Margherita Erdman

Thank you for taking it in the spirit in which it was intended! This case can be such a flashpoint for people. Please keep in mind this is total speculation on my part (although not new or original speculation — Google "Amanda Knox autism" or "Amanda Knox Aspergers" and you'll find a lively online conversation among Aspies themselves or parents like me who think the pieces fit — the parent discussions can be interesting because it's often along the lines of "this could have been my incredibly socially tone-deaf child making misstep after misstep in the spotlight of the British tabloids and a foreign cultural lens"). That said, it doesn't seem that Amanda has ever been diagnosed, though they are aware of her "quirks" (dealing with anxiety by singing loudly in public, misreading social situations, difficulty expressing herself clearly in spoken conversation, other things mentioned in the exhaustive media coverage by her family and friends or Amanda herself). The reason that many really really high-functioning folks with autism still never get a diagnosis or help, as mentioned above, is that there's no real reason for it; they cope just fine. And even if she did have a clinical diagnosis, I think that it is unlikely that in Italy or the UK that it would be accepted it as an excuse for her behavior. More likely that there would be a backlash against American over-diagnosis or some such. Everyone's looking for someone to blame when something this awful happens. In the Google results I mentioned above you'll find plenty of parents wondering how Amanda's parents could let her go to Italy if they knew how bad her "street smarts" and social skills were, per their many interviews (a position I have a certain sympathy with TBH).

I didn't know Christa and Neal were out until I was about halfway through this episode and decided I'd better check the boards to see what was up. Really disappointing :( Boy oh boy talk about a bloated cast now. Rob Lowe fits in nicely but everyone else is just blah (including and maybe especially the promoted Kodjoe/Campbell) and the upshot, for me at least, is that the show has lost its heart and center... I think I could hang in there with Christa and Neal being gone if Marcia Gay Harden were still anchoring the show with her acting chops and the super-strong character that she created last season — but the way things played out this episode, I found all the storylines boring because they were all so thin, not enough time for any one of them to go deep (and the new folks are so lightweight, and Angus and Civetti are back to being awful without the balancing energies of their older more mature colleagues) So yuck, judging from this ep Code Black might as well have been canceled for me. I got a very Grey's Anatomy/Night Shift Lite vibe, not what I'm interested in Will miss last year's show, probably check out another episode or two here, but hopes are not high

I hesitate to post this comment but the PTV community is such a good and curious one that I feel like it's worth putting out there — While I totally agree that there is much about Amanda Knox's behavior and personal presentation that is unsettling, I cringe whenever I see anyone make the leap to "psychopath" or even just "weirdo" if not actually suspected guilty because of her strange reactions to the crime and inability to cope with her situation as we might expect an intelligent, educated middle-class American college student to do... As the parent of a kid with autism who has now spent years around all kinds of people on the spectrum, I really think the best explanation for Amanda Knox's unusual affect and the rabbit hole she fell into is that she is on the autistic spectrum or has autistic traits (however you want to put it). Women and girls especially, with high-functioning autism and/or what used to be called Asperger's, can go undiagnosed their whole lives, because the signs can be so subtle. But an off-putting manner, atypical stress reactions (cartwheels in the police station), chaotic reactions to being challenged by authority, difficulty reading social cues, sensory overload (running away from the blood and shit she found in the bathroom and focusing on her own revulsion at it instead of thinking of what it potentially meant for Meredith), the failure to discriminate between important big things and minor details, or to anticipate future consequences — these are all hallmarks of an autistic brain. They don't mean she's a psychopath, Satanist, nymphomaniac, narcissist, or murderer. This wouldn't necessarily make Amanda Knox likeable to the world at large — I see all of these socially difficult qualities in my son, especially as he enters adolescence, and his friends, and the teachers at his school who are on the spectrum, and I have no illusions about that — but it would make her story make a lot more sense.

