Monday, February 15, 2010

'Cold' Tagging

PTR wants to extend a warm welcome back to Cold Case both in a literal way (the show's hasn't been on since the middle of January) and a more symbolic one since this episode was leaps and bounds above the fray this season.  And you know what's funny about it?  This outing didn't do anything spectacular or out of the ordinary; it simply told a compelling, well-written story and peppered it with some actual meaty personal bits.  And probably most importantly, the killer was 100% believable, made sense and the motive had nothing to do with the victim moving on and leaving the killer behind.  Thank you, writers, for returning CC back to its roots and giving us an intriguing, multi-dimensional hour that kept me guessing until the end.  As strong as this entire episode was, it was the final seconds that left my mouth agape and had me wanting to see what happens next.


I suppose the Moe story line had to come to an end at some point.  I mean, how long could we watch Lil watching Moe and borderline harassing him before it just got old (we were about to reach that threshold)?  But ending this leg of the story the way they did this week was a nice twist.  Just when we thought the episode was winding down (the ending musical montage was in full-swing), the shot changed to a lonely, dark street outside a familiar bar.  "Hey," I thought, "isn't that the bar we saw Moe at earlier in the hour?"  Cue a pan to a parked car; its occupant skewed by the darkness.  But wait, is that blood on the windshield??!!  It is!  It is blood on the windshield.  And that's Moe's lifeless body slumped over the steering wheel!!!  Moe's dead?!  Lil's problems are over!  Or, are they just beginning?

I have no idea who killed Moe, but I feel strongly that it wasn't Lil.  Remember how difficult it was for her to shoot and kill serial killer George Marks?  Remember how deeply it affected her after the fact? Plus, I don't think she wanted Moe dead -- she just wanted him to slip up so she could lock his butt in jail for the rest of his life.  Now, this doesn't mean that the glaring light of suspicion isn't going to shine brightly on her.  As Bell pointed out earlier in the episode (NICE foreshadowing!), Moe had filed complaints against her through the DA's office, so she was already in hot water.  And that was before he showed up dead.  Oh boy!

Meanwhile, Scotty learned some pretty painful details from another victim about his mother's attack.  Chances are, she was raped the night she was jumped in a parking lot.  That scene with Scotty and the latest victim was heart-wrenching.  You knew what Scotty was thinking: you could feel his anger, but even deeper than that, you could feel his pain.  You could sense how powerless he felt knowing that some man he can't catch violated his mother in the most inconceivable way.  Then at the end, it was almost hard to watch as Scotty's father reached out to touch his wife's hand and she pulled away.  It was the confirmation that Scotty didn't want.  He's going to be even more determined now to catch the SOB who did this to his mother.

As discussed above, the case was very well written.  I felt submerged into a world I know nothing about and I found myself completely engulfed in Carlos's story.  And Leon's death was so tragic and heartbreaking that it was difficult to watch.  "King Tut" was a plausible killer and the earlier encounter between him and Carlos with Tut's threat to ram the spray paint into Carlos's mouth the next time he caught him "bombing him" rang true in the final tragic scene.  Meanwhile, the Kat story line was a bit ho-hum (I can't decide whether she's making it into a bigger deal than it is or if she has a valid point), but overall, CC gave us a stellar hour that touched on all the strong points.  The show moves to 13-0 on the season.  Screen cap courtesy of RichE at Kathryn Morris UK.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

I do have a feeling that it was Lilly, for a lot of reasons. One was the fact that she didn't seem to care if the charges Moe had brought against her could cost her career.

The second was her darkside, I did love this episode alot

Anonymous said...

You did hit it right on the nose, about the doer not killing the victim b/c he was going to leave him for something better.

Nice change, from the same boring usual killings that have been happening lately.

I'm now worried about if Scotty might take things into his own hands and kill the man himself. I have this feeling that he probably would go to such extreme due to the fact that the man also had sexually assulted his mother.

RichE said...

As you say TVFan it was a strong episode with lots of different elements. Cold Case rarely squeezes that much stuff into an episode.

I do think that Kat is going over the top but you can understand her position. She's spent years looking after her daughter alone, and Kat has seen the dark side of life too often. Her ex was part of that dark side and it is going to be difficult for Kat to change her view on that. Plus, she will be worrying she might lose her daughter to a more "normal" family environment.

LII2, I think Lilly's brushing off the complaint against her by Moe was just her covering. If she can maintain a front of denial then she is more likely to be believed.

I don't believe Lilly did it. Moe could be trying to set Lilly up as his final act, though quite how I don't know.

I haven't read any longer term spoilers but is it true that they've made significant changes to upcoming episodes? Was the Moe death a late change?

