Re: Tony Goldwyn episodes Law and Order "Balance of Power" S23E07 "Facade" S22E08 (spoilers)

Ubiquitous <weberm@polaris.net> wrote:

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We all, er, fondly remember the John Nathan-Turner era of the original
Doctor Who series. Introducing the Sixth Doctor, JNT thought it would be
absolutely hysterical to hire a decent actor, Colin Baker, saddle him
with the same terrible terrible scripts we got since the Fourth Doctor's
final season and throughout most of the Fifth Doctor's run, then add to
it all new elements, especially the hideous multi-colored costume.
 
To top it all off, let's make the audience absolutely hate the new
character.
 
JNT's ghost has returned from the dead to find all-new ways to make
season 23 of Law and Order suck. Tony Goldwyn was introduced as the
interim District Attorney Nicholas Baxter. We meet him on "Balance of
Power" tromping through the crime scene, hysterically barking an order
"Don't touch anything without a warrant!" Riley and Shaw give him looks
of contempt while the viewing audience wants him to return Broadway
before the end of the episode. I don't recall either Riley or Shaw
saying anything particularly memorable. The investigation isn't terribly
interesting. At one point, having issued a bulletin to watch for a
vehicle because they want to speak to a suspect (who becomes the prime
suspect and then the defendant), a beat cop is ordered to secure the
vehicle that the woman fled from. She left her cell phone.
 
Prediction: Evidence from the cell phone will be excluded. I've seen
this show once or twice before.
 
Sure enough, the moron beat cop picked up the cell phone. Instead of
immediately putting it in an evidence bag, he picks it up to answer when
it rings. Defense argued that he had to unlock it and therefore had
access to other evidence on the phone.
 
A woman murdered a man who caught her ripping off his substantial wealth
and was going to call the police. The problem was that she was hired by
him as his dominatrix, a financial dominatrix. (Googing it leads to some
pr0n fiction, so it may not be a thing in real life.)
 
They serve a subpoena on the bank in Panama to which she transferred
funds. Oh for fuck's sake. There's no jurisdiction in a foreign country.
Much much later in the episode it's revealed that bank refused to
cooperate. Well, duh, but that didn't stop them from threatening to use
the evidence they had not yet obtained to get a confession. It didn't
work.
 
Everything about the case is stupid. At one point, the case is going
poorly for the defense, so the defendant offers video evidence from
another S&M session of a man who she claimed was a serial rapist. The
evidence had zero details but because the man was famous, Baxter wants
to pursue the case and to make a sweetheart deal with the defendant.
 
Massive STOOPID: A rape is a crime of control over the victim. The
perpetrator DOES NOT have the kind of personality in which he himself
craves domination.
 
Baxter, Price, and Maroun start having serious discussions about whether
it's important to pursue a case for murder, or even more important to
pursue a serial rapist. This is a thing to discuss? Maroun actually
argues that the public is in greater danger from the rapist. Wait. What?
You can make a case against a rapist if the victims come forward. There
were lots of victims, supposedly. This was nonsense. Odelya Halevi is so
pretty. Why is her character so hateful? It's said in dialogue that
Baxter is thinking about what he'll need to do to become well known
enough to get elected, so prosecuting the celebrity would help.
 
During the trial, at the point at which Price will have to offer the
deal to the defendant, he makes repeated calls to Baxter to see if he's
still pursuing the offer. Baxter blows him off.
 
Yeah, now the audience completely understands that we are supposed to
despise Baxter.
 
At no point is the most obvious defense pursued: She had access to all
of the victim's accounts because it was with his permission. Therefore
she hadn't stolen monies. The state had no evidence that she had
transferred monies for her own use to that account in Panama so the jury
wasn't even going to consider that this was stolen money and Price
presented no other examples of monies that she'd stolen. The jury wasn't
even going to consider her scheme so all they were left with was that
she had access to his money and he was NOT going to call the police. She
had no motive and wasn't the murderer.
 
If the defense had argued that, she should have been acquitted. But she
was convicted even though what little evidence there was generally
pointed in her favor.
 
The episode ends with a dramatic confrontation between Price and Baxter,
in which Price doesn't actually threaten to quit.
 
"Facade" is massively stupid in different ways. The episode opens like
a horror movie with a young pretty female victim willingly going into
scary situations to meet her fate, except she hasn't first had hot sex
with a teenage boy. She enters an empty subway station with no one on
the platform except maybe a homeless guy. I thought she'd find a corpse.
On the train, some tallish guy in distress falls against her; she
apologizes. Cut to the crime scene in which he's the murder victim.
 
