NJRadioGuy

Nice shoutout by Matt G. to Game of Thrones (actually, A Song of Ice and Fire) in S2E4. Stag with the crown (House Baratheon), and Tormund f-cking the bear (HAR!). An excerpt, from A Clash of Kings: “It were another winter, colder even than the one I spent inside that giant, and snowing day and night, snowflakes as big as your head, not these little things. It snowed so hard the whole village was half buried. I was in me Ruddy Hall, with only a cask o’ mead to keep me company and nothing to do but drink it. The more I drank the more I got to thinking about this woman lived close by, a fine strong woman with the biggest pair of teats you ever saw. She had a temper on her, that one, but oh, she could be warm too, and in the deep of winter a man needs his warmth. “The more I drank the more I thought about her, and the more I thought the harder me member got, till I couldn’t suffer it no more. Fool that I was, I bundled meself up in furs from head to heels, wrapped a winding wool around me face, and set off to find her. The snow was coming down so hard I got turned around once or twice, and the wind blew right through me and froze me bones, but finally I come on her, all bundled up like I was. “The woman had a terrible temper, and she put up quite the fight when I laid hands on her. It was all I could do to carry her home and get her out o’ them furs, but when I did, oh, she was hotter even than I remembered, and we had a fine old time, and then I went to sleep. Next morning when I woke the snow had stopped and the sun was shining, but I was in no fit state to enjoy it. All ripped and torn I was, and half me member bit right off, and there on me floor was a she-bear’s pelt. And soon enough the free folk were telling tales o’ this bald bear seen in the woods, with the queerest pair o’ cubs behind her. Har!” He slapped a meaty thigh. “Would that I could find her again. She was fine to lay with, that bear. Never was a woman gave me such a fight, nor such strong sons neither.” “What could you do if you did find her?” Jon asked, smiling. “You said she bit your member off.” “Only half. And half me member is twice as long as any other man’s.” Tormund snorted.”

Every boss has a different style of command. Some are fire-breathing dictators, others are passive-aggressive guys waiting to retire, and some are true natural-born leaders. Hermann has a style, and I think it's more common than you think. Watch Deadliest Catch and look at the captains of the various boats. Each has their own way. Some are screaming douchebags (I'm looking at you, Keith), others are brilliant but conniving (Sig), some are natural-born leaders (Brenna-A's captain, whose name is eluding me), and so on. The fire-breathing bosses often don't do what they do to be mean, but to be that tough SOB whose words will stay with you when the shit hits the fan. If you don't check your air regulator and get caught out (but nothing happens), and the fire-breathing boss rips you for it, you're sure as hell never going to make that mistake again. Tough Love works. Now, if someone's just vindictive and mean without being a leader that's different. Hermann is tough as nails. He's seen and done it all in a long career, and he's the kind of guy who'd get on your case for a fuckup but also make sure you had the support you needed if Something Bad were to happen. I personally like leaders like that, to be honest. As for forgetting about the loss in a week or two, I don't think so. I read an interview with the showrunner this morning that indicated it would be a theme carried over for the first part of the season; how each person's loss manifests and how they handle it, etc.

