By: Trublu
PTR Staff Writer
NBC RecapHow many officers does it take to bring down a huge guy high on PCP? Apparently three detectives, a captain, a cop, and Munch yelling in the background. Elliot gets thrown like a Frisbee through a window after hitting the man with a fire extinguisher in the back of the head. (How he isn’t knocked unconscious after that, I don’t know.) Olivia tasers him, and he still gets back up and goes after her. Fin finally hits him over the head with a chair, and he collapses. A chair?! After a fire extinguisher and a taser gun, he goes down with a hit from a chair? Why, writers, why? Still better, why did this scene even exist? It has nothing to do with the rest of the episode, and Elliot could have been written off as being in court. That poor kid could have dropped off the package and ran. An exciting but rather wasted beginning of an episode.
After that entire debacle, we finally actually get to see what was in the package that the kid brought into the squad. And boy oh boy, it’s kiddie fun. Maybe the writers should bring back the guy on the PCP…
Or show more Elliot with his shirt off. Please! Elliot had to get a shot in the lower arm, below his elbow! Wear a fashionable hospital gown like the rest of us. I’ve seen enough of Elliot without his clothes on. At least we don’t see him for most of the rest of the episode.
At least Olivia’s time (and by time I really mean five seconds) in computer crimes paid off. Sort of. The bit about the memory card time and date… Sorry computer techy, but one seems to have forgotten that anyone can set the date and time on that memory card to anything they want. Show me ten people who actually have the date and time set correctly on their memory card and I’ll buy you dinner. (And no, I’m not Lake. But I do wish that I could buy Casey dinner.)
The good stuff just keeps coming; the clichéd cop with a la donut. Why does Fin give that random kid a donut, anyway? If it was Diego, then I would understand. However, one good quote does come out of it:
Kid: How come you don’t know that already?
Fin: We’re too busy eating.
However, the best quote of the night comes a bit later, after Munch walks in following his off camera canvas of Diego’s school.
Fin: Oh, you’re late because you were doing something useful!
Laced, and I mean literally drenched, in sarcasm. The writers know that they are skimping on the Munch TV time. They’re writing it into the scripts! *Points to above quote.* And yet, they refuse to do something simple about it… say, write Munch into the script instead of writing about how he’s not in the script! I need some Munch time, stat!
Fin: We don’t speak your dialect of crazy.
Leave it to Munch to know about excessive production of earwax (also known as cerumen). I’d say that’s another dialect of crazy all together.
So, how does this relate to the case again? Olivia goes to talk to Diego. He passes out, then Jennifer passes out. No one notices the smoking radiator in the background. Go figure. Olivia at least does a good job of getting the tenants out of their apartments before she blacks out. One point for Olivia!
Cragen: Take her, restrain her if you have to.
Good, at least someone is following the rules. Jeez, Olivia. You were just exposed to an unknown toxin, and you’re refusing medical care. Smartness at its prime.
Fin: Leave it to the prince of paranoia to take it up a notch that’s a reach, even for you.
Yeah, only he’s right! After he found that check for Millstead, all evidence seems to indicate that he was intentionally poisoning Diego and documenting his reaction to the toxin. For once, we actually have a conspiracy on our hands! I can’t remember a good one since “Manic”. But, now that Millstead is dead, do the detectives regret how he died? Perhaps not that he’s dead, but the manner in which he was murdered. (With a sharpened toothbrush, in case you’ve forgotten.) Excellent example of our penitentiary system.
And Olivia is back to thinking like a victim and not a cop. Notice that only when Elliot returns to the scene does Olivia even remotely consider doing something illegal to get information. But once Elliot plants the idea… whoosh! We’re off to the races.
Computer Tech Morales: I never figured you for somebody who would break the law.
*Falls out of chair and laughs hysterically for hours.*
Really, hm? I guess you haven’t watched the last three seasons. Casey told Olivia that it would be virtually impossible. It’s not giving up if your continuing on to the billions of other open cases that you have on your desk, more kids waiting for your help. If you lose your job, Olivia, then what?
Wow. I barely have the words to describe this. Olivia and Morales are hacking into the company’s computers via the men’s room. Olivia in hospital drag: humorous. Olivia asking Morales for help: annoying. But Olivia crouching over a men’s room toilet and then making the “I thought it was the ladies room” excuse: priceless. How high schoolish is that? Wait, even we don’t pull that kind of junk.
Munch: And until he does get here you can enjoy the hospitality of our prisoner lounge.
Lawyer: I want to see your ADA now.
Casey: (coming in the door) You rang?
Casey: Don’t marinade on it too long gentlemen, this offer has a half life of ten seconds.
Major squeeing right now. Casey just used the words “marinade” and “half life” in the same sentence. She is so my hero.
If you were able to follow me this far, congratulations to you. You get a cookie! Even I don’t really know what happened this week. From PCP to packages to pedophiles to Homeland Security to poisonous research companies to… well, who knows what else they slipped in there that I missed. I heard a rumor that Arnold Schwarzenegger made a guest appearance and Stephanie March returned from witness protection as Alex Cabot (again) but everything was too confusing to catch it.
Preview for next week: Wow. This just keeps getting better and better. (Sarcasm.) “Elliot Stabler could never commit murder.” I’m hoping that this is a gross misadvertisement, as NBC is subject to do every once and a while. Elliot has already fallen off the edge; I don’t think many of us are inclined to see it happen again. Somebody give this guy a parachute or something.
There must be nowhere to go from here but up, right? So, pass the remote.
If you were able to ignore the obvious war parallels, tonight's episode of Cold Case was pretty good. I'm just not a fan of my favorite shows getting political, especially when the murder has very little to do with the political topic dujour. Jack and Sara died because they wanted to go to the police and confess to a murder they were involved in 10 years before, and the other participants did not. And when I say "other participants," I really mean Johanna, who refused to return to her humble New Jersey roots by allowing everything she had worked for fall to pieces around her as her husband and friend poured heir hearts out to the local authorities. Desperate times, I suppose, and we all know that people will resort to all kinds of things once desperation takes over. Still, I had a hard 
time seeing Johanna as anything other than a cold - hearted beyotch. Not only does she kill her husband and friend to protect her comfy Main Line life, but she then assumes her dead friend's identity and carries on her fairytale future without thinking twice about it. In fact, she pleaded with Lilly not to arrest her in front of everyone at her daughter's basketball game. On second thought, she wasn't a cold-hearted beyotch, just an immensely weak individual.
I'm a sucker for a good twist, and this one had a whammy. All along, I kept noticing little things that seemed off, but I just dismissed them (out of sight, out of mind if you will). Then when all was revealed and we learned that Sara had died in the blast and Johanna was pretending to be her, everything began to make sense. The writer made a point early on in the episode to tell us that Sara and Johanna resembled each other and were even confused for one another, Sara would never have landed herself a beautiful mansion on the Main Line complete with all the "capitalist," rich trappings (that was so Johanna) because she was against all of that, and the intimate conversation between Johanna and Porter that "Sara" seemed to know in such detail all stuck out at the time. And yet, I didn't figure it out until the fingerprint reveal -- not even the 
orchid remark turned on the light bulb. I watch so many of these crime shows that everything old is new again for me, so I'm always thrilled when one manages to pull the wool over my eyes. That, Stillman's cute grandson story line (complete with his juice box breakdown and Kat's help), and Louis' "Lookin' good" comment to Lil were enough for me to move Cold Case to 13-2 on the season.
