'Case' Opened on Another Season

Well, that was disturbing. And yet in my opinion, the best season premiere in Cold Case's 4-year history. And why does Beaver (Veronica Mars' Kyle Gallner) always have to take out a bunch of people? Poor Beav, he just can't catch a break. Whenever this show deviates from the case-of-the-week and gives us good personal stuff on one of the detectives (usually Lilly), it tends to give the case the cold shoulder. I'll notice that the case drags a bit and I'm not so interested in who killed the victim and why because the personal stuff is more engaging. Amazingly, writer Veena Sud (who just took over the showrunning reins at CC) managed to keep me highly invested in both the case and Lilly's new relationship (more on that later). I'll admit that in the beginning of the episode, I was a little shaky with the case. Of course this might have been due to the fact there was no audio on the dialogue for the entire opening segment of the HD broadcast. At first, I thought it was only my local station, but I flipped to another local CBS and they were having the same problems. Luckily, my TiVo isn't in HD, so I was able to rewind the episode and watch the opening during the commercial break before I switched it back to HD. And this is reason #5,401 why I love my TiVo. Regardless of the audio issues, I still wasn't completely into the case. It just seemed like a bunch of angry teens ganging up on each other. But, things took a deeply emotional tone very quickly. Whether it was Tina's messed up idea that sleeping with the boys she liked would make them like her or her gang rape or pretty much every other flashback in this episode, there was a solemn undertone that crescendo-ed with the deeply disturbing rampage scene at the end. There were people running for their lives as others fell to the ground in a pool of blood, screaming, deafening gun shots, and of course, that feeling deep in the pit of your stomach as you watched the two shooters take their own lives. I'm just not sure that image is going to escape my mind anytime soon. After all, the shooters (as messed up as they may have been) were only kids as well.


Luckily, it wasn't all doom and gloom in this episode thanks to the sweet Lilly and Joseph moments that sort of lent a slight balance to it all. Kathryn Morris brought an adorable edge to our hard-nosed detective. She was more vulnerable, yet still in charge, and her relationship didn't keep her from doing her job. She's still Lilly, but a Lilly that knows how to joke and be silly because she has someone in her life who allows her to open up more than we're used to seeing on this show. She seems to have struck a balance, and I'll be curious to see if it continues. Stillman's "Ice King" act (yes, Lilly is not the only one who is the master of the cold shoulder) was harsh. I know Lil deserves it, and honestly, she's taking it like a champ, but can we all say uncomfortable! The ending scene was nice because it showed that despite her screw-up, he does still care about her like he always did. When she wanted to talk Tina out of shooting herself, he told her that if Tina so much as raised her gun, he was sending SWAT in. By the way, it was nice to see Lil talking someone out of suicide again. She hadn't done that in a while, and it's good to see that she hasn't lost her touch (although, I was sure Tina was going to do it). So, it seems Cold Case is off to its strongest start yet. Let's hope it's a sign of things to come this season.

What did you think about the 4th season premiere? Were you as enthralled and disturbed as I was? Was Kathryn Morris not adorable in this episode? Leave me a comment with your thoughts.


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