The one that gets me is the Fox show 9-1-1. They have two pieces of apparatus in the bay; Engine 118 and Truck 118. OK, that's fair and is a very common thing to see. EXCEPT the crew responds in whichever vehicle they want! THAT DOESN'T HAPPEN. Sorry, but if you're an engineman you don't suddenly become a truckee. The skill sets are entirely different. I get that they don't want an extra 4 or 5 cast members, but seriously, NO. Keep it a one-rig station plus an ambo if you want. I'd be good with that. CF is far better in that regard. But as horrible as that show is for procedure, they do some very interesting runs, often recreated from real incidents (and I wish CF would do more of that). 9-1-1 is train wreck in many ways, but I still love watching it, plus they do what they can to give service to the call takers. That's one job that you rarely see portrayed on TV and one of the toughest jobs you can imagine. As for command structures, in many (most?) cases, there's no actual "boss" of the station, in the way Boden is portrayed in C.F. The station is the home for one, two, three, or more distinct companies, each with their own shift commander or overall company commander. He or she is a trained officer and the leader of the firefighters assigned to that apparatus. If you're a qualified driver on Engine 123 you remain a driver, even if you're transferred to another company. Or you're a qualified relief man/floater/whatever. Joe at Engine 123 needs three days off; Bob gets the call to report to E123 at 0600 for three shifts, then back to the floater pool. HQ makes the personnel decisions, not the BC or DC. If a guy's a complete fuck-up the officer in charge of his company calls HQ and tells them what's going on, not the BC, although MAYBE he'd be involved too. But for our show, I'll forgive this since average viewers need to see a boss do boss things as part of the narrative.

Gotta wonder if this is the last we've seen of Heche's character. Arrest doesn't mean convicted, especially in TV Land, and I liked her and Voight's scenes together. They're pretty much alike in their respective worlds and the two play well on screen. From a dramatic standpoint, Kelton needed to get gone and Chicago is better off as a result, so maybe they're planning to bring her back at some point? Obviously in real life it couldn't happen, but in this dysfunctional world it wouldn't be the worst thing they could do.

He's a candidate (i.e. probie), and Hermann's his Lieutenant and the senior officer of his company. He'd probably be fired on the spot if he ripped in to Hermann, especially if he did it in front of his company. The chain of command is something taken very seriously. Now that said, a heart-to-heart with him in private, along the lines of "I know I fucked up and yeah, you had the right to rip me a new arsehole, but this has been bothering me since it happened, and I'd appreciate if you'd let me air this out with you and maybe you could explain how my decision-making was bad." In the overall story, in a way I'm sort-of glad they killed off Otis, to explore how the various members of the company deal with the grief. Losing a brother you fought the dragon with for at least 7 years, a longtime friend, beloved colleague, a man under your direct command, etc. The problem is, this show is generally written for relatively dumb viewers, and it always devolves into stupid TV tropes.

Damn, this was good. Easily one of the best episodes they've ever done and surprisingly good for network television these days. I lost it at the end. Glad they didn't drag the inquiry out or have Boden become the scapegoat, which is what I honestly thought was going to happen. I was surprised they killed Otis off, but honestly, after 7 years, all the primary actors' high salaries leave them vulnerable from this point onwards, and as an ensemble show they're replaceable if the show is renewed. Old expensive shows don't last long if the cost of talent remains high, so in that sense I guess we should be relieved it was only Otis. As for having to kill off anybody, I guess I don't mind it if it furthers the story. Game of Thrones was legendary for it, but in most of the cases, the deaths made complete sense for the narrative, and I think this was definitely the case here tonight. I wonder how many people are going to drive by E18's quarters looking for that monument now. If Brett had decided to stick it out as a full-time paramedic in that small town she and her partner would probably be running OD calls from dusk to dawn, with the odd MVA thrown in for good measure.

Just finished Part 7. I agree, very depressing, but in story structure the penultimate act is always the worst for the characters. The old saying "it's always darkest before the dawn" comes to mind. They're setting up for endgame at this point and the pieces needed to be moved into position. I don't think I'd ever call the last few seasons a comedy, but that's OK. I like it for what it is and I appreciate the few moments of levity between the serious heaps of excrement that are befalling the Bennets. But I think this is going to be a good time to end. I could watch this for years to come, but it seems the writers are just treading water now so go out while it's still good. They've been given five full hours to wrap everything up and I hope they make the most of it.

