should feel? A simple "Tonight's episode deals with the Holocaust and will contain offensive language, graphic violence, and racist ideas. Viewer discretion is advised.," would have sufficed and certainly wouldn't have smacked of a blatant Emmy grab. You might as well have put Lenkov, Mendelsohn, and Zuiker on screen with a placard that read, "Dear Emmys, please notice us."
That said, the episode lived up to the warning. The goblet full of gold teeth was the most wrenching, deeply disturbing scene in the episode and was ten times more effective than Mac's frothing and holy-roller rant on in the final interrogation. "Please tell me those aren't what I think they are," Flack said, and conveyed a more credible disgust with one line than the whole of Mac's howling.
I've taken several courses on the Holocaust and Nazi Germany as part of my German studies, and I've seen more pictures than I ever wanted to of mass graves and sunken bodies and hollow-eyed survivors, and it's dreadful. It makes you want to vomit or cry or both, but after a while, you become inured to the black-and-white, two-dimensional horror. They're just pictures, statistics, documentation of the past. You look at photos of Auschwitz and Dachau and Treblinka, and they're just buildings and plots of lands. The reality of what happened there is at a clinical remove.
And then you see a small mountain of gold teeth or a warehouse full of human hair or a room full of crutches and eyeglasses and wheelchairs, and you remember. Oh. Six million Jews who were alive aren't anymore, and neither are millions of gays, Catholics, disabled people or Romany. They all went to God on a cloud of ash or returned to the earth under a blanket of lye. When confronted with evil on such a large scale, it can be overwhelming.
The sight of Mac with those teeth in his palm was an Oh moment of tremendous power, and I wish there had been more of that and less rubber-faced over-emoting by Mac. Gary is capable of emotional nuance, and I wish he'd chosen to display it.
I was also uncomfortable with the saga of Mackenna Boyd Taylor. I've no objection to the idea. American G.I.s certainly did liberate the death camps, and many did express great revulsion for what they found in them. One outrage American commander ordered the townspeople of a nearby village marched into the camps to see what the Nazis had done while the villagers had been happily sleeping in homes confiscated from Jews. So, I buy that Big Mac liberated Buchenwald.
What bothered me was that the story was used to further propagate the legend of Mighty Mac and His Awesome Nobility. It was less about the kindness of Mackenna and more about the fact that we viewers are supposed to believe that Mac's super perfect awesomeness was a genetic gift from his father. "Remember, kids, Mac is just as cool as his old man. Even cooler. Because his father was a hero, that makes Mac one, too. Also, it makes him infallible and grants him the right to lord over others." The idea that character traits and morality have a genetic basis is a contributing factor in the Holocaust, and I don't think they should've handled the revelation that way. Plus, I found it hard to believe that someone just happened to mention Mac's father during an interview. As the archivist noted, a paltry number of Holocaust victims survived the war, and old age has whittled their numbers further still.
Ed Asner was brilliant as Abraham Klein/Klaus Strauss. I bought into him completely as the affable clockmaker forced to sell his dead wife's brooch to keep his business afloat, and therefore, his revelation as a Nazi war criminal was pitch-perfect. His leer when he realized the jig was up was a clinic in superior acting, and his "Wir haben alle toten sollen" made the scene with its quiet, unrepentant malice. Ed Asner stole that scene from Sinise's frantic mugging and gesticulating, and I wish he'd been more prominent in the episode.
And I certainly could've done without Mac trotting out the God card again. Since when his Mac been a God-squadder? He's been an open-minded agnostic as far as I could tell. Now he's Mr. Jesus man? Why? Who decided to retcon that trait into the character? God had nothing to do with outing a war criminal. It was the simpler answer of greed. Why isn't that sufficient anymore? Why does police work and the limited justice it provides now need to operate under the aegis of the Lord? If anything, that possibility casts doubt on God's ultimate perfection, because if God were perfect and God were the provider of justice, then the justice He provided would be perfect. It isn't. He doesn't. Stop dragging Him into your flimsy TV show to bolster your flagging credibility.
So, Hawkes had an Uncle Frank with whom he was especially close? Yet we've never heard of this life-shaping Uncle Frank and his annual summer visits until now. Typical NY tell and no show. I would've liked to know more about Uncle Frank, and it certainly wouldn't have killed them to mention him before now with a throwaway line or two sprinkled over the seasons. And no, Danny's vague, "Oh, yeah, I remember you told me about him," doesn't count. I don't have a timeshare in Messer's head(And thank God, because If I were privy to him and Lindsay bumping uglies, I'd projectile vomit out his ear.).
