NJRadioGuy

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.

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Some would, but a lot won't. Especially if they know their "associates" will have their back, give them alibis, intimidate witnesses and so on. The dumber ones, though? Yeah. They'll give it up, or at least give up enough to earn themselves an all-expenses-paid vacation for 15-to-life. You'd think that by now the gang hierarchies would instill upon their new recruits that the first thing they say if they get popped is "I'm asserting my right to remain silent" and then shutting their face. And never, ever give any kind of statement to the police voluntarily.

And the lazy One Chicago writing continues. I liked how every attempt to "get" Kelton failed. In a network TV season finale, having everything go wrong in the worst possible way is a great plot device...provided the good guys pull of a plausible miracle and ultimately prevail as the closing credits hit, or it goes into a seriously steep cliffhanger. But this was a steaming pile of dog$#!+ of an ending. Kill the big-bad when legal maneuvers fail. I don't care who did it. It's bad writing and, like most of One Chicago, a disservice to viewers with triple digit IQs. If Seda is indeed out, why not make it clear that he did the deed, maybe doing the whole murder-suicide thing clearly on camera--or else he gets written out cleanly. If this was his final appearance on PD then it stunk like a month-old carp hidden in the air conditioning vents in July. And don't ask me how I came up with that analogy. As far as Upton, I don't like her, and I don't like her actor, Spiradakos. While I'm sure she's probably a wonderful human being, doesn't kick puppies, and loves her mother, the fact is she just can't act. She has one facial expression and it grates on me. I first saw her in Revolution about 8 years ago; I liked her at first but the same plastic expression and lack of depth were evident. Yes, she's drop-dead gorgeous but there's gotta be more than that. I'd much rather a less-attractive lead actress who can bring a viewer to peals of laughter or weeping like a child with just a facial expression, the shrug of a shoulder, or some other non-verbal cue. Alison O'Donnell ("Tosh" on BBC's Shetland) can do that. Tracy Spiradakos can't. And I don't care who she (or any other character) is bonking, unless it's a healthy relationship between actors who have great chemistry together. Needless to say, this ain't the case here. As for relationships with co-workers, I worked in a TV station newsroom many moons ago, and one very hot reporter was known as "a great girl to have around the newsroom...and everybody has." She had a good career, but a terrible reputation after a while, and she ultimately quit when an inevitable breakup turned toxic with a buddy of mine.

If this was the first serious firehouse romance of the series (S1 or S2) I'd be fine with it. I was fine with Dawsey when it happened, and the actors had the chemistry to do it well, until the writers ruined her character. Now it's every 51 character bonking every other 51er? Yeah. No. That's why I like Hermann's wife and Trudy, too. We see them in healthy relationships with our stars but we're not constantly hit over the head with twooo wuvvvvv every time with them. I'm down with Sevaride and Kidd being the 51 romance du jour but keep it at that. I like Brett, and I like Casey, but please...keep it professional. I'd rather they spent the screen time on firehouse romances on maybe doing a few more interesting runs.