So long as Dave and Irina went away I was find with any other team winning the race and a hearty congrats to Anthony and James. The memory challenge should have been the last challenge, though. I like any final challenge to have the real potential to throw the expected order out of whack. If your final leg is physical, and you have highly physical teams racing, the outcome will be obvious, as it was in this case. As a fan of the US mothership show since S1, and having watched all the Canadian and Aussie seasons, I have to say that overall, this season of TARCAN was just painful to watch. The product placement was beat-you-over-the-head levels of bad, the legs were often ploddingly dull, the tasks un-memorable and either too difficult resulting in penalties being preferred by the racers, or just not interesting from a TV-worthy standpoint. Like most Canadian TV, the cheapness clearly showed. As an expat Canadian with a deep love of my home and native land, I didn't mind in the slightest that they didn't leave the country—and I liked that about S1, as well. But why so many legs in Ontario and B.C.? If you're going to spend the entire season in country, I'd like to see PEI, Newfoundland and NB as well. Especially Newfoundland and Labrador. There were just too many "route info" legs. U.S. TAR uses them sparingly, and with that show it's usually just detours and road blocks with far more interesting tasks. Why not do the same here? And while I'm really not a big fan of U-turns, they do have their place, especially when one team is running the table as Dave and Irina almost did. As awful as they were as human beings, they were (sadly) good racers and quite honestly many of the other teams just weren't even close in terms of their overall strengths. A strategically placed U-turn can be a great wild-card at humbling giants, especially after a particularly difficult task where the front-runners could fall behind. Maybe next year they'll cast more strong teams so it won't always be one of two or three always on the mat first. I'm a big fan of good sportsmanship at everything you do in life, and that goes hand-in-hand with Canadians' reputation for kindness and politeness. As such, deliberately stealing a taxi or getting caught wilfully cheating at a task should incur a significant penalty. I'd say anything short of disqualification would be appropriate. In an elimination leg, they become the last non-eliminated team and have to start at the back of the pack the next day. In non-elim legs, they have to do the speed bump next time. And if their actions would have otherwise resulted in the direct elimination of another team, then they get the boot instead.

Lots of friends in the service (and PD and EMS) but I'm a radio guy myself, hence my username.

Yup. There's a lot of the job that wouldn't make for good television or would never make it past network censors. In rough and tumble neighborhoods like the one station 51 is located in, every other run would probably be an O.D. but they'd never show that. And you ever notice how every single residence that Chicago PD and Fire (the TV shows) enter are all at least upper-middle class, well decorated and furnished? Even the baddies. That is most definitely *not* the case in real-life. What's frustrating about this show to me (and anybody who has any knowledge of emergency services) is that there are so many great calls they could portray, but they go for cheap bullshit highschool-level drama every time. I'm fine with a bit of that, but they need to take a bigger page from the 1970s show Emergency! that took real-life calls and brought them to life onscreen. Their B-stories were utter garbage but the runs were great and kept tens of millions of viewers watching for seven years. That one ancient and often-rerun TV show has brought more young men and women into the fire service than any one other source. Even today! Yes, in "Station 51" there is Engine 51, Truck 81, Rescue 3, Ambulance 61 and Battalion 25. But it's not just about water. Especially in the U.S., where most houses are made of wood, building codes are often a suggestion or ignored entirely, building integrity is a bigger problem than in Europe. The laws of physics and thermodynamics remain the same (vent the building, control airflow, extinguish the fire, overhaul the building) but because British and European structures are generally made of brick and masonry it's usually just the case of the internal walls and contents going up, while the shell remains fully intact. It's much easier to fight a fire when you know the building isn't going to collapse on top of you. Firefighting tactics are also extremely different in the UK/Europe than in many parts of the U.S. In The Netherlands and Germany they'll have a charged reel line inside in seconds after arrival using tank water, while in the U.S. it seems many departments' SOP is to take a hydrant, pull one or two crosslays, charge the lines and in general take 5 minutes or so before water goes on. It's truly frightening over here in places and at times. And the ones that kill me are videos I've seen of engines arriving on scene at a serious working fire and the crews haven't gotten their SCBA gear on enroute. So they need to mask up, size up the scene, lay and charge lines and then go in. Plus high-rises there are a rarity, so having multiple 100+ foot tower ladder trucks would be a waste of money. Grenfell exposed that weakness in a big way. I think London had or has 3 or 4 tower ladders for the entire city. Nobody ever expected an entire apartment building to combust until it did. At the time, the UK's fire codes allowed only one central staircase (read "Chimney") and that cladding. It was all unthinkable since it had never happened before. In the UK and Europe I know it's very, very different in terms of apparatus, or as they call them, appliances. When we here on this side of the Atlantic have that discussion, it always and invariably involves a mock dispatch of "Dispatch, send us three toasters and a blender to this address, and keep the dishwasher on standby." And you don't have a second alarm or third alarm, but rather "make pumps" calls, so if they need 8 appliances to fight a working fire, after the initial response, when it becomes a known conflagration, the incident commander will call the control room for "make pumps 8". Before the London Fire Brigade switched over to the unmonitorable TETRA radio system a decade or so ago I used to listen to their communications when I was over there. Precise, militaristic communications is how I'd describe it. It was also extremely quiet most of the time for a city that big. In contrast, go on Broadcastify and listen to the five separate borough dispatch channels for the FDNY, or the two dispatch channels for Chicago (Main (north side) and Englewood (south side)). VERRRRRY different comms there!

