LIFE: 6. "Powerless," 10/31/07
Micky DuPree
in.
PROLOGUE
00:00
Title card:
"Powerless"
TRAINER: Thanks to our so-called consent decree, some dirtbags
out there will shoot it out with us 'cause they think
WE can't shoot back.
Still feeling the effects of the Rampart scandal (brought to you by the
people who inspired _The Shield_).
STARK: Mister Detective. Watching us do our homework?
CREWS: Skipped a grade. Gotta re-qualify.
JUAREZ: You ain't riding with us, are you?
CREWS: Thought I would. Do you mind?
JUAREZ: Oh, no problem at all. I ain't riding in the back,
though.
STARK: Oh, you're riding in the back, Juarez.
JUAREZ: Come on, Bobby, you know what the perps leave back
there, all those fluids and stuff.
STARK: You're riding in the back, Juarez.
Old partner gets preferential treatment over current partner.
Interesting. Juarez was still a little cool towards Charlie, though.
ACT I
06:44
Dani didn't sign in at the AA meeting or pick up a sobriety chip. I
don't understand what she was doing at the meeting if she 1) wasn't
interested in staying sober, and 2) wasn't producing any proof of
sobriety for the department.
RICK: Uh, I'm Rick.
AA: Hi, Rick.
RICK: And I am powerless. I'm coming up on, uh, a year of
sobriety. And I'm here to humbly ask you to help me.
It's not the first time I've made twelve months. I'm not
a good guy when I drink. I've hurt people. Women. About
a year ago this month, there was this, uh, one girl. If I
had been sober ... It got, uh, intense. She coulda made
a lot of trouble. A lot. She took back what she, uh ...
I guess she realized she shouldn't have pushed me. I'm
telling you this because you, all of you here, are my
strength.
Going over the confession that made Dani almost certain that Rick had
committed rape, I'm not sure how she picked him out as a rapist as
opposed to a guy that beat women up when he got drunk.
I'm also unclear as to why Rick went to that meeting. Unlike the case
with Dani, it didn't seem to be mandated by his family or anyone in
authority over him. He wasn't staying sober, so he wasn't serious about
the program. He didn't seem to feel genuine remorse over his past
crimes. Why was he there? To pick up women with bad taste by first
warning them, and later saying to himself, "Well, I did warn them"?
REESE: I heard a guy confess to a rape. I mean, he acted like
he wanted help staying sober, but he was drinking right
before the meeting.
CREWS: You saw him drinking? Which means you were in a place
where there was drinking. Like a bar?
REESE: Focus on the words I'm actually saying, O.K.? This guy
gets up and says he was hurtful to a woman the last time
he went out on a binge. That was a year ago. And he's
drinking again.
CREWS: "Hurtful" can mean a lot of things.
REESE: Yeah, but it means this thing. He blamed the victim for
making him do it.
The guys who use women as punching bags often say the same thing.
REESE: He said that he could get into a lot of trouble for it.
And he stopped talking when he got too close to saying
what happened. And he has a record. I ran his plates.
Richard Larson.
Demonstrably, Dani isn't serious about either the "Alcoholics" part or
the "Anonymous" part of AA.
REESE: Misdemeanor sexual assault conviction in two thousand
two.
The prior conviction was the first thing that indicated to me that she
was probably on the right track.
DAVIS: I'd like to welcome members of the press to our fifth
annual open house.
On a banner behind Lt. Davis:
LOS ANGELES POLICE DEPARTMENT
OPEN HOUSE
[...]pen House is an Honest House.
REALLY feeling the effects of the Rampart scandal.
CREWS: Nobody believes in results without seeing any, ma'am.
DAVIS: Crews.
CREWS: We will make sure you see results. Lieutenant Davis and
I will take your case personally.
DAVIS: Crews. Crews, not one more word.
CREWS: We promise! We vow that we will catch your pooper, and
we will do it by the end of the week. [Reporters
applaud.]
