What was Danny's biggest misstep?

[racefh853629]

I voted for other.

While I think all of those are missteps in their own right (it's a three way tie between defying Mac, sending Ruben ahead, and Minhaus's shooting out of them), I think that any time Danny gets emotional about something, a misstep is bound to occur.

In Heroes, he gets into it with Mac a bit about the guy in interrogation. There's another misstep. Everything with Lindsay and Rikki and the like- another misstep.

I like that he's an emotional character. Don't get me wrong. But he ends up screwing things up worse for himself when he does. And I agree with whoever said that not reporting his stolen gun was a misstep too. Actually, to be fair, I think that entire episode was a mess up for him. He cut work without even coming up with an excuse (leaving Lindsay to feel like she had to cover for him), and he didn't report Rikki right away (leaving Flack no choice but to see that everything was taken care of).

But, again, that's his character- when his emotions come to the forefront, he's bound to misstep, and so that's why I chose other.

 

[dopebabygirl]

being with lindsay ´
that ruben thing,i don't know, it was a good story and what else was he supposed to do, tell him to stand there and hide??? telling him to go home was actually the right thing to do it is much more dangerous to be in the middle of a crime scene.

 

[JellyBelly]

I voted for sending Ruben home, but do agree that he should have kept a closer eye on Ruben in the first place.

Personally, that bit comes off as iffy writing to me. It isn't logical that Danny would just forget about Ruben after such a tense situation. If anything, from the way he watched out for Ruben earlier in the scene, he would have been on the phone ASAP to check and see whether Ruben did reach home safely.

Now that I think about it, the angst level of the episode would probably have shot up the wazoo if Danny had checked up on Ruben and rushed the kid to the hospital only for Ruben to pass away anyway. Not only would that have made much more sense for Danny's character, the writers would still have been able to go where they did in season four. Oh well, eggs already turned into omelettes and all that.

But would he have felt so much guilt? I'm not saying he wouldn't have felt guilty, of course he would but I think the depth of his guilt was increased because Ruben died alone in that alley and Danny knows it didn't have to be that way.

I voted for sending Ruben home.
I have nephews aged 9 and 10 that I frequently look after. Something bad like that happens, no way would I be letting them out of my sight.
Danny was thinking like a cop, not a parent/guardian, clearly he wasn't that experienced with kids. But he took responsibility for Ruben and Ruben should hae been his main priority until he handed him back to Rikki.
(I'm also still appalled that he never checked on Ruben even after the scene was secured. And don't get me started on the fact that nobody informed Rikki about Ruben's death until Danny got there - did Danny tell the Detectives in charge of the case to leave it to him and then just take his sweet time going home???
Mind you, Rikki didn't impress me either. What sort of mother, who's expecting her son to be home in a few hours, doesn't start looking for him till that night? WTF? Did she not phone Danny, try to find out where her son was?)

I have to say all of those reasons contributed to the fact I didn't enjoy the episode as much as I would have done if there was a little more consistency. Add to it the fact that we're supposed to believe that Rikki and Danny had a 'passing in the hallway' relationship yet she still entrusted her son to him. None of it makes much sense. I can believe that Danny would take his eye off the ball and let Ruben get ahead of him while riding his bike, I can believe that Danny's cop instincts would kick in and he'd send Ruben home. I struggle to believe that he wouldn't have followed it up to check that Ruben actually made it, likewise I struggle to believe that rikki didn't call when Ruben didn't go home. It certainly appeared as though several hours (most of the day even) went by before Danny got to her apartment and told her.

Anyway, aside from all of that the Ruben thing has got to be the biggest misstep for Danny, and let's face it he's missed quite a few of those steps along the way. I adore Danny drama as much as the next person but I definitely think he's a bit of disaster magnet who would benefit from a little bit of forethought. The poor guy needs to find some peace.

 

[Kimmychu]

Top41 said:
I'll admit, I left "Sleeping with Lindsay" and "Sleeping with Rikki" off the list because I didn't want to directly get into the shipper stuff. Anyone is of course free to pick "Other" and opine one of those as the options if that's what they think Danny's biggest mistake is, though.