Glad to help. Again, this is an extremely high-level and very generalized view but I'd say most major departments in the US and Canada function similarly. The upshot is incident command is handled by increasingly senior officers as the severity of the call increases. As more pieces of apparatus are called, more chiefs ("white helmets") arrive, command protocols are initiated and followed and resources are allocated. So there would always a "Battalion Chief 25" to use our beloved (?) show's nomenclature, but Wallace Boden would not always be the one responding. For the sake of other readers, I should probably explain something even more fundamental. The types of apparatus do very specialized jobs, both in the show, and in real life. There are two primary kinds: Engines (also known as pumpers in Canadian parlance) do exactly what you'd expect: Put the wet stuff on the red stuff. They suck water out of hydrants or other water sources, increase and control it's pressure, have hose lines attached and its members go in to fight the fire. Nozzleman gets the glory, backup makes sure the hose is free and clear, takes the hydrant in many cases to feed the pump; the engineer drives the rig and operates the pump typically, and the officer is the commander. In the show, Engine 51 is presently commanded by Hermann, but until last season it was seen and not heard from. All the crew were background actors at the time (and most were real-life CFD FFs). The other main type of apparatus is the Ladder company (Casey's rig), also known as a "Hook and Ladder," Truck company, or an Aerial in Canadian-speak. They usually don't have hose lines, but will take water from an engine, pipe it up to the top of the ladder (or tower basket in the case of a tower ladder) for use in an External Attack--a fire too dangerous to fight from the inside and the chiefs decide to "surround and drown." They are either front-mount, rear mount (where on the truck the base of the extending ladder is placed) or a tractor-trailer style tiller, with a second "driver" in the back. IMHO, this is the single coolest job on Planet Earth. Trucks companies will open holes in the roof of a fire building to vent the hot gasses, ventilate to eject the smoke after the fire has been knocked down, overhaul (pull down walls/ceilings along with an engine company to look for lingering hot spots that need to be extinguished), perform forced entry with a hammer and a Haligan tool (NO, there's no such thing as a Slamigan™ in real life). Truck companies also throw ground ladders up, perform rescue operations in place of or alongside Heavy Rescue companies, extricate car wreck patients along with the Engine--often the Hurst Tool/"Jaws of Life" are on the Truck. There will also be dozens of specialized pieces of apparatus, usually consisting of one or more heavy rescues (Severide's rig) for detailed technical rescues, building collapses, train wrecks, plane crashes/etc, Hazmat units, foam units, airport crash tenders, canteens (to offer refreshments to crews on a huge job), lighting units, mask service units, air supply, rural departments have water tankers where there are no hydrants, and the list goes on. Since in the real world, most FD toneouts are for MVAs (motor vehicle accidents) or sick persons, quite often departments require every FF to be a trained in Basic Life Support, and many are actual paramedics, with a lot of crossover to the city/town's EMS. In my own town our FD and BLS ambulance is 100% volunteer, and often with extended response times during working hours, so as a result we have a number of Basic and Advanced Life Support (Paramedic) trained cops as well. So if someone's ticker goes haywire and PD arrives first, they can start certain IVs, defibrilate, perform CPR, some can even intubate while waiting for dedicated (and paid) ALS to arrive. There aren't any nationwide hard and fast rules here, and in general terms, for every working fire call toned out there are probably 50-100 MVAs, overdoses, altered mental statuses, sick persons, chest pain calls, lockouts, seniors fallen and can't get up, the dreaded "bariatric lift assist" and so on. The glamourous life of a firefighter, indeed 🙂