Are we seeing the beginning of the end for Jeffries? He seems to be planning to leave.

RichE.
Kathryn Morris UK

Anonymous said...

Hey TVFan,

Your review is right on with the episode and quality. As far as who killed Moe, I bet is that Eddie the crooked cop who disappeared from Lilly's life. They want us to forget about Eddie but don't you think it's him? ;)

RichE said...

Anon is right, that would be an interesting twist. It would certainly be a problem for Lilly. On the one hand she'd be happy that Eddie had stood up for her, but on the other she'd know it was a step too far and she'd have to leave him.

If he found and used the gun that never made it to the bottom of the river he could accidentally implicate Lilly, as she touched it. He'd probably be too smart for that though.

Could Moe have got that gun and got someone to kill him with it?


RichE.
Kathryn Morris UK

Anonymous said...

First of all, Eddie gave Lilly the gun. Second he's still undercover, and third Lilly hasn't mentioned of him since.

It's not SACCARDO, what if Moe had threatened Lilly so much that she had to shoot him out of self-defense.


It was Lilly's plan all along, not Saccardo or anyone else.

TVFan said...

Anon: The Eddie theory is an interesting one. I hadn't thought about that possibility. He's certainly capable of it.

RichE: The thing that really struck me about this episode was that they crammed so much into it and none of it felt short-changed! It was a truly amazing feat (especially for this show).

Also, I hadn't thought about Kat realizing that she could lose her daughter to a more "normal" family setting. Maybe her biggest fear is that her daughter will like her father better. Maybe it has little to do with his "'banger" past. Very interesting!

I hadn't read the item about upcoming episodes being re-worked. If this one was the first of them, then this could be a good thing.

RichE said...

Re cramming. The long flashbacks, they can take up nearly half the show, certainly eats into the time for the more personal stories. Of course the concentration on the case and the lack of "soap opera" stuff is what drew many to the show in the first place. The CSI shows have quite a few short flashbacks of the crimes being committed but they are nothing like as long as CC's. Looking back at early season 1 CC you notice how short the flashbacks were.

Re the re-work. I'd read a comment (sorry, can't remember where) that Moe's death in this one meant many spoilers for upcoming episodes were nullified. I don't really look really at CC spoilers so I don't know if that is true or not. I do check SpoilerTV regularly as a general source of info and it is actually quite rare that they post explicit spoilers for CC. Most of what the publish is casting calls, which do include some spoiler info and don't refer to recurring characters, and the press releases, which do refer to recurring characters. The press releases only proceed an episode by a couple of weeks though. I went back through SpoilerTV postings and couldn't find any thing significant regarding Moe in the upcoming episodes. Maybe other sources say otherwise.

I initially took part of the Daniel Baldwin interview on SpoilerTV to mean that killing Moe mid-season was a recent change. However, having re-read the piece I'm not so sure. I assume that after CC got a renewal for season 7 they spoke to Daniel about continuing Moe's story. I'm sure during those talks various ideas were batted around, and I'm sure lots of similar discussions happened without Daniel being party to them, including dragging the story out to the S7 finale. Re-reading the interview makes me think that he had some belief that was what was going to happen but when he got the scripts for the later-half of the season he found that wasn't the case (no pun intended).

Daniel made mention of the change being brought about by an improvement in the show's fortunes, I'm guessing that refers to reasonable audience figures in the later time slot after Three Rivers. I think that all that happened pre-Xmas so the changes were introduced prior to significant script work for the 2nd half of S7. In which case no major changes would have been made later on. Not that it matters now.


RichE.
Kathryn Morris UK

Anonymous said...

I have now a feeling that Moe knew the person, that leading me to now believe it was someone in his own personal life, since he was killed in his car..


Don't think Moe knew Saccardo, but having someone in his own personal life kill him would be more logical than a cop..

RichE said...

Assuming what we saw was accurate for the way he was killed there are only two scenarios that make sense. We probably have to ignore the head being turned to one side for the sake of the camera shot.

1) suicide with the gun under chin

2) a shot in the back of the head from the rear seat.

In the 2nd case either Moe had no idea the shooter was there, he didn't appear to have put up a fight, or he was being held at gun point so didn't turn around.

In each of those cases it doesn't matter if Moe knew his killer or not.

I have added a comment to the Bombers post on my site that might have a bearing on all this.


RichE.
Kathryn Morris UK

Naj said...

I'm sorry, TVFan, this is not ANON, it's Naj. I didn't realize my name didn't print.

Well after seven years of Cold Case I think I have them figured out on this one. I'll be surprised if it's not Eddie.

Naj