:lol: Wise move, I say. Personally, even if those options were available, I would still have picked Danny sending Ruben home on his own as his worst misstep. 'Cause, seriously, it boggles my mind that the death of an innocent child can ever be considered far less a terrible thing than a guy sleeping with another woman. :wtf:

Interestingly, some of this discussion kind of gets at the question of what Danny would think is his biggest mistake. I think he'd go with sending Ruben home alone. It's obviously the thing he's done that he's regretted the most.

Agreed. As for answers so far reflecting at what Danny would think is his biggest mistake, I think it's a good sign. Shows there are people who can tell the difference between an actor and character/a character and themselves, ya know?

Danny is lucky he had Flack to watch over him in that episode or things could have gone down in a really bad way (ie, he wouldn't have found Rikki in time and she would have shot Ollie with his gun).

Yeah, that's a possibility. It's also a possibility things could have gone the other way around if Danny and Flack hadn't found her. Ollie robbed a bodega armed with a gun and he didn't think twice about shooting someone in it before running off. If Danny and Flack hadn't been there and he was alone with an emotional, upset woman in that alley, gun or not, I can see him fighting for the gun and shooting Rikki without a second thought. What he said to her after Danny got back his gun is pretty good proof Ollie was a total a-hole.

I think that's the reason why Danny was panicked as he was about finding Rikki, that she could very well end up hurt or worse and he really didn't want that.

Ghawazee said:
4 years later he showed he didn't deserve at all Mac's confidence or anyone's confidence when he refused to report Rikki
It doesn't matter how guilty he had felt,still he had a responsability because many people could have been hurt or dead

Yeah, it was a bad move on Danny's part to not report his gun missing ... but he explained why he didn't in his reply to Flack when Flack found him, "Can you just think for a moment what she's goin' through?!"

It wasn't himself he'd been worried about at all, it was Rikki, the whole time. And to say he 'refused' to tell Mac may be somewhat inaccurate; I think it was more Danny being so worried about Rikki that it was an impulsive, instinctive thing for him to run out and search for her before something terrible happened to her than Danny consciously defying Mac. So to say Danny no longer deserves Mac's trust because of what happened may be somewhat unfair too; if someone you cared deeply for was in great danger and heading straight for big trouble out there somewhere, your mind would be all over the place. Danny's proven himself to be a very emotionally-driven character so it's no surprise his thoughts in episode 4x13 would be heavily influenced by them too.

Ceindreadh said:
And don't get me started on the fact that nobody informed Rikki about Ruben's death until Danny got there - did Danny tell the Detectives in charge of the case to leave it to him and then just take his sweet time going home???
Mind you, Rikki didn't impress me either. What sort of mother, who's expecting her son to be home in a few hours, doesn't start looking for him till that night? WTF? Did she not phone Danny, try to find out where her son was?)

I think it was a case of bad editing for the episode, particularly using the wrong footage before the scene where Danny tells Rikki about Ruben. Ruben getting shot happened in the morning so yeah, it's definitely weird and off that Danny would only go tell Rikki about Ruben after such a long time. And if Ruben had died in an alley very close to the scene of the crime, it would have been very strange that nobody saw his body there until night time! So if TPTB had used a daytime footage of NYC instead, it could have made all the difference.

JellyBelly said:
But would he have felt so much guilt? I'm not saying he wouldn't have felt guilty, of course he would but I think the depth of his guilt was increased because Ruben died alone in that alley and Danny knows it didn't have to be that way.

I think he would. Whether or not he managed to find Ruben and get him to a hospital, Ruben was in his care. So even if he did get Ruben to a hospital and Ruben passed away, he'd be beating himself up over the fact he allowed Ruben to get out of his sight, even if it was just for a instant, that Ruben died. He would still have had to tell Rikki her son was dead, and he'd still have to deal with the knowing Ruben had been in his care and he couldn't save him.

A child's death is a horrible thing no matter how ya spin it.

 

[Shytownmofo]

Okay. I've finally voted, and I voted for sending Ruben home, mostly because it did have the most disastrous effect, a child died, and Danny will most certainly never forgive himself for that. Granted, even if Danny had yelled at Ruben to get back to him right away, and gotten him immediate medical attention, Ruben still could have died, and certainly would have been in pain. I definitely think that Danny thinks that this was his biggest misstep, and will think so until the day he dies.