I totally agree — there is a terrific setup to pass the Bechdel test with flying colors and they flub it repeatedly despite themselves — but I think Tay is into Dawson not Atwater. [Blanket disclaimer — comment following includes assumptions and opinions completely my own that in no way exclude other points of view :) ] For me, it wasn't just the gratuitous, dehumanizing, prolonged kidnapping, rape, and torture of the helpless suburban white woman by the monstrous, inarticulate black man (seriously! count up the lazy offensive tropes in play right there), but the extended tableau of hey! look at us! we are AWARE of issues related to race, class, power, police brutality, black-on-black-crime, disproportionate resources and public attention devoted to crimes against whites, and community resentment related to all those issues — even as we continue to tell this sensationalized story about an attractive white woman in peril, anyway. Should have just titled the episode "Missing White Woman Syndrome," unironically. No argument here, I gave up Blue Bloods when it became all guilty and no pleasure. That's why this episode of CPD felt like such a slimy clunker to me — off-brand. Antonio is moving over to the SA office on Chicago Justice, so yes, something new, but not on PD. It just clicked what Lindsay's hair helmet looks like to me: a big bulky shaytl, a wig that a married observant Jewish woman wears to cover her hair, so the function of modesty/hair covering is more important than looking natural or any other aesthetic consideration, and consequently they are often ill-fitting, overly voluminous, and extend beyond the natural hairline. Famously hot and sweaty too, especially if they are not made of real hair and natural fibers. Trudy was not my favorite when this show started — I thought she was an uninteresting, clichéd female battleaxe stereotype grafted onto the cardboard cutout trope of the crusty desk sergeant loyal only to the maverick detective — but now I am a huge fan as she has really emerged as her own person. The actress (name escapes me) has done an amazing job realizing her as a compelling character and a capital-B Boss. Dick Wolf's shows are brain-off popcorn time for me, and IMO the Chicago shows are L&O-lite, so I came to Chicago PD pretty much exclusively to indulge my love of and lust for Jason Beghe — but as Voight shrinks into an increasingly repetitive and one-dimensional character, even Beghe can't make him interesting for me and I begin to wonder if maybe Olinsky and Platt would be able to carry the squad and show on their own, if Voight followed his grandson out to AZ or went back to prison or just choked on his own bile.

This is truly a case for WIG COP. It looked even worse and was more distracting than last week — the hairline was all wrong and in full light it even looked synthetic. Did she get a hand-me-down from Liz on The Blacklist? Hard to imagine how bad a haircut would have to be that this wig is better. Hear, hear! I found the main story this episode so distasteful — closer to Criminal Minds or the more sordid eps of SVU than CPD, not suited to their style at all — and I was really wishing we'd just spend more time with Trudy figuring out how to protect her girls and get over on the skeezy commander

Confusing & disappointing. Remember when this was so much fun, at the beginning? And then it was a little less fun but still worth watching as long as Spader was on the screen. I'm not sure that's even true any more. Back to streaming Nordic noir for me I think.

I am glad to know that I was neither imagining things with Sophia Bush's hair (so impractical as well as unflattering!) nor being impossibly dense at the end when I was confused why Voight was thanking her. I like Officer Tay also. Congrats to that actress escaping from Quantico. Agreed, no way was anyone dug up in that spot. Either Lindsay doesn't know the final details or the details don't include that site. NBC also likes to pretend that first season Chicago Fire Voight never happened, or that somehow he wasn't really an amoral homicidal asshole.

"Douchebag" was very much part of California slang, at least, in the 70s and 80s. When I started hearing it again in the 2000s, I thought "not again"! because it isn't an expression I'm thrilled to have my kid using, honestly. "D-bag" though, that is a modern innovation ;p And I agree that the references to Stand By Me are several in this episode and the previous one — most notably the episode title "The Body" — same as the title of the Stephen King novella on which the movie is based. Well sometimes the truly tubular stuff originates on the West Coast, like, you know? I agree about mouthbreather though and especially "off his meds." It wasn't until the mass consumption of Prozac in the mid-late 90s that psychopharmacology became something you joked about as something normal people did. Speaking of regionalisms, perhaps? What are Nutty Bars??? For me, anachronisms and maybe-anachronisms aren't taking me out of the show, since it is a fantastical story anyway with a highly meta vibe — but I am having fun kibitzing and remembering what fits and what doesn't, just as we are having fun finding references and visual jokes, puns, etc. I was 14 at the end of 1983 and every time Nancy is on the screen, I have an almost physical shiver of identification for everything from the side barrettes to the neatly pressed Oxford shirt to the Trapper Keeper clutched to her chest to the shiny lip gloss. I think it was last episode we got a close up of Steve's Le Tigre shirt, which was also perfect. But where are the textbooks covered in deconstructed brown paper bags? Nancy's bra seemed a little too Miracle Bra/Victoria's Secret from the future item to me, also. Hard to imagine Cara Buono's Karen buying that or Nancy wearing it, not in 1983 when a pretty push-up lace number like that in a smaller size would have been a specialty, high-end item.

