"House Of Hoarders" Discussion **Spoilers**

[PraetorCorvinus]

I prefer to say that Greg was 'neutral' in oppose to 'passive'. He was basically caught in the middle of a fight and, as A. FineLabrats said, he didn't want to pick sides.

And I liked his scenes with Sara, I didn't see it as going behind peoples back. He was probably just seeing exactly what was going on and wondering if there was anything he could do. I preferred this method to Ray's. Probably because this is what I would do.

It's recently been pointed out to me that I identify with Greg. That might explain the bias. :lol:

 

[vegaslights]

Matt Roush's thoughts on the episode:

CLUTTERFUSS: A zeitgeist alert when two very different shows tackle the same topic on consecutive nights. This week's buzzword: hoarding. On South Park, when Stan's locker and Mr. Mackey's office overfloweth, they're sent into regression dream therapy, prompting a clunky Inception parody. Props, though, to Stan's mom, who isn't buying all the dream-within-dream shenanigans. "Just because an idea is overly convoluted and complex doesn't make it cool." The following night, on CSI (which has really been raising its game the last few weeks, still the gold standard of procedurals), a hoarder's pungent hovel provides cover for a mass murderer, and also gives us the gross-out of the week, as Nick Stokes navigates around the mountains of clutter and steps right into a decomposing corpse.

 

[Speedystokesgirl]

I prefer to say that Greg was 'neutral' in oppose to 'passive'. He was basically caught in the middle of a fight and, as A. FineLabrats said, he didn't want to pick sides.

And I liked his scenes with Sara, I didn't see it as going behind peoples back. He was probably just seeing exactly what was going on and wondering if there was anything he could do. I preferred this method to Ray's. Probably because this is what I would do.

It's recently been pointed out to me that I identify with Greg. That might explain the bias. :lol:

You could be right, but Greg is typically a passive person. That's how I see it.

I didn't say he went behind their backs, I said it was like he did. He didn't have to take sides to speak up. Ray spoke up and he didn't take sides.

If Greg wants them to start respecting him as a CSI and not see him as labrat Greg then he needs to start growing some, (well you know).

At times he has, but mostly he's passive.

 

[A. FineLabrats]

I prefer to see it as him being an observer. Kind of like Grissom. There were often fights going on right under Grissom's nose that he should have taken a hand in, even more than Greg, because it was his job as supervisor. But he liked to let things smooth out by themselves rather than taking a direct hand in things. In fact, that's one of the complaints some of the team had about Grissom, and more recently about Catherine. In a leadership position, you can't simply be an observer. But since Greg isn't Nick and Sara's boss, and they're his friends, I think he made the right choice. Observe, inquire politely to make sure it's not some HUGE deal, and then let them duke it out on their own.

 

[Speedystokesgirl]

I prefer to see it as him being an observer. Kind of like Grissom. There were often fights going on right under Grissom's nose that he should have taken a hand in, even more than Greg, because it was his job as supervisor. But he liked to let things smooth out by themselves rather than taking a direct hand in things. In fact, that's one of the complaints some of the team had about Grissom, and more recently about Catherine. In a leadership position, you can't simply be an observer. But since Greg isn't Nick and Sara's boss, and they're his friends, I think he made the right choice. Observe, inquire politely to make sure it's not some HUGE deal, and then let them duke it out on their own.

I could see that.

 

[PraetorCorvinus]

I didn't say he went behind their backs, I said it was like he did. He didn't have to take sides to speak up. Ray spoke up and he didn't take sides.

True, you didn't. But now I'm thinking of a partially evil Greg sewing the seeds of discord behind the scenes. :lol:

If Greg wants them to start respecting him as a CSI and not see him as labrat Greg then he needs to start growing some, (well you know).

Grow some what now? :lol:

 

[A. FineLabrats]

Additionally, and this may or may not have factored into the writers' minds, I think Greg was purposefully made a neutral voice for the viewers' benefit. If you add too many elements into a spitting fire, you'll just have the whole thing blow up on you. Greg had to be neutral so the viewers would have someone to relate to. Someone on the outside of the argument that saw both sides, as does the audience. If everyone around Nick and Sara had taken sides, the audience would feel alienated because they would then have to pick sides against some of their favourite characters -- whereas here they could say, "I'm with Greg/Ray!"

 

[Raynn]

I was just watching it again, and when they are interviewing the mother about the older daughter, she's kind of vague about what happened..."things were falling, there was blood". Then she says the daughter said she was fine and left. Soooo....did she really and then collapsed in the house and the mom didn't know? Or did the mom really know she died and/or was the one who killed her and then left her there? Either way, I don't understand how she is set free at the end, unless there was just not enough evidence to prosecute her for the first death.

I was thinking that too, her death was most likely an accident. With all that piled up junk in the house something is bound to come crashing down on top of someone.

I think that may have been what happened and the daughter said she was leaving and her mother thought she left but she collapsed and died instead. I can understand why she didn't notice with all that trash everywhere...however, how can she not have noticed the smell of rotting flesh??

I think the mother's story was accurate - the daughter got hit on the head by accident, thought she was okay, and walked away. But then she collapsed from a subdural hematoma, and the mother's 'clutter blindness' kept her from noticing the corpse. As DJ said, the cat urine and everything else would've helped mask the smell.

I think the mother wasn't being prosecuted because the daughter's death was an accident, and with her other daughter, she was trying to stop her from killing other people. Plus, she's mentally ill, and needs help not a jail sentence.