I'd put not reporting his gun stolen as a close second. Especially because that was willful. He could have called Flack, he could have done something else, and he didn't. I can really see that ending in disaster for him, Rikki and Ollie Barnes. If Rikki had shot Barnes, that would have probably ended his career.

Then, there's the Minhaus incident. I'm not so sure about the shooting itself, because sometimes stuff happens. However, his behavior afterward, where he deliberately defied Mac by going to the IAB and the whole fallout from that was willful. I wonder if he's still having any fallout from that. I know Gerard didn't like him, but what about others. Mac said that people were not very happy about his decision to pick Danny for his team, so are people still talking? Or is that one of those things like Louie, that will go down into the Black Hole of Continuity, never to be heard from again?

I'd put the other stuff like sleeping with Lindsay further down the line. Yeah, it was a mistake, and I'd be willing to bet he regretted it, but that doesn't have the impact that someone dying does. Especially a child in your care.

The stuff that happened after with Rikki; I don't see that as a misstep. He made that decision consciously and thoughtfully, even though it was something that he and Rikki agreed wasn't the most healthy in the longrun, but that it was okay. I think that was an honest, mature decision.

 

[Top41]

I wanted to bump this and change direction a little. I think it's safe to say that Danny is definitely the character who messes up the most--far more than any of the other characters it seems. Why do you think that is? What is it about Danny that he finds himself in trouble or making bad choices again and again?

 

[PerfectAnomaly]

I wanted to bump this and change direction a little. I think it's safe to say that Danny is definitely the character who messes up the most--far more than any of the other characters it seems. Why do you think that is? What is it about Danny that he finds himself in trouble or making bad choices again and again?

I think that Danny usually, if not always, means well and wants to do the right thing; that is evident from the career path he chose. But he doesn't seem to think things through and that gets him into trouble. He leads with his emotions and often times doesn't reel them in enough to just stop and assess what's going on and plan a course of action. He just acts from his gut and emotions and that is often not the right thing, especially in his line of work and with his seemingly hairy upbringing. Having a male character be so emotional is a refreshing change from the norm, but Danny needs to dial it back every once in a while to think about the big picture and not just what he feels at the moment. He can still be fiery and passionate while making better choices.

He also seems to have very, very, extremely, atrociously bad luck. :lol:
The poor man needs a break every once in a while.

 

[Top41]

I think that Danny usually, if not always, means well and wants to do the right thing; that is evident from the career path he chose. But he doesn't seem to think things through and that gets him into trouble. He leads with his emotions and often times doesn't reel them in enough to just stop and assess what's going on and plan a course of action. He just acts from his gut and emotions and that is often not the right thing, especially in his line of work and with his seemingly hairy upbringing.

Agreed--Danny trusts his gut waaaay too much. It's been that way since the very beginning of the show, when Mac was reminding him to go with the evidence in "A Man a Mile" and Danny was convinced the dead guy's brother could help them.

Danny's a little naive sometimes, too; in "On the Job," he thought if he simply told the truth he could dig himself out of the situation he was in, but he was so confused and emotional that he simply made matters more complicated, for both himself and Mac.

And then sometimes he's downright childish. Who but a little kid sees a big red button and pushes it? :lol: Only Danny. And after all that time trapped in the panic room, when Jerry opened the door and trained a gun on him, what made Danny most upset was that Jerry had the code all along...not that the guy was aiming a gun at him. :lol:

Again with the childishness...rather than reporting his gun had been stolen in "All in the Family," he played hooky from work and then when Flack hunted him down, he actually said to Flack, "Pretend you didn't see me." :lol: Flack, being an adult, did not go along with that.

Having a male character be so emotional is a refreshing change from the norm, but Danny needs to dial it back every once in a while to think about the big picture and not just what he feels at the moment. He can still be fiery and passionate while making better choices.

Agreed, although after four seasons, you gotta wonder if that's ever going to happen. :lol: I do love that it's a man that's the weepy, emotional fuck-up on the show, though.