Having just returned from Ireland a few days ago, specifically after seeing the Book of Kells and the Long Room at Trinity College, I had a bit more invested in that library scene than I otherwise would have. When you've seen the real thing from a foot away--a book that's existed for at least a thousand years--it gives one a very different perspective. This episode was just basically Ryan's Daughter but with Fae, dirigibles, and Werewolves. Which would have made the original significantly better, IMHO.

You're absolutely correct. Now this depends on the department, but there's a lot more in play than you might realize. This post is going to be very long but it will detail the overall FD hierarchy in general. Chicago Fire (the TV show) cuts out a LOT for the sake of simplicity, story, tracking our heroes, budget, and so on. A fire in Chicago Fire-land gets E51 (which is mostly background, rarely speaking parts), Ladder 81, Rescue 3 and Battalion 25. In real-life, at a house fire or small shop fire, there would be at least 4 engines, 2 trucks (ladders), MAYBE a squad if there's a collapse or other specialized hazards, and a chief. Each "alarm" is basically a multiple of that. But for budget/TV sake, you'll never see it on the show. More on this below. Boden's position is a Battalion Chief. In most major cities' fire departments, the battalion chief covers the response area of anywhere from 3 to 6 firehouses (YMMV and all that--remember, generalizations here). The BC is not necessarily the boss of the firehouse at which he's stationed. It's a position (and piece of apparatus) that has to be available 24/7. Boden would be on First Watch in our general discussion. He's also have a dedicated driver in many cases. Second and Third Watch would also have a batallion chief assigned to B25. Boden-2, and Boden-3, basically 🙂 But let's take a small step back. FDs have a hierarchy that generally goes something like this (again, broad strokes). Chief of the department, perhaps a Commissioner if that's in the city's structure. Various deputy and assistant chiefs are down from that, and they cover various aspects of the department's operations: fire suppression, personnel, procurement, training, hazmat and emergency ops, etc. They operate at what I call the City Hall Level, and generally won't show up on the fireground, unless it's a really big job. After that you have District or Division chiefs. Their coverage would be a large portion of the city, or larger than the next level, the Battalion Chiefs. Down from there are the officers on each piece of apparatus (captain/LT/etc), then the FFs under them. So to put this into practice, pretend Fictional City is a perfect square. HQ is in the middle with all the white helmets. Divide that square into 4 equal segments (NW, NE, SW, SE). Each of those Divisions has a Division Chief/District chief. Divide each of those divisions into 4 for the Battalion Chiefs, then divide the BC's responsibility amongst 3, 4, 5, or 6 firehouses in their geographical area. So now let's say Battalion 25 has four firehouses in his response area; 51, (rat-infested) 19, 66, and 58. Station 51 has E51, L81, R3 (we leave the ambulances out of this; they often have their own hierarchies and reports). Station 19 has E19 and L19, 66 station is Engine only, and 58 has E58 and E258. I'm pulling these companies out of my @$$, but you get the idea. So here's a very real scenario. Pretend 51 is the southernmost-station in B25's response area. There's a decent size fire up north, and 25 will respond with some or all of 19, 55, and 58's companies and run that job. 51 then gets a run and would get a different BC, since "Boden" would be up north. That's something you never would see on the show. As you would expect, fire equipment is dispatched based on closeness to the address, and the apparatus responding first ("first due companies" in real-life parlance) will almost certainly include an engine or two and a ladder. The officer on the first-arriving company will size up the situation. If it's minor he may tell the chief he can stand down, he can handle it with "1 and 1" (one engine, one ladder company). Or he could see red stuff blowing out all the windows and civilians screaming about trapped victims and call for a deuce (2nd alarm) on the spot, before the BC arrives. The BC will be the officer in charge on small/medium events, but once a 2nd alarm or above is called, several other BCs will respond, each with a different area of expertise or responsibility, plus a Division Chief to assume overall command of the fireground. He will direct each battalion chief. So we get a Big Job, 3rd alarm, 12 engine companies, 8 ladder companies and 4 BCs. Division 1 might delegate BC25 to fire suppression and rescue, B46 to protecting exposures, B14 to protecting opposite exposures, plus water and air supply, and B9 to accountability. Each of those BCs directs their reports to do the needed jobs. If more suppression is needed (i.e. more manpower or equipment to fight the actual fire), BC25 would request the needed resources from the Division chief, who in turn could re-assign an idle company, then call for another engine or two. The fire grows, more alarms get called, and by now, the assistant and deputy chiefs show up, and the division chiefs (more will be in place by now) will have their work divvied up. If it's Something Really Really Big, then the chief of the department will show up, usually with the elected pols to find the nearest news camera to mug for. Again for the sake of budgets, a real 3rd alarm (a big but not not a huge fire, either) might require the show to rent (and decorate) 12 pumper trucks, 8 aerials and a plethora of specialty apparatus, along with at least 75 to 100 "extra" background actors. Maybe I could see this for a big Hollywood film but not for a TV show.