Really weird and difficult to believe. Despite the hiccup it would
cause in public relations, I don't see why Davis, who was so anxious to
get rid of Charlie, didn't use this as her excuse to bust him and maybe
even get rid of him for terrible insubordination. Yet she didn't even
reprimand him for committing her personal time to a lowly stakeout.
I found it very hard to believe that an entire room full of reporters
would ignore the golden opportunity to ask questions of celebrity cop
Charlie Crews relating to how he was adapting to life back on the force,
and whether he believed that the department was honest or if the open
house was just for show. So far, we haven't seen Charlie talk to the
press, nor on the documentary. (It would be amusing if it turned out to
be Charlie who bankrolled the documentary to see what he could get
people to say on camera, since they weren't likely to want to speak to
him face to face.)
The word 'occurrence' was spelled "occurance" twice in Detective Bloom's
crime search template. Yeah, I know, it doesn't affect the story, but
damn, not even bothering to use a spell checker before you put something
out on national TV is the height of laziness.
BLOOM: How come you're at AA? It was drugs, not alcohol.
Maybe because alcohol's the one that Dani's currently using. "Clean and
sober" means a clean slate. You're not supposed to substitute one
intoxicant for another.
REESE: It was a lot of things.
BLOOM: Uh ... no open cases from last fall.
REESE: What about the dispatch reports? Fall two thousand six,
'specially November.
Bloom enters the dates "11/01/06 to 11/30/06".
Time line note. Since Rick raped the woman "about a year ago this
month," that means it's currently November 2007 in the story's present.
Charlie would have gotten out of Pelican Bay no later than July.
BLOOM: Say, Dani, um, can we just have dinner, something? It
didn't end right with us.
REESE: But it ended.
That explains how he knew that it was "drugs, not alcohol."
The highlighted line on the 911 transcript list:
CALLER: 911? This is Nancy. I was raped. I knew him[...]
Time line note. Nancy's call was listed a little above a group of calls
from November 16, 2006 around 9:30 PM.
On the cover of the book about Ted:
WINSTON CHAMBERS
EARLEY WARNING
Inside the Mind
of White Collar Trash
According to the LA County Sheriffs mug shot that adorns the expose book
about Ted, Ted is about 6'2" tall.
Personally, if I were Ted, I wouldn't give the author the royalty on a
book about me. I'd check it out of the library.
CREWS: Hi. I'm Charlie, and I'm powerless.
ACT II
20:11
CREWS: [To AA] Hate is a prison. Anger is the warden, and
rage, rage is the guard who takes a piece of you every
day. You all know what it's like. You fall, you hit the
bottom. The bottom breaks. You fall some more. You get
lost. And now I tell myself it is what it is. And I'm,
I'm doing my best. I hope. Thanks.
REESE: What was that?
CREWS: The truth.
It probably was.
RICK: [To Dani] I don't think that's the whole story. I know
what you're doing. You're messing with me. You think
you're different. You're just like every other woman.
It must be hell to be sexually attracted to people you hate.
It was at this point that I knew my suspicions were right. There's
something about certain female characters that draws their writers
irresistibly to either the rape plot or the attempted rape plot. You
can almost hear Darth Vader intoning, "It is your destiny." I distantly
remember one actress, I think on _Hunter_, who complained that the
writers came to her with a script in which her character was raped,
which she might have shrugged off without an argument if it weren't for
the fact that they had already written her character as being raped two
seasons prior.
CREWS: She's twenty-two years old. Aren't they all on MySpace,
YourSpace, Facebook, Faceplace?
REESE: How do you know about that?
Homework!
CREWS: Everybody knows about that. Don't you want a whole bunch
of new friends? Don't you want them all to know where
you are all the time?
Shoot me.
Charlie trying to chat online with two fingers was funny. His screen
name was MANGOMAN. Geez, no wonder he was outed. Always go with a
pseudonym that's frou-frou, cat-related, and female-sounding to be
nonthreatening, like CalicoPrincess.
CREWS: [To Nancy] Look, I'm only just guessing here, but it
seems a lot like Larson committed the crime, but you went
to prison. I'm right, aren't I? The wrong person's
doing the time. You put the right person away, you go
free.