He also seems to have very, very, extremely, atrociously bad luck. :lol:
The poor man needs a break every once in a while.

That's true, too. :lol:

 

[Kimmychu]

PerfectAnomaly said:
He just acts from his gut and emotions and that is often not the right thing, especially in his line of work and with his seemingly hairy upbringing.

Hmm ... what if it is his hairy upbringing that's programmed him to behave the way he does? (I love that 'hairy' was used to describe it; reminds me of Danny's hairy arms, it does :lol Say he really was abused during his younger days. In certain abuse cases, kids grow up constantly on edge with the fight or flight syndrome ingrained into them to the point it becomes second nature. It's possible Danny's emotional impulsiveness is linked to this, as in the moment things get very bad for him, he goes into the fight or flight mode and runs with the best option he can think of at the time because he believes things will surely get worse if he doesn't do something fast to deal with the situation.

aving a male character be so emotional is a refreshing change from the norm, but Danny needs to dial it back every once in a while to think about the big picture and not just what he feels at the moment.

Thank goodness he has Flack who helps him dial back now and then, eh?

Top41 said:
Danny's a little naive sometimes, too; in "On the Job," he thought if he simply told the truth he could dig himself out of the situation he was in, but he was so confused and emotional that he simply made matters more complicated, for both himself and Mac.

Sometimes I wonder whether it's naivete or that he's driven by a darker emotion/fear to prove he's innocent and not a bad guy like some people may think. Based on what Mac told him at the end of the episode, that people had advised him against hiring Danny, and Danny's reaction of, "Who's been talkin' 'bout me?" ... I think Danny is aware that there are people in the force who don't like him or think he's a bad seed, probably due to his brother's ties to the Tanglewood Boys. His paranoia's gotta be humongous since he was willing to directly disobey Mac just to prove/maintain his innocence.

Agreed, although after four seasons, you gotta wonder if that's ever going to happen. :lol: I do love that it's a man that's the weepy, emotional fuck-up on the show, though.

Call me bad but part of me hopes it doesn't happen. At least, not for a long time yet. This emotional side of Danny, the fuck-uppery is what makes him stand out! :lol: He'll lose a big part of his appeal if that side of him is shaved down.

 

[PerfectAnomaly]

I think Danny's hairy upbringing (That word just popped into my head and took over so I couldn't think of anything else. I have no idea why.:wtf is a major factor in why he acts childish at times. I think his family must've had to kinda live in the moment, not plan things too far ahead and make really emotionally huge decisions quickly because of being in a possibly dubious business and being under servailence. Even though Danny chose to become a cop and then a CSI he still has that learned behavior as part of his personality and the two often don't mix. His childishness is a big part of why he relies on emotion and instinct and when he relies on those things in his chosen profession the results are often verying degrees of disasterous. As Mac would say, "Everything's connected."

 

[racefh853629]

I definitely agree with what you guys are saying.

In times of diress, Danny's more likely to switch into childish impulsivity (is that even a word?) rather than take the time to think and plan things out. He's more likely to go with an emotional reaction versus a well thought out one. And that has a lot to do with how he was raised and the situations thrust upon him as a child.

But also, I think that comes with years of someone beating into him that it's not okay to respond emotionally to things. When Danny feels something, he doesn't just kinda feel it- it more or less engulfs him. And this has been well portrayed throughout the show. When Danny reacts, he reacts fully, and it's not always the most appropriate reaction.

That comes from having to hold back your reactions to situations. Eventually, you're going to explode and get sick of just not reacting because everything in your life consumes you. And when that happens, when you're finally able to let go in situations, you don't know what's appropriate and what's not, because you weren't taught that properly. So, it either happens in a huge, inappropriate manner, or it doesn't at all.

And I think at times we see both sides with Danny. Run Silent, Run Deep versus All Access. Child's Play versus Charge of this Post. There are episodes he all out loses it, but others where he shows nothing. That seems to stem from not knowing how to react to certain situations because if you're told all your life that it's not okay to be upset about something and then are told it actually is okay, it's hard to know how to react (if that makes sense).