Those and all of the other movies mentioned, plus the craziness with the lights reminded me a lot of Close Encounters of the Third Kind, actually. The wonder on Holly's face when the Christmas lights led her down the hall and the lamps were going on and off around her, Joyce's increasing mania — very Richard Dreyfuss and the mashed potatoes, for me. I was 13 & 14 in 1983 so I am all in with the 80s realness and nostalgia but I also am watching this series with my 13-year-old son for whom this is retro cool. I can't think of another show that we have been able to enjoy together since he became a sarcastic middle schooler, so this is a real treat for that alone.

It just felt like trying to stuff too much story into too little time so it was all jumbled together with no room to breathe. A disappointing end to a series I've otherwise enjoyed quite a lot. After such a complicated and buildup to both stories, with repeated drumbeats of taunts and teases for the former and flash-forwards to the latter, it really was a truncated and unsatisfying end to both. Felt like maybe the intention was to extend them both into season 3 (and therefore include the LaBianca murders? Solve the murder of the serial killer's wife as well, since I thought the mystery begged that question?), but the showrunners found out there wouldn't be a season 3 and needed to wrap everything up quickly. ^^^ This, exactly this is why I fell in love with the show and stuck with it. IMO it really fell into a groove and offered something unique about this era, in spite of and not because of its take on the Manson story. I wish it had lasted long enough to get beyond the Manson stuff, beyond Emma, her family, and her Family.

I thought it was a pretty good episode but it feels like there is way too much story crammed into these final two episodes. I wish there were more time left for the series to unspool. Also, whoever does the hair for this show deserves some kind of special Emmy, this episode especially. Billie's and Charmaine's long locks were so gorgeous and perfect it was distracting. Like an extended — what is period-appropriate? Breck commercial?

I'm pretty sure Hodiak said it was his grandfather who was in a Nazi death camp, but not whether it was on his mom's or dad's side. He seems to be Catholic, and Ukrainians were more likely to be rounded up and shot without deportation, buried in ditches and mass graves, so who knows what the back story is supposed to be. I thought the Japanese internee — MP case was handled with nuance but not necessarily sensitivity. I like that Hodiak isn't portrayed as being too far ahead of his time or his own character development with regard to race relations or consciousness of issues like Japanese-American internment camps. Manzanar was no vacation for internees; not only were loyal American citizens deprived of liberty and due process but also their livelihoods, property, opportunities, reputations, and dignity. No, they weren't death camps, but illness and hunger were rampant, and most were dead before the need for reparations was even acknowledged, much less actual reparations authorized and disbursed. To me it's apples and oranges — it's wrong to compare internment camps in the U.S. with Nazi death camps because the governments under which they existed and the intents behind them were totally different. Japanese-American internment remains a largely glossed-over but incredibly shameful chapter in recent American history during which we imprisoned our own citizens and violated not just their civil but their basic human rights solely because of their ethnic heritage. Given the rhetoric flying around in this election season, sort of makes you think of Santayana's most famous saying with a shiver, right? Topic: I really liked the way the show portrayed the Hodiak-Bunky relationship, and I will miss that a lot, as I think the show got that exactly right, with Hodiak respecting Bunky's anger and his leadership both, and realizing that there are things about being black in America he will just never fully understand and shouldn't even try. The W.E.B. DuBois moment, while almost perfect, fell flat at the end for me because while eloquent and in keeping with Kristin's character, I don't think that DuBois' fin de siècle radicalism jibes entirely with the Panthers of 1968 — i.e., I doubt that Bunchy would agree that his soul was torn between a patriotic American identity and a Negro identity shaped by oppression. The Panthers were much more closely aligned with the thinking of Malcolm X by then, rejecting American political identity in favor of a wholly Black identity. It is an important distinction, especially for the time — and equally important that we are no longer in a time when so many claim such polarized identities!

