"House Of Hoarders" Discussion **Spoilers**

Matt Roush's thoughts on the episode:

 

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.

 

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.

 

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!"

 

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.

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.

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.

 

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:

 

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.

 

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.

 

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"~

 

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.

Good point. I like your explanation!