I'm a big believer in the civic duty of testifying against criminals,
but I think it's Pollyannaish to pretend that it automatically results
in a happy ending. Even assuming Larson gets convicted, the sentence
might be only a few years, or he could get paroled, meaning that before
Nancy knows it, he's back out on the street and even more pissed off
than before. You testify because it's the right thing to do, not
because it'll free you from fear or worry.
DAVIS: I don't even let my husband eat in the car.
CREWS: You're married?
DAVIS: Why wouldn't I be married? What'd you think?
CREWS: Eh, you don't wear a ring.
That is highly unusual among married women, unless they work in labs and
the like.
CREWS: You know, back when I was a rookie, all we ever used to
talk about, stuck in that car, was the Bank of L.A.
shootout.
DAVIS: That was all anybody talked about in those days.
CREWS: Five perps dead, not one cop shot, and all that cash
gone. Eighteen million missing. The sixth man. Y'know?
I dunno. I guess I just like conspiracies.
DAVIS: Conspiracies, Detective, are how bored people pass the
time.
So Charlie's rookie days came after the Bank of L.A. shootout 15 years
ago, and before his prison term began 12 years ago. And Bobby started
on the force before Charlie did. It would be great if there were
flashbacks showing what Charlie was like before prison and before Zen,
except that Lewis is having enough trouble looking like he's in his mid-
30s, never mind early 20s.
CREWS: Oh, but come on, if there was no sixth man, then who took
all the money?
DAVIS: There was obviously someone who got away with the cash.
Where's the conspiracy in that?
Well, presumably some planning was involved, at the least, in order to
be able to physically move the money without being noticed. Even in
large bills, eighteen million U.S. dollars in cash is bulky. (Or do you
rent an extra-large safety deposit box the week before, stash the money
in there during the confusion, and then take it out at your leisure
later?)
Speaking of planning, Charlie's ulterior motive in volunteering himself
and Lt. Davis to stake out the pooper is finally clear. But since Davis
has been expecting Charlie to make trouble, I'm surprised she didn't
twig as well and clam up.
What's supposed to link the money to the murders? Was Tom Seybolt the
sixth man?
DAVIS: I never got Halloween, dressing up and begging for candy.
CREWS: I think it's supposed to be fun.
DAVIS: But why beg for candy when you can just go out and buy
what you want?
That's not necessarily true if you're a little kid, and it's the only
day when wearing costumes gets a free pass in society.
CREWS: I think it's supposed to be fun.
That's a sad individual that doesn't get Halloween.
So I guess we're supposed to believe that Dani believes that Rick didn't
see her staking him out inside her car when she told Nancy to drop the
gun, because later Dani approaches Rick in the bar confident that he
isn't onto her.
This week's inter-commercial "Evidence of Life":
INTERVIEWER: Both you and Charlie were close friends of the
murdered family?
JENNIFER: They were our dear friends, yes.
INTERVIEWER: And the daughter Rachel: did you visit her after
the killings?
JENNIFER: Yes, until they took her away.
INTERVIEWER: Who took her away?
JENNIFER: Children's Services thought it best she start over.
A new name, a new city.
INTERVIEWER: Do you know where Rachel Seybolt is now?
JENNIFER: I don't. None of us do. It's better that way.
Charlie draws a line from a photo of the young Rachel Seybolt to a photo
of Detective Ames, and writes alongside Ames' photo:
REMOVED
RACHEL
FROM
REPORT
Charlie writes on the conspiracy wall above Jennifer's picture:
DOES SHE KNOW?
ACT III
34:26
Nice of the detectives not to charge Nancy with assault with a deadly
weapon. Almost too nice.
NANCY: I died that day.
CREWS: You didn't die. You survived what happened to you. You
lived through that and here you are. Did you ever think
you could live through such a thing? There's real
violence in the world, Nancy. It never finds most
people. It found you. But did you ever think you would
have the strength to survive what he did to you? That's
your secret, Nancy. Larson doesn't know it. Larson
doesn't know how strong you are. Prison doesn't know how
strong he made you.