Didn't they get Otis to move the elevator car up so they could use the shaft the way they did? I'm sure I saw it moving, briefly. Since it's a freight elevator, why not (for the sake of TV, at least) load as many in it and hoist them all up at once? Of course, it would be dangerous as all hell, but there's a serious chance there'd be a stampede at the bottom or Some Other Catastrophe, so that would have been the lesser of two evils. Yup, never, ever prank on the guy with the white helmet. They're almost certainly going to find a fix for the overpressure boiler in the first two minutes of next season, unless Hermann and Ritter are going to be written out. But since they said it would take out the entire block (meaning in the story it's true), if it does go then we need an entire new cast next year and there are a hundred dead civilians. So yeah, they'll probably depressurize it or some other magical solution. But getting back to the lame ballbusting by Ritter, if they're going to write him out of the series that could be part of Boden's eulogy, maybe? We don't really know anything about Ritter so if he dies the audience has no real connection. Hermann, on the other hand, would be a huge loss, but it would solve one big problem—more screen time going to Engine, of whom we never really see any other personnel. Killing him and Ritter off would put 51 into the background once again. I hope they don't. I really love Hermann (and Mouch). Heart and soul of the firehouse. Old guys rule! Either Brett dies or the engagement fizzles and it's Dawson 2.0 next season. Please keep Stellaride as a functional adult relationship now. So done with the playboy crap from him. She's a keeper, you fool. They finally did something right that I'd harped on several times. When Boden called in the deuce, even though we only saw a couple of extra pieces of apparatus arriving, Boden was commanding many more than we saw, giving the impression that they had a lot of manpower. Obviously it's a budget thing (where are you going to rent 20 or 30 pieces of apparatus and 80-120 fully-dressed extras at a TV show budget, after all), but that's a good solution. Except it wouldn't really be Boden giving the commands at that point; it would be a division or district chief. But for TV sake, I'll buy it, and I'm glad they did it. Emergency! did it 45 years ago, with equal success.

They've been making Severide into an ace investigator for a while now, and maybe that's a direction they could take his character. Except he would no longer be the star, and would only be needed in a handful of episodes every season. But the way they've been writing him, it's a plausible path, and if he's getting expensive as a regular, that could be something. That was very, very much appreciated. I,too, was afraid they'd break down his door and find his body at the end and then use that as a springboard for a Ritter story. Glad they took it the way they did, and gave Ritter some lines. No jet engine story to relate here, but let's just say an energized 14,000 Volt primary line leaves a lasting impression, too. Thank you, showrunners. FDNY is mostly 4-member crews now, as far as I know. At least on Engine; not sure about truck, and not sure about Chicago. It could be worse, though. It could be (rat-infested) Station 19 in Seattle that has a tiller truck, but no tillerman.

One of last week's stories ("Random Acts") has to be truly one of the most disturbing cases I've ever seen....and I've seen a lot. I wonder of the state is going for the Bonus Round with that guy.

Sorry but I respectfully disagree. I don't think this was written as a simple plot point in a TV show. This was a very loud and clear public thank you to dispatchers and call takers everywhere. The burnout rate for major urban center 911 call takers is high and they rarely get any second thoughts by most people so this was a nice gesture by the show-runners as far as I'm concerned. In a show like this it's easy to portray cops, firefighters and medics in a good light. Just show them rolling up and putting out the fire, arresting the bad guys and bringing the dying back to life. It's a lot harder when the job is defined as just a voice on the line or over the radio. Yeah, I'm an odd bird, I guess, but this one hit home in a big way. The only part of it I didn't like was the criminal ex call taker who plead out to her crimes being there. That witch needed to be locked up under the jail for what she did, not turned into a starring role.

Not knowing what Shondaland is, I can't really comment, I suppose. The only other one of her shows I ever watched on occasion was Scandal and that was a lot of crazy-stupid fun. This train-wreck of a show is difficult to get through, and not just because of how they portray the fire service (hint: it's BAD), but that they put no thought into the story. Might as well be an afternoon soap. Describing this thing as cringeworthy would be an insult to perfect good cringes.

This show is such a smoldering pile...that not even every truck company in Seattle could overhaul it. Killing Ripley was the only way out dramatically, so I saw it coming, or at least as a strong possibility. It's patently obvious that the writers and showrunners have never spent actual time in a firehouse, going on runs, etc. It started off decently enough but became a bad soap opera about the time that both Ripley and Sully entered the picture. There are so many truly great real-world stories from the fire service that they could dramatize just a bit here-and-there and it would be very compelling TV. Instead they have dumbed this down to the room temperature IQ set. I missed about half the episodes this season and I don't feel like I missed a thing. Won't be coming back to the show next year unless I read that the writing has improved. Even with three firehouse dramas on the air (Chicago Fire, 9-1-1, and this thing), none of them have a quarter of the storytelling ability of Emergency!