Given that the show he hosts was inspired by the movie based on his own shockingly stupid and sordid real life experience, it's all wonderfully circular, like a beautiful circle of life really. Don't they already live inside their own reality show? Is this baby born yet? And if not can we watch via live stream somewhere? Pay-per-view maybe?

Where was Sadie's baby in this episode? Given the casual sex and equally casual attitude toward birth control, why wasn't there a mob of infants and small children in attendance on The Family? I do love Hodiak and David Duchovny, but the brilliant-maverick-detective-who-breaks-all-the-rules-and-is-constantly-in-trouble-with-the-prissy-humorless-internal-affairs-officer thing is even more stale and annoying than the brilliant-maverick-detective-too-obsessed-with-his-work-to-commit-to-a-relationship thing.

That was Topanga Canyon.

[Raises hand.] The capsule description will sound the same, the cast of characters is almost identical, and many details are shared, but now that The Night Of is done & dusted, my strong reaction is that the original shines much brighter (and not just because it's shot in harsh London light rather than dim noir tones). Equally well-acted, but no cat, far less eczema, maybe 99% fewer red herrings and dropped plotlines, and overall (in my opinion of course!) far better characterization and plotting, including approximately 100% less pretension. Anyone who enjoyed this, or wanted to enjoy this, or thought they would enjoy this but didn't — I highly recommend seeking out the original.

I read that sequence as Gareth's horrified imagining of the hookup only, happening only in his mind, and not as a flashback to anything real. Look at the way Michael Moore breaks the fourth wall to mug/gloat at the viewer, and the placement of the scene as Gareth's reacts to the suggestion/supposed intel. Mid-Atlantic accents are tricky and vary widely even though it's a relatively tiny geographic area. There's a distinctive coastal Chesapeake accent too. I wish we could hear him say "Baltimore County" as that would be informative I'd not definitive — if it sounded like "Balmer County" that would clinch it... But it depends on class, ethnicity, education too... I totally endorse her outrage — she's dating someone who's willingly reviewing a file a foot high of all her sexual relationships (and some fabricated!) and then throwing it in her face. If I were involved with someone who challenged me about dirt he'd dug with the help of a private investigator (asking her about an abortion! seriously!), I'd be a lot less civil than Laurel has been. To me it is razor sharp satire of slut shaming. The thing about satire that bites this hard (think Dave Chappelle) is that it requires close viewing and sympathy to the satirical POV or it can be read as played straight...

Yuck, for all they've changed from the source material, they're keeping the lawyer romance? I've come around to sjohnson's view, expressed in one of the episode threads, that in reimagining this for the U.S in 2014 NYC, the show's creators have inexplicably retained (and in some instances, like Stone's eczema, even expanded) elements that didn't quite work then or don't work in this context, while, just as mystifying, discarding elements that would have strengthened this version. My $.02, worth what you paid for it. [Wondering whether a stolen jailhouse kiss will amount to ineffective counsel though here, or just be another dropped plotline.]

What no Eichhorst? This was amusing but it wasn't up to the standard of Eichhorst's Airbnb video promo Also, while I have watched this show from the beginning, sometimes despite myself (it's like there's always *just* *enough* - one sufficiently interesting active plot line or compelling character in play - to keep me tuning in the next episode), if Quinlan doesn't return I may finally give up. Didn't read the books, couldn't care less about story canon or his character arc, but Rupert Penry-Jones, can't get enough, and he's been criminally underused in this

I don't think that Box really is that confident or convinced, but he doesn't have anything concrete to support his doubts, and the DA is demanding that he reassure her that he will stand behind this arrest 100% when it goes to trial, so that's what he's giving her. Begs the many questions raised in this forum related to what the hell is up with the forensics investigation and wouldn't that yield some discrepancies that would give Box some actual evidence to hang his doubts on? Curious what you mean by a contrived '80s movie (I can understand not being interested in the the innocence lost thing — although it's totally my thing — but IMO, IME, when something like that goes off it usually goes in a pretentious art house direction)... In any case, I think your comment illustrates a real strength of the series — which is that it is so complex and multi-layered that it engages viewers for all kinds of reasons: those absorbed in the timelines and blood evidence (not my thing at all, not for the purpose of this story) as well as those who enjoy "reading" the meta mythic motifs in play... and everything in between.