Don't get me wrong, I'm pleased to see the usually self-involved Danny reaching out to Hawkes, but where was his concern for Flack when the latter was under investigation earlier this year, or several years ago, when Flack nearly died? Why is he suddenly Mr. Reliable? Is this a sign that he's learning from his mistakes, or is it more shoddy writing? Either Flack and Danny's best friendship was nothing but fannish wishful thinking, or the writers decided to retcon that into Danny-Hawkes bestest budship after they botched COTP to launch the leaking dinghy, the U.S.S. Dindsay.
I'm torn about Danny's altercation with Elgers. I don't blame him for drubbing the douchebag, because I wanted to do the same. However, his attitude with Hawkes in the aftermath painted him in a less than flattering light. He seemed offended that Hawkes wasn't falling over himself in gratitude for pounding Elgers into the concrete on his behalf, and his childish, "So you're takin' the high road?" made it sound like Danny had done it in expectation of praise, not because that's what such virulent bigotry deserves.
Dear Danny,
As the victim of the racist incident, Hawkes gets to decide how to feel about it and your reaction. Your implication that he was being a haughty, ungrateful ass because he didn't condone your actions is unbecoming and just as off-putting as Elger's overt racism. Hawkes doesn't owe you anything because he didn't ask you to fight for him. The end.
Also, smooth move, losing two weeks' pay with a baby and its additional expenses on the horizon. I'm sure Lindsay will be thrilled. Dumbass.
La Guera
I wish we'd seen more of the IAB investigation. Frankly, that story deserved its own episode, since this one was clearly meant to be a Very Special episode.
But there'll be no time for that, what with the Most Important Event of the Season. You know, because popping out a screaming watermelon is more important than the death of a fellow officer or the schism between Mac and Stella or the fact that Danny might get sued into the floor. The DL pandering has gotten absolutely craven, and it's smothering what little potential the show has left.
A for the episode, but D for the shameless Emmy-whoring and DL pandering.
Please to be shoving your blatant, clumsy-fingered emotional manipulation up your root cellar. I'm not talking about the episode proper, which was surprisingly effective and duly respectful of an exceedingly emotional and painful time in human history. I'm talking about the disclaimer that appeared at the beginning of the episode. "Tonight's emotional episode"? Really? Were you so insecure about the quality of the episode that you decided to prompt the viewers as to how they should feel? A simple "Tonight's episode deals with the Holocaust and will contain offensive language, graphic violence, and racist ideas. Viewer discretion is advised.," would have sufficed and certainly wouldn't have smacked of a blatant Emmy grab. You might as well have put Lenkov, Mendelsohn, and Zuiker on screen with a placard that read, "Dear Emmys, please notice us."
That said, the episode lived up to the warning. The goblet full of gold teeth was the most wrenching, deeply disturbing scene in the episode and was ten times more effective than Mac's frothing and holy-roller rant on in the final interrogation. "Please tell me those aren't what I think they are," Flack said, and conveyed a more credible disgust with one line than the whole of Mac's howling.
I've taken several courses on the Holocaust and Nazi Germany as part of my German studies, and I've seen more pictures than I ever wanted to of mass graves and sunken bodies and hollow-eyed survivors, and it's dreadful. It makes you want to vomit or cry or both, but after a while, you become inured to the black-and-white, two-dimensional horror. They're just pictures, statistics, documentation of the past. You look at photos of Auschwitz and Dachau and Treblinka, and they're just buildings and plots of lands. The reality of what happened there is at a clinical remove.
And then you see a small mountain of gold teeth or a warehouse full of human hair or a room full of crutches and eyeglasses and wheelchairs, and you remember. Oh. Six million Jews who were alive aren't anymore, and neither are millions of gays, Catholics, disabled people or Romany. They all went to God on a cloud of ash or returned to the earth under a blanket of lye. When confronted with evil on such a large scale, it can be overwhelming.
The sight of Mac with those teeth in his palm was an Oh moment of tremendous power, and I wish there had been more of that and less rubber-faced over-emoting by Mac. Gary is capable of emotional nuance, and I wish he'd chosen to display it.
I was also uncomfortable with the saga of Mackenna Boyd Taylor. I've no objection to the idea. American G.I.s certainly did liberate the death camps, and many did express great revulsion for what they found in them. One outrage American commander ordered the townspeople of a nearby village marched into the camps to see what the Nazis had done while the villagers had been happily sleeping in homes confiscated from Jews. So, I buy that Big Mac liberated Buchenwald.