NANCY: You said "prison." You mean "Larson."
REESE: He means Larson is your prison.
I suppose it works as support-group therapy, but unlike the way Charlie
makes it sound, I can't see where it was as personal a deal for the
rapist as it was for the victim. All women blur together for Rick, and
he's moving on. Nancy's in a rut that's all focused on Rick, and she'd
stay there if not for Charlie's urgings.
As far as the very texty subtext goes, we still have no idea if the
frame-up of Charlie Crews had a personal element in it, or if he was
just a convenient patsy. While I'm sure it felt personal to Charlie, I
doubt that prison gives a shit how strong it made him.
CREWS: No one knows where he is, though.
REESE: There's a sundowner meeting at AA. I can ask there.
CREWS: Uh-uh, you mean WE can ask there.
REESE: No, Crews, this part's mine, O.K.? If I find him, I'll
call you.
Except that she's not going to the meeting for personal reasons, but to
confront a dangerous suspect. Neither one of them should go without
backup, but Charlie just shrugs to keep the plot moving.
DAVIS: There were no uniforms in front of the bank that day at
all.
CREWS: But all those rounds fired?
DAVIS: Over eleven hundred rounds fired, but they were all
tactical.
CREWS: Tactical?
DAVIS: SWAT was on a training exercise one block over. They
were there first. That's why no civilians were killed.
That's why no police were shot.
Downright surgical, suggesting that the "sixth man" was in SWAT and
could make sure that the other five men were too dead to talk. But I
still can't draw a line between that and the Seybolt murders.
The pooper was standing right there in the police station when Charlie
announced that he and Davis were going to stake out the "Stickler's"
house until the pooper was caught. It looks stupid and contrived that
he wouldn't wait until the cops had given up.
It was encouraging to see that Dani phoned Charlie to be in on the
arrest.
ACT IV
44:26
RICK: What kind of a bitch shows up where a guy's trying to get
right, and sets him up to get shot at and thrown in jail?
CREWS: I say we let the jury sort it out.
I can't help noticing that Our Heroes have a pattern of arresting
suspects without enough evidence to convict them, sometimes without
enough evidence to even hold them. What if Rick testified in court that
Nancy held a gun on him, and the cops didn't charge her for it? She'd
look crazed, and the cops would look like they really were out to get
him.
KIDS: Trick or treat.
Time line note and glitch. Trick-or-treaters are out on the sidewalks
as Dani goes home. So it's the evening of Oct. 31, 2007, not November
as earlier data would indicate. Charlie should have gotten out of
Pelican Bay no later than June 2007.
DAVIS: Where's your partner?
CREWS: She took off for the night. Why?
DAVIS: Larson made bail.
CREWS: When?
DAVIS: A few hours ago. I just got word.
Now how could that not have entered their minds as a possibility before?
If not for Dani's sake, then for the sake of Nancy the victim (after all
those reassurances as to how coming forward was going to set her free)?
How hard would it have been to turn the contrived cliche around by
having Dani think up the idea of deliberately waiting for Rick to come
after her so that they could all catch him red-handed, and not have to
rely on he-said/she-said testimony where the "she" had been waving a
gun?
I presume they're telling me that Dani's stupid enough to be listed in
the phone book, because I don't see how else they can justify the
contrivance of Rick going to her home. I'm pretty sure Dani didn't give
him so much as her cell number.
On Charlie's cell phone screen:
Sprint
11:11
10/12/07 PM
Another time line glitch, although one could always say that Charlie
still hasn't figured out how to program his phone.
ACT V
53:13
STARK: Hey, got the officer-needs-assistance call. Thought you
might want some company on this one.
Hi again, Bobby.
REESE: [To Charlie] Just make sure I don't fall.
I wanted to say, "Aww," but the line felt corny.
REESE: All I needed was a moment. That's, uh, that's Zen.
Isn't it, Crews? Isn't it? That's Zen. I got it. I
got it. Isn't it?