I just saw this trailer when taking my kid and his friends to see the new Star Trek movie, hadn't heard it was coming out, and was totally sold on going to see it (Denzel! and it looked and sounded really good on the screen) but then at the end the writing credit came up large, Nic motherf'ing Pizzolato, and that really popped the bubble for me. Feeling super meh about it now. Probably wait for streaming/cable.

I'm pretty sure it wouldn't have been Tony Soprano who showed up. If you read some of the articles linked in the media thread or elsewhere, it's mentioned that before his death Galdolfini filmed the first episode with a full beard and, yes, sandals. I'm imagining a shambling mess of a presentation belying the intellect and fire beneath, different from Turturro's take of course because they have such different energies and physical types, but still the same hangdog, Columbo, ne'er do well, jailhouse bottom feeder thing going on. And I highly recommend checking out Gandolfini's other work, especially his more vulnerable and comic roles. Apparently these were much closer to his true personality — shy, warm, a bit of a homebody preferring the company of close friends and family.

Do! It's really good esp. if you are a Brit mystery/Wheel of Murder type junkie [sorry for the double post — haven't figured out how to insert new quotes into old posts.]

The bazillion stab wounds and resulting extra-bloody crime scene is a different wrinkle in the American version for sure. I almost expected bloody gloves to turn up somewhere. The lack of a sustained focus or critical analysis on forensics made more sense in the Criminal Justice series because IIRC it wasn't London, with its big city media attention and big city resources (or if it was London it was some kind of grotty suburban area, driving distance to a seaside), plus the accused had no money for expert witnesses, and the case seemed so very open & shut to the Crown. Not to mention that even a soapy CSI-style focus on science! and facts! and logic! wouldn't serve the narrative end game to betray intimate connections and compromise personal integrity in order to secure a successful appeal for the defense; resolving the murder case based on the facts would in fact muffle the constantly banging anvil* about the inexorable gears of the system grinding on without regard for truth or justice. * And I do mean that in the best possible way, not just to snark. I did think it was mostly very well done, and I am really looking forward to seeing the same themes unfold in an American context. But the constant flashes of the super-bloody crime scene, the knife, etc., in the absence of any revelations of how the NYPD analysts are breaking that down — that is causing some serious cognitive dissonance for me too. This is (I think) the largest police department in the U.S., in the post-O.J. era — no way are they phoning this one in or jumping to conclusions. On another topic previously raised here — it is noted in the articles that I posted in the media thread that Glenne Headly will be coming in as a high profile criminal defense attorney to assist or possibly try to shove Stone aside (presumably this is the Lindsay Duncan role), and that Headly's character will bring a young woman associate of South Asian descent with her to "connect" with Naz — ...so it looks like they will indeed retain the ill-fated romance angle between inmate and lawyer. That skeeved me out in the original and always felt wholly in the service of plot rather than organic to the characters. I could buy Ben Whishaw's character, in his youth and inexperience and the trauma of incarceration, crushing on his beautiful barrister (solicitor? I always get them confused), but it never seemed plausible to me that a smart, ambitious, worldly lawyer — who would have had to clear some considerable hurdles related to gender, beauty, ethnicity/race, religion, and youth, to reach her position and level of success, and mentored by a super-shark of a boss — would throw it all away on a jailhouse affair with a needy, dependent boy out of pity. You couldn't convince me that was some grand tragic passion!

To me also this show is about Naz's definite, irretrievable loss of innocence in the mythic, psychological sense. He is Parsifal, setting out as a total naïf and armed only with the memories of love and support from family and community. Suddenly he is having experiences and fighting battles for which he is wholly unprepared, and he will never ever be the same, no matter the outcome of his criminal case. I am simultaneously dreading and eagerly awaiting the Riker's Island arc. I trust Price and Zaillian have something really amazing in store for us, difficult though it may be to watch.