What bothered me was that the story was used to further propagate the legend of Mighty Mac and His Awesome Nobility. It was less about the kindness of Mackenna and more about the fact that we viewers are supposed to believe that Mac's super perfect awesomeness was a genetic gift from his father. "Remember, kids, Mac is just as cool as his old man. Even cooler. Because his father was a hero, that makes Mac one, too. Also, it makes him infallible and grants him the right to lord over others." The idea that character traits and morality have a genetic basis is a contributing factor in the Holocaust, and I don't think they should've handled the revelation that way. Plus, I found it hard to believe that someone just happened to mention Mac's father during an interview. As the archivist noted, a paltry number of Holocaust victims survived the war, and old age has whittled their numbers further still.
Ed Asner was brilliant as Abraham Klein/Klaus Strauss. I bought into him completely as the affable clockmaker forced to sell his dead wife's brooch to keep his business afloat, and therefore, his revelation as a Nazi war criminal was pitch-perfect. His leer when he realized the jig was up was a clinic in superior acting, and his "Wir haben alle toten sollen" made the scene with its quiet, unrepentant malice. Ed Asner stole that scene from Sinise's frantic mugging and gesticulating, and I wish he'd been more prominent in the episode.
And I certainly could've done without Mac trotting out the God card again. Since when his Mac been a God-squadder? He's been an open-minded agnostic as far as I could tell. Now he's Mr. Jesus man? Why? Who decided to retcon that trait into the character? God had nothing to do with outing a war criminal. It was the simpler answer of greed. Why isn't that sufficient anymore? Why does police work and the limited justice it provides now need to operate under the aegis of the Lord? If anything, that possibility casts doubt on God's ultimate perfection, because if God were perfect and God were the provider of justice, then the justice He provided would be perfect. It isn't. He doesn't. Stop dragging Him into your flimsy TV show to bolster your flagging credibility.
So, Hawkes had an Uncle Frank with whom he was especially close? Yet we've never heard of this life-shaping Uncle Frank and his annual summer visits until now. Typical NY tell and no show. I would've liked to know more about Uncle Frank, and it certainly wouldn't have killed them to mention him before now with a throwaway line or two sprinkled over the seasons. And no, Danny's vague, "Oh, yeah, I remember you told me about him," doesn't count. I don't have a timeshare in Messer's head(And thank God, because If I were privy to him and Lindsay bumping uglies, I'd projectile vomit out his ear.).
Don't get me wrong, I'm pleased to see the usually self-involved Danny reaching out to Hawkes, but where was his concern for Flack when the latter was under investigation earlier this year, or several years ago, when Flack nearly died? Why is he suddenly Mr. Reliable? Is this a sign that he's learning from his mistakes, or is it more shoddy writing? Either Flack and Danny's best friendship was nothing but fannish wishful thinking, or the writers decided to retcon that into Danny-Hawkes bestest budship after they botched COTP to launch the leaking dinghy, the U.S.S. Dindsay.
I'm torn about Danny's altercation with Elgers. I don't blame him for drubbing the douchebag, because I wanted to do the same. However, his attitude with Hawkes in the aftermath painted him in a less than flattering light. He seemed offended that Hawkes wasn't falling over himself in gratitude for pounding Elgers into the concrete on his behalf, and his childish, "So you're takin' the high road?" made it sound like Danny had done it in expectation of praise, not because that's what such virulent bigotry deserves.
Dear Danny,
As the victim of the racist incident, Hawkes gets to decide how to feel about it and your reaction. Your implication that he was being a haughty, ungrateful ass because he didn't condone your actions is unbecoming and just as off-putting as Elger's overt racism. Hawkes doesn't owe you anything because he didn't ask you to fight for him. The end.
Also, smooth move, losing two weeks' pay with a baby and its additional expenses on the horizon. I'm sure Lindsay will be thrilled. Dumbass.
La Guera
I wish we'd seen more of the IAB investigation. Frankly, that story deserved its own episode, since this one was clearly meant to be a Very Special episode.
But there'll be no time for that, what with the Most Important Event of the Season. You know, because popping out a screaming watermelon is more important than the death of a fellow officer or the schism between Mac and Stella or the fact that Danny might get sued into the floor. The DL pandering has gotten absolutely craven, and it's smothering what little potential the show has left.
A for the episode, but D for the shameless Emmy-whoring and DL pandering.