More like "in the moment." It's also Method.
STARK: [To Charlie] That day ... Bank of Los Angeles shootout?
I was on the barricade. I ... I was on the barricades.
First time I've liked Bobby.
All in all, the acting was stronger than ever, but several major and
minor plot points were contrived beyond believability in order to force
certain character points and certain backstory elements to the surface
quickly and impatiently.
--
jayembee
> I'm also unclear as to why Rick went to that meeting. Unlike
> the case with Dani, it didn't seem to be mandated by his
> family or anyone in authority over him. He wasn't staying
> sober, so he wasn't serious about the program. He didn't
> seem to feel genuine remorse over his past crimes. Why was
> he there? To pick up women with bad taste by first warning
> them, and later saying to himself, "Well, I did warn them"?
I suspect it's more that he has the kind of personality where
he wants to make sure people know what he did without actually
telling them what he did, or putting it in a context where he
believes it's not going to cause him trouble.
AA is the kind of place where just his being there and standing
up to confess his sins is going to get him sympathy, no matter
what he did, as long as he puts it in general terms.
> The word 'occurrence' was spelled "occurance" twice in Detective
> Bloom's crime search template. Yeah, I know, it doesn't affect
> the story, but damn, not even bothering to use a spell checker
> before you put something out on national TV is the height of
> laziness.
Hell, I find it depressing that so damn many TV writers think the
expression "lie low" is "lay low". I can't even remember the last
time I heard a character on TV say it correctly.
> What's supposed to link the money to the murders? Was Tom Seybolt
> the sixth man?
That does seem to be where they're headed. Or that he found out who
the sixth man is.
-- jayembee
Micky DuPree
: MDu...@theworld.com.snip.to.reply (Micky DuPree) wrote:
:: I'm also unclear as to why Rick went to that meeting. Unlike the
:: case with Dani, it didn't seem to be mandated by his family or anyone
:: in authority over him. He wasn't staying sober, so he wasn't serious
:: about the program. He didn't seem to feel genuine remorse over his
:: past crimes. Why was he there? To pick up women with bad taste by
:: first warning them, and later saying to himself, "Well, I did warn
:: them"?
:
: I suspect it's more that he has the kind of personality where he wants
: to make sure people know what he did without actually telling them
: what he did, or putting it in a context where he believes it's not
: going to cause him trouble.
Makes sense, feels right. He said enough to get on Dani's radar, but
not enough, as Charlie pointed out, to be directly actionable.
: AA is the kind of place where just his being there and standing up to
: confess his sins is going to get him sympathy, no matter what he did,
: as long as he puts it in general terms.
That feels iffier to me, because he wasn't genuinely ashamed of what he
had done. He sounded like the kind of guy who would want sympathy for
"she made me do it," not for "I shouldn't have done it."
:: The word 'occurrence' was spelled "occurance" twice in Detective
:: Bloom's crime search template. Yeah, I know, it doesn't affect the
:: story, but damn, not even bothering to use a spell checker before you
:: put something out on national TV is the height of laziness.
:
: Hell, I find it depressing that so damn many TV writers think the
: expression "lie low" is "lay low". I can't even remember the last time
: I heard a character on TV say it correctly.
At least 'lay' is in the average spell-checker dictionary. It's one
thing to flatter yourself that you're too busy to check your work, but
it's arrogant not to even get a machine to do it. I saw someone's job
application get rejected over that issue once, although admittedly, it
was in an academic field.
People in real life use 'lay' intransitively in the present tense all
the time: "Why don't you lay down for a while?" The intransitive 'lie'
is being replaced by what used to be the transitive 'lay' in colloquial
speech. The intransitive past particle 'lain' has all but disappeared
except in formal writing, replaced by the technically transitive 'laid.'
</grammar snob>
:: What's supposed to link the money to the murders? Was Tom Seybolt
:: the sixth man?
:
: That does seem to be where they're headed. Or that he found out who
: the sixth man is.
Tom Seybolt is the underspecified factor in the equation so far.
-Micky