IIRC, he knew him by name and by his reputation from his time in NYC. Not completely improbable, especially if his "vacation" to Grey House was a recruiting mission all along, knowing Sam's happy where he is. That was the one part of this cheese-fest that didn't actually make me cringe or reach for the jump-30-seconds button.

This has to have been the worst TAR-C segment ever in a very, very lacklustre season. Dave and Irina were just the mouldy cherries on top of that @#$% sandwich of an episode. Race design shouldn't include tasks that will take more time to accomplish than the penalty that would be incurred for missing them. Also in the clam challenge, the results weren't under the control of production. If they'd seeded the ground with the the rare clams or included a provision for moving on without penalty if they couldn't find the rare ones within X hours then it wouldn't have bothered me as much. And as for acceptable race behaviour there should indeed be a penalty for taking someone else's taxi and other forms of unsportsmanlike conduct. And likewise, some form of time credit or other nice bonus (next flight you get bumped into first class) if you perform a selfless good deed for another team. As for Dave and Irina, I (facetiously) blame Jon. At the start of the season he never said "Make Canada Proud" at the starting line, as he has in seasons past. Because those two most certainly aren't. I know this won't happen, but should those two douchecanoes end up coming in last, if I were Jon I'd say "I'm pleased to tell you that you've been eliminated," with a nice smirk thrown in for good measure.

You know it will be.

Except if all they did was focus on her powers and training then we have a cute Batman, basically. I'm good with the cloak-and-dagger stuff if the story is compelling, but this just wasn't. And in 10 episodes you have a choice: develop character, unfurl a good plot or kill a ton of baddies—but only two out of the three. Her training was remarkable for what it was, but at the end of the day she's a teenager who's woefully unprepared for the life of a teenager, and equally unprepared for the kind of high-stakes espionage that we're given. Add in very predictable stories and cartoonish villains and you get the mess that was season 1.