 

[Firecracker]

I voted for the On the Job thing. For me, what what worst about that incident was not how he ran after the suspect and got involved in everything in the subway, it was because of the way he handled the aftermath - going against Mac's orders was not bright, and he paid the penalty for it, by losing hope of promotion, and worst of all, Mac losing faith in him.
I think Danny has changed a lot over the seasons. In seasons 2 and 3 he was a pretty good character, happy, keen, up-to-speed on catching the bad guys. Snow Day was probably his finest hour. Since then, he's suffered a lot, with the on/off ness of Lindsay, the Ruben/Rikki mess - he's not had an easy ride.
I'd like to see him happier, which means settling down, sorting his family ties out, getting on the good side of Mac again. Whether that means more or less Lindsay, I don't really care, I just want him cracking the one-liners and smiling again!

 

[Top41]

I agree that Danny's past could have something to do with how he reacts to situations. Certainly in "On the Job," he was pretty sure no one would believe him, and felt he needed to prove himself. He probably had a gut-reaction impulse that sitting back and waiting for the evidence to be sorted out would just make him look more guilty.

I wonder why it leads him to trust the wrong people? Given his presumed background, you'd expect Danny to be wary of people, but he's almost too trusting. I've always found that interesting about him.

 

[Kimmychu]

PerfectAnomaly said:
I think his family must've had to kinda live in the moment, not plan things too far ahead and make really emotionally huge decisions quickly because of being in a possibly dubious business and being under servailence. Even though Danny chose to become a cop and then a CSI he still has that learned behavior as part of his personality and the two often don't mix.

This made me think of another question: Why did Danny choose to be a police officer, especially with his gang-related background? If it wasn't only Louie, it was his entire family who was in the mob business, it must have been a radical decision for him to break away and become the very sort of person his family are constantly suspicious of and avoids. It would be awesome for TPTB to delve into this part of Danny's past one day.

racefh853629 said:
But also, I think that comes with years of someone beating into him that it's not okay to respond emotionally to things. When Danny feels something, he doesn't just kinda feel it- it more or less engulfs him. And this has been well portrayed throughout the show. When Danny reacts, he reacts fully, and it's not always the most appropriate reaction.

That comes from having to hold back your reactions to situations. Eventually, you're going to explode and get sick of just not reacting because everything in your life consumes you. And when that happens, when you're finally able to let go in situations, you don't know what's appropriate and what's not, because you weren't taught that properly. So, it either happens in a huge, inappropriate manner, or it doesn't at all.

Very interesting points! They can certainly tie in to possible abuse in his past, perhaps his father beating him often and berating him for crying or reacting emotionally in any way to the treatment. As in, it's not 'manly' to cry or show you're in pain. From what was shown of Louie, it seems Louie may have gotten a similar dogma ingrained into him; he was very angry at being embarrassed in front of his Tanglewood buddies by Danny, believing Danny had made him look stupid and maybe 'less of a respectable man'. He was all about being macho, about not showing any compassion that can be construed as weakness.

Firecracker said:
I just want him cracking the one-liners and smiling again!

Hear, hear!

Top41 said:
I wonder why it leads him to trust the wrong people? Given his presumed background, you'd expect Danny to be wary of people, but he's almost too trusting. I've always found that interesting about him.

Perhaps he's determined to find goodness in others with the hope that other people can find goodness in him too. Danny can come across as very self-deprecating at times, seeing himself as this 'bad person' who always ends up doing something wrong or disappointing someone, even when he doesn't. If he has this belief of himself that he's inherently a fuck-up, he may subconsciously try his best to see the best in others so that should other people do the same to him, they may see something good in him too.

 

[Top41]

^That's an interesting theory. Danny does seem to assume people will think the worst of him, and immediately jump to the worst assumption. Presumably people have done this in his personal life, and we know both IAB and Gerrard have. Lindsay did it to him this season. Mac usually gives him a fair chance, but comes down on him hard when he messes up. Flack is the only one who never seems to judge Danny, and it really seems to surprise Danny every time. I think that's why he's opened up to Flack so much, and why he turns to him when things go wrong. Danny's probably never met someone who wasn't ready to jump to the worst possible conclusion about him before.