The only scene that sticks in my mind was Mitchell and Akers at the start- I thought that they worked well together, and I realised that Larry Sullivan is pretty good looking :lol:

You and the minor characters.. :guffaw: I have to admit, I got a little thrill seeing the two of them together at the start too, not just some nameless uniforms.

Making Sara's mother kill her father with an absense of abuse actually makes her childhood much more scary, disturbing, and scarring, actually. It's a lot easier to comprehend for a child that someone might kill their lover because of abuse. It's a LOT harder for a child (or even a fully formed adult) to be able to understand a) mental illness, which for a child would seem like some invisible bogey monster and b) the randomness of fear caused by knowing that this person could all of a sudden come after you with no prior provocation.

I thought there was abuse involved? I'm not certain, but didn't Sara once mention (either in "Committed" or "No Humans Involved") that there was some form of abuse? Maybe not physical, but I always got the impression that there was verbal abuse.

I'm really not sure about this though. Sara fans, help me.

In Nesting Dolls, Sara said "The fights, the yelling, the trips to the hospital. I thought it was the way that everybody lived. When my mother killed my father, I found out that it wasn't." Trips to the hospital implies some sort of physical abuse. I'm wondering now though, did her mother kill her father because he abused her, or was the mother the abuser all along?

In Committed, she just says that her mother was sent to an institution for evaluation, after her father died. That's possibly when she was diagnosed as schizophrenic.

 

[Desertwind]

So why didn't the mother get any jail time, did she kill her daughter accidently, or was it outright murder? and chained one up like an animal. I was a bit baffled that she just walked out with any reprimand, or punishment And Alicia, was she just fooling with Ray, and why did she kill those guys? with arsenic? Was it mandatory that she seek psychological treatment? Maybe the son will call in a cleaning crew, and wa-la-it'll be spanking, sparkling clean, and organized:thumbsup:

 

[PraetorCorvinus]

In Nesting Dolls, Sara said "The fights, the yelling, the trips to the hospital. I thought it was the way that everybody lived. When my mother killed my father, I found out that it wasn't." Trips to the hospital implies some sort of physical abuse. I'm wondering now though, did her mother kill her father because he abused her, or was the mother the abuser all along?

In Committed, she just says that her mother was sent to an institution for evaluation, after her father died. That's possibly when she was diagnosed as schizophrenic.

Thank you. I knew I heard it somewhere.

And I interpreted Sara's explanation as it being her father who was abusive. All the emphasis on her mother sounded kind of sympathetic. But that may have just been me.

 

[vegaslights]

So why didn't the mother get any jail time

As long as she got help, the D.A. wouldn't prosecute her. The mother suffered from a mental illness. In most instances, if she plead "insanity," she wouldn't have been sent to jail, but rather a mental hospital, such as the one the MCSK went to.

 

[ladyhunter]

I know most of us can identify with Nick by saying "How can people live like this." But the way our brains work and the way a hoarders brain works is different. Yeah, she was functioning, she held down a job, ate, drove a car, paid the bills, etc... but her brain categorized her life in a completely different way.

We see our lives differently than a hoarder. We see tidyness and neatness as a good thing while they don't. Again, they categorize their lives (such as her daughters things, her dresses, her graduation cap and gown) in a completely different manner.

So yes, this woman suffered a mental illness. She would got to a facility to treat that. Not to jail.

 

[Top41]

Great episode--I really liked this one! I thought the mystery was good--even though I wondered about Alicia based on what Julian said about her, I was surprised at the end to find out she was a serial killer!

And I think it's great that Sara and Nick can fight and be annoyed with each other and then be okay with each other when all is said and done. The true hallmark of a cohesive team, and a healthy family.

I loved hearing Sara talk about her past--I don't think she could have opened up like that a few seasons ago.

 

[Desertwind]

So why didn't the mother get any jail time

As long as she got help, the D.A. wouldn't prosecute her. The mother suffered from a mental illness. In most instances, if she plead "insanity," she wouldn't have been sent to jail, but rather a mental hospital, such as the one the MCSK went to.

Thank's Voodoo confusing to say the least. I figured that with Sara being so compassionate and relating her mom to this "mentally disturbed woman", she probably did suggest that she get thearpy. I was just wondering. Sometimes on this show, perps get away with horrendous crimes and sometimes they don't good comparsion with the MCSK, Natalie another "dusturbed" woman. And in slang and it's not nice, but these people are callled "wacky, nutty or crazy" and BTW, there's a review on this episode by Kristine on our "news"~

 

[byline]

I don't have the powers to re-watch the episode, but if I do recall, didn't the mother also say that after her daughter told her that she was okay, she left and the mother didn't see her since? Perhaps I am wrong.

Yes, she did say that, and I think that's the way she remembered it, but it's not what really happened. Diana didn't literally leave, but in her mother's mind she figuratively left when the books fell on her, and she died. Then the mother's hoarding "blindness" took over, and in her mind her daughter was gone.

As for whether the mother smelled the body, people who are hoarders often hoard animals, and animal protection services that come in may find dead carcasses of animals in the home. For whatever reason, the hoarder doesn't sense this, or if s/he does, it's not enough to bother him or her. I don't know if this is related to the "blindness" mentioned in the episode, whether that crosses over into sense of smell, or what. But I'm guessing that's at least part of the explanation.

I think the mother's story was accurate - the daughter got hit on the head by accident, thought she was okay, and walked away. But then she collapsed from a subdural hematoma, and the mother's 'clutter blindness' kept her from noticing the corpse. As DJ said, the cat urine and everything else would've helped mask the smell.

Good point. I like your explanation!