Yeah. The Weather Channel has been naming winter storms, but I don't think that was one of them. A quick Google search didn't show anything by that name for AK last winter. And I recall storms in previous seasons appeared to be far worse. Not to say that it wasn't a rough winter up there, but it didn't appear to be as bad as it was portrayed in early seasons of the show. Well, I suppose that's a good thing. Nobody got hurt, no boats were at risk, no USCG rescues, no crew members on drugs, no captains teeing off on crewmembers. Basically a tough job being done competently. No, it doesn't make for compelling viewing, but frankly I'd rather see things going reasonably well on the boats we've known for years than seeing someone getting airlifted with life altering injuries or Keith screaming at a 'horn yet again.

So what's the story with the Northwestern this opie season? They haven't had much screen time, where they've normally been the star. I don't think we've seen the Brenna A yet, either. I don't really give a damn about Steve "Harley" Davidson (and his smirk). Nothing really interesting about that boat and, he doesn't have the charisma to pull off being a featured captain on the show. Too much of the Casey and Josh show, but I didn't mind Casey being the one to fix the crane. He's got a history of being a first-rate engineer (according to the show) so it's fitting. Josh doesn't have that background, and frankly he'd be a liability up there if he went. If Disco's edit of that vessel is even half accurate, I will give Josh props for knowing where to fish, and he seems to be somewhat competent at the helm (he'd have to be to have earned his master's license, I suppose). Other than the fact he's a first-rate camera whore, I cut him a bit of slack given that he didn't have the same time and opportunity to learn everything before he was thrust into the deep end. He wasn't as driven or even interested when he first started out with Phil in the early years (Jake was the one all gung-ho), then he left, and after Phil passed, it was a scramble to come up to speed. And IIRC, Josh has battled some demons in that time as well. So I'm not going to tee off on the guy, but yeah, Casey is by far the most talented seaman on that vessel, hands down, and I hope for Harris' sake, he's learning what Casey is teaching him. I think he still needs 5 to 10 years in the wheelhouse before he's ready to handle opies solo.

Just finished the third series tonight, and I have to say this was one of the most depressing things I've ever watched. Especially how S3 ended. Season 1 was one of the best I've ever seen. S2 wasn't nearly as good, but damnit, S3 just made me feel like I was getting curb-stomped over and over. And in the end, every bit of the fabric of the town was torn apart; the vicar resigns, the honest newspaper closes, to be replaced by a vlog and a shitty tabloid, and the Lattimers marriage is shattered, with Mark basically a zombie moving away. Sure, I get that this might really happen, but do we, the audience, want that much depression as entertainment? And a murder mystery where a child killer gets off scot-free and never faces any kind of justice, except for feeling bad about starting over again. Boo effin' hoo for him. And the rape story in S3 was just agonizing to watch from beginning to end. Now for a show that wants to accurately portray the aftermath of tragedy (and I guess they did succeed at that), they lost any sense of realism in the law, and in investigations. What Joe did, as horrible as it was, was not premeditated in the slightest, the relationship wasn't sexual and it basically just happened in a horrible moment. There's no conceivable way that would not be charged or brought to trial as manslaughter. Any solicitor or barrister worth more than £1.99 would have gotten him a reduced charge. Facing murder, yeah, of course he'd plead not guilty, so why the crown wouldn't offer 10 years for a lesser charge (with half sentence in custody, typically) is ludicrous. Likewise the investigational procedures were the usual bit of television detective horseshit. Of course every suspect speaks to investigators, every time, and the lawyers (i.e. extras) they have with them in the interrogation room never ever say a single word as they admit X and Y and Z. Riiiiiiight. "On advice of council I respectfully refuse to answer any questions at this time." Live it, love it, and learn it. Once they had a narrow set of suspects, at least in the US (not sure about BritLaw here), they'd have had probable cause to pull phone records, and check GPS coordinates. For that matter, just pull the tower data down for a list of which subscribers pinged off it during the estimated time of the attack, then narrow the subscriber data with GPS data (realizing that in real life, GPS data is accurate to within about a metre). Many a criminal is serving a life sentence thanks to that, thankfully.