Turns out he's a comedian. Riley also thinks he's a comedian but cannot
pull off the gallows humor like Greevey, Cerreta, and especially
Briscoe.
 
They find evidence that he'd gotten into an altercation with an older
comedian. That was a red herring. It leads to the dead guy's boyfriend.
 
Then there's this, well, it's not exactly a dojo. It claims to be MMA,
but it's this weird training academy for men that, later in the episode,
we learn is being investigated by the Joint Terrorism Task Force (do
they literally do investigations or coordinate investigations being done
by member law enforcement agencies?) as part of a nationwide domestic
terrorist recruitement center for the evil white supremicists trying to
take over the country.
 
At one point they think the owner of the academy is a white supremicist
on the basis of some tatoo, but he's said nothing and done nothing and
had an alibi for the crime. But one of recruits sort of confesses to the
killing.
 
Price calls the boyfriend as a witness because the defense made all
sorts of claims about what the dead guy was saying. Here we have yet
another witness, as we've seen on multiple episodes this season, giving
testimony without offering evidence. At one point he offers the opinion
that the dead guy wouldn't say what he was accused of. Defense's
objection was sustained. I vaguely recall defense putting on a witness
who similarly had no evidence to offer but maybe I'm thinking of
something else.
 
Nothing about the crime makes any sense. The coroner's finding was that
the death was caused by an arm across the throat compressing blood
vessels and cutting off his air, while he was having an asthmatic
attack. Brain death occurred more quickly due to the asthmatic attack
but the strangulation was the primary cause of death.
 
But the victim was relatively tall compared to the perpetrator, and they
thought he was killed whilst upright during the fight and not on the floor.
He couldn't have been killed like this.
 
All along, the defendant claimed he acted because a woman was attacked.
Finally, just as the defense is about to put on its case (I think she
was a defense witness and not called as a rebuttal witness) she makes
herself known.
 
Price objects to the surprise witness. If she weren't a rebuttal
witness, then defense had to give notice to the prosecution, right? She
should have at least been interviewed. Denied.
 
In her testimony, she's credible and keeps calling the defendant her
hero. But in the one moment that didn't entirely suck, Price takes her
through the situation and gets her to realize that she wasn't being
attacked, that the guy was in respiratory distress and fell on her. In
the tiny bit of the scene was saw in the cold open, it appeared to the
audience that she didn't think she was being attacked. On the stand, she
came to realize that she was at fault.
 
She screamed. That's when the defendant came to her aid.
 
Let's pause for a moment and think. That she got it wrong and wasn't
being attacked does not change anything about what the defendant did as
he was motivated to rescue her.
 
Getting back to the fight, somehow the guy in respiratory distress is
able to fight off, for a time, the shorter guy with a bit of fight
training. The fight actually goes on long enough that the train makes it
to the next stop, she gets off without calling for help, then the train
leaves again as the fight continues.
 
This is pretty close to impossible. The fight keeps getting more and more
stupid.
 
Maroun, bless her heart, picks up on something she said, that she
misheard the defendant saying during the fight. It must be a neo-Nazi
slogan! We can prove the killing is a hate crime!
 
Price tells her to investigate. She talks to an instructor, who reveals
himself to be an undercover cop. He explains that the training is based
on Navy SEALS training. In the armed forces, you are taught OFFENSIVE
fighting techniques. You are being taught to kill. The cop is teaching
recruits into a neo-Nazi movement how to kill.
 
Baxter goes to see the JTTF and agrees not to blow their operation.
Price is upset that he cannot call the undercover cop as a witness.
 
At this point, the prosecution rested (I think) so how was he going to
call him anyway?
 
I'm thinking, DON'T call this guy because... he's committing felonies as
part of a conspiracy before the fact! He's helping to teach newly
indoctrinated neo-Nazis how to kill!
 
No one has heard the defendant say anything racist. The defense calls
the owner of the school who, again, no one has heard say anything
racist, to say that he never had a conversation with the defendant about
anything racist.
 
Nevertheless, in Price's summation, he explains to the jury about how
you just cannot tell who is a racist. Someone can be a racist even if
he's taken no overt racist action and hasn't said anything racist out
loud.
 
Oh my gawd.
 
You can never know what's in someone's heart. You can judge them only on
what they say and do.
 
I had to look to see if moviePig were credited as a script writer.
 
I was kind of shocked that the jury acquitted. Price has gotten
convictions on less evidence.
 
Price confronts Baxter that he was hamstrung but Baxter lectures him
about the greater good, once again ignoring that the undercover cop is
teaching ways to kill to would-be murderers.
 
I feel ever so much safer.
 
[Kerman's incorrect formatting fixed.]

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I told the DVR never to record this crap fest again