The following post is ridiculously long due to the combined effect of Stokes Syndrome and internet insomnia, so consider yourself warned.
BabaOReilly said:
To be honest, I don't want to watch him walking around all gloomy and haunted all the time. Not only would that be a tad unrealistic, it would get old pretty fast.
I agree, it's about time Nick got back into his groove. But you know what they say, you can't really get over something unless you deal with it first, and I'm just so miffed they skipped right over that dealing phase. We know GE's been giving us plenty of subtext, would it have killed the writers to actually put some of it into the script for once? Or at the
very least mention counselling. I would have loved an emotional scene about half way into the season in which GD aftermath is actually acknowledged and discussed, and then after that Nick can start moving on. And it's not like tptb hadn't set up the perfect scenario for some quality angst, but alas, it was not to be.
Sorry for ranting...I think I'll just take a page out of tptb's book from now on and pretend the post-GD non-storyline never happened, because it still gets my blood pressure dangerously high even after all this time.
Or better yet, I'll stick to fanfics.
On to the delightful "Rashomama":
First of all, squeee! This episode was pure euphoria, CSI-style. Tptb needs to make fun, character-driven episodes like this more often, because they can do character development beautifully when they want to. A few subtle details can be very telling.
As Nick would say, let's start at the beginning..
I like how he came into the diner and elbowed Sara over, and she just smiled. It's always great seeing how comfortable these people are with each other. And he and Sara asked the same question (“Why do we
always come here?"), hee! I'm loving all the team!breakfast references this season. There was the time they went out to celebrate Warrick's elopement, the one with muffins in "Gum Drops", Brass and Sofia in “Bullet”, and now we know they eat out together all the time. Yay for team camaraderie!
“That’s not what a wedding is…it’s a public declaration of
loooove”, says Nick, in that soft, dreamy voice. Aww Nick, you sweetie! It’s been mentioned several times that interestingly Sara, a woman, is the cynic of the bunch while Nick is the romantic, and I’ve always loved cases that bring out their contrasting views. The wonderful thing about them is that, although they’re so different when it comes to so many things, they never give each other a hard time about it; they just sort of agree to disagree and as a result they work extremely well together. In this case Sara just flashed Nick another one of her big, warm smiles, judging by which, I wouldn’t be surprised if Nick had managed to sway her. Heck, I’m a tiny bit on the cynical side and Nick brings out the most hopeless romantic in me. Sigh.
The waitress: “Everybody sees what they want to see.” Heh, no kidding...
“Dude, where’s you car?” Bwahahahahaha! Their reaction shots were priceless. Greg and Sara looked horror-struck, and Nick only had a mild “WTF” expression on his face. It was more along the lines of, “Oh no,
what now?” Apparently after all that’s happened to him, a stolen car doesn’t even register on his radar any more. Heh!
All three of them looking like school kids being scolded, that was precious. Sara and Greg looked like kicked puppies, as instructed by Grissom, but I thought there was something more with Nick’s reaction. When the sheriff gave him grief for stopping at the diner, he seemed to have genuinely taken offense and stared defiantly back for a few seconds, before dropping his eyes like the others. I thought that was a nice set-up for later.
The sheriff popping antacid was a great touch, by the way. Lol!
“Hey, Jim…I need a ride.” :lol: Hilarious delivery there.
Funny how the bridesmaids were talking gibberish in Sara’s recollection. Jealousy perhaps?
“You really have a thing about weddings, don’t you?” I’ve missed the flirty banter between Nick and Sara.
Nick walking through the flower arch, with the soft focus and slow motion and sappy lines…heh, it would’ve been laughably cheesy if it featured anyone else, but as it was, it reduced me to a big puddle of mush. Was anyone surprised that Nick noticed the one real rose amongst all the fakes? That’s classic Nicky in a nutshell: optimistic, sweet, and romantic. And the bridesmaid who couldn’t stay warm: behold your knight in shining armor! ..or, a warm jacket. My
god, he is too much! Siiiiiigh.
Sara held up the teddy in front of her and asked for Nick’s hands, and Nick was all, “I thought you’d never ask.” Heee! That was cute.
As was Nick’s little outburst. “This is crap! *snaps glove* I’m tired…and I kind of smell. And I don’t have a friggin car.” :lol: :lol: I like how Sara was nodding along in agreement. If this is what he gets like after 11 hours of on-scene processing, having his car stolen and being blamed for it, getting snickered at for asking for a ride, and waiting 14 hours in the lab to get interrogated with not much to do, then he is more harmless than a fluffy little kitten. *pets*
The real reason behind his extra-crankiness, though, was not that he was tired or dirty or confined to the lab; it was because he was frustrated with losing the evidence and probably blamed himself, even though technically he wasn’t at fault. He said as much to Warrick: he felt everyone was looking at him like the bad guy. What we actually saw was that he’d spent most of the time with his co-workers, who never gave him grief about losing the car, except maybe for the occasional borderline-snippy comments from Greg, but even those were mostly good-natured ribbing, so I think that was Nick’s subconscious guilt-tripping himself. He knew that technically he’d done nothing wrong, but Nick’s a people pleaser at heart and is pretty hard on himself, so letting the truckful of evidence get stolen from right under his nose had to have been eating away at him all this time, and the impending questioning by the IAB sure didn’t help. His guilt-induced self consciousness reminded me of the doghouse incident with Grissom in “Assume Nothing”, and funnily enough the hallucination in “GD” where everybody treated his death as a joke. That was nice continuity.
But of course Nick’s troubles were not over – are they ever? Teehee. The blood on shirt threw me for a loop; for a second there I started freaking out because I thought it was coming from Nicky.
Whew!
The shirt cutting scene: rowr! :devil: So he didn’t want to contaminate the shirt by pulling it over his head – always thinking there, aren’t you Snicky? Heehee. He seemed a little out of it during the whole thing. I absolutely adore the little laugh he gave when he walked away; poor guy was embarrassed enough without Wendy teasing him about the napkin, I’m sure.
“Hey pimp! How’d you like your new ride?” ROFL! Nicky being the writers’ punching bag is
so worth it, if only for that look on his face. :lol: Just perfect.
Nick napping on Grissom’s couch deserves a mention because I can sense good dreams coming from that shot.
Also someone pointed out that his posture was eerily similar to “GD”, but I won’t go there.
Sigh! What's not to love? This episode is one of the very best. Tptb got on our collective hit list for their handling of post-GD Nick, but after this they've definitely won me back.
For now at least.