Honestly, those two episodes should have been aired together as a series finale last year. It would have been a good stopping point.

Still the best policy is to shut up and make the coppers earn their pay. What the suspects often don't get is that one of two things is happening. One, they have enough probable cause to charge you with the crime regardless of what you say. In this case you're going to jail, Even if you say nothing, and they have sufficient evidence, you're probably going to get convicted unless you've got a good lawyer. Or two, they ain't got squat, and they need you to implicate yourself, even in some minor way. Saying absolutely nothing here will get you home tonight. Maybe they'll get you later, but tonight at least you sleep in your own bed.

It's almost the exact opposite situation than with Gabbie Dawson (Monica Raymund) on Fire. Raymund can truly nail a performance when she's given material to work with. Problem was, her character stunk up the show to high heaven, and I desperately wanted her ("Dawson") gone. Raymund, I miss. Dawson, I don't. In this case, I get what/who Upton is supposed to be, but it just comes out all wrong. There are a gajillion more talented actors who could have played the role; a combination of smokin'hawt and smart badass. Just off the top of my head, imagine if Norma Kuhling, the actor who played Ava Bekker on Med, had been cast as Upton instead? She'd have nailed the part.

I wanted to love this series. I really did. Great premise, the movie it was based on was well made and the pilot to this Amazon series was pretty riveting. But by episode 3 or 4, it started to drag, and by episode 7, the wheels had fallen off and it became a second-rate dumb action pic with a (mostly) predictable conclusion. Villains are cartoonishly dumb/evil, and the main story makes no sense most of the time. The gems that are saving this from a one-star review are teenage actor Esme Creed-Miles, who plays the titular character, and the "Everyman" family in the U.K. The bits I liked the most were Hanna's humanization once the main plot started to unfurl. We see how she was raised in the pilot, but that her humanity and teenage fragility was left out of her programming. Where she starts to pick up those pieces with Sophie's family is where this becomes a very engrossing story for me. Alas, those moments are too few and too far between, then gone completely, and it's back to shoot-em-ups and villains proverbially twirling their mustaches. Season 2 could be far more engrossing if they focus a lot more on Hanna's humanity, and (presumably) her reconnecting with Sophie's family, but I have my doubts that the Hollywood moneybags financing this are interested in anything more than another ridiculous CIA spy thriller with flying bullets and plenty of scenery porn that will attract the 18-24 YO set. I wish they'd have continued with Arvo (from episode 1) later on. Their interaction was great, and the characters had screen chemistry. Then poof. This needed less Hollywood, and more humanity. 4/10, and that's being generous. Take out Sophie's family and friends and it's a 1/10.

Precisely. But remember, a lot of these guys are as sharp as a bowling ball. Even on the show, many of the accused are clearly of the room temperature IQ set. As it was explained to me years ago by an buddy who was on the job for well over a decade, most of these guys live in the here-and-now and, like an animal caught in a trap, will do anything to get free. So if they're offered the chance to "make things right" or to "tell your side of it, since you don't seem like a cold-blooded killer" they think they can smooth-talk their way out a charge. Also think about all the detective shows on TV. How many of them come even close to real procedure? Fake TV detectives always haul in the suspects, and those suspects always talk, so if some real-life offender watches any of those moronic shows and thinks that's going to work, they'll quickly learn that don't fly in the real world. Fact is, if you know you're the one wot offed the dude, and you find yourself in the "box", well, you're almost certainly going to jail tonight; they'll almost always have enough PC to lay a charge, and the questions being asked are just so many nails in your own coffin, or keys to your own cell. But for the sake of a safe society, I'm glad that so many of these idiots don't realize it.