The smart ones know to lawyer up the instant the cuffs go on. They have some understanding of the fact that the state has to prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt and they're not going to give their potential jailers a single shred of evidence. Make them work for it. And for many of them, they learned that lesson the hard way in the past. The dumb ones "try to clear their name" or minimize their involvement in the crime. That rarely works out well. What most of these rocket surgeons don't get is that if they place themselves in the car/on the scene when the dude got whacked they're probably going to be hit with the same charge as the one who did the deed (rightfully so). If an investigator gets one of the latter type, even if he can't get a confession he's going to try every trick in the book to get them to at least place themselves at the scene, or maybe hit the secondary jackpot and get full access to their phone. But when they just sit there and pull stories out of their ass and expect the investigators to buy every word as gospel, I can see the detectives getting frustrated.

Dave Walker is the bigger gent, and I really like him too. Nate Schilling was the one who retired, and IIRC it's Jason White who is the one who's often a bit impatient with suspects and a bit preachy. I like that whole squad, though. Det. White's bio says he's also a "crisis negotiator for the Special Operations Team and a member of the Critical Incident Response Team." I do get the impatience, though. When you've got a suspect in there who has the IQ of a small soap dish, and who's been BSing you from the get-go, and you know he's lying full of crap, it's hard to sit there and be polite and go along with it day in and day out. What they don't seem to show very often is the investigators lying right back at the perps. It happens a lot -- at least in some departments -- but they choose to omit it. You get grainy video but tell him that "the real video" will show him doing the deed, and they often bite. Likewise, I don't think they've ever shown the tactic of threatening a wife/GF/etc with having her kids taken away when she's "doing 30 years for her part" (when in reality she'd be looking at probation, 6 months of house arrest, or community service) unless she comes clean and gives up the info. The tactic I like is to make it seem like the're not really bad people, and "if you can show me it was all just a stupid mistake and how sorry you are" I'll make sure the jury hears how good a guy you are and you'll probably get off with a minimal sentence." Sign here. (Then get done for Murder-One.) It's really an act of salesmanship in there, if you get right down to it. As Pembleton said in Homicide:Life On The Street "Then what you will be privileged to witness will not be an interrogation, but an act of salesmanship as silver-tongued and thieving as ever moved used cars, Florida swamp land or bibles. For what I am selling is a long prison term to a client who has no genuine use for the product." And it sure as hell is true in real life.

Yeah, this is my point exactly. I could see Disco giving him a doofus edit once in a while, but it seems like every year he's behind the 8-ball out of the gate. He's got a lot going for him skills-wise, but I agree, he never really mastered the art of finding crab. Granted that takes years or even decades of skill for most skippers, but again, look at Sean. Maybe it's a case of Disco giving him better screen treatment, but it just seems to me that he learned where to expect the crab will go for any given sea, tide, and water temp conditions. Does Jake have any known spots similar to the Hillstrand's honeyholes like the butt cheeks or McGoo, etc?

Yep. I guess by now most folks here in this forum have gotten through the first season. Memory wipes and resets are the trope I hate the most, except in very limited circumstances (The Orville, S2 final two episodes used it well). This was gratuitous and S2 will waste far too much time resetting the world. I'm now far more interested in the werewolves/Knights than I am The Order itself. But to The Powers That Be, pleasepleaseplease give is a brief homage or even a quick tip-of-the-cap to the world of Blutbaden and woging next season? Maybe Silas Weir Mitchell (Monroe) could be a guest professor or something? My dark little heart would grow three sizes that day!

That's why the truckees make the big bucks <grin>. Can't let the nozzlemen hog all the glory. What really bothered me the most were those two toneouts that were completely ignored. Your house is on fire, you dial 911 and give them the address, they tone out the first-due companies and get no response at all. Uh-huh. Besides aren't voice alarms these days basically backups or supplemental to teleprinters? Plus everybody would have their HT set to Main. That really bothered me. I wish there'd been a security camera or another FF in the room when Stella shielded that boy and stood up to the gunman so word could get out about her actions. Goes against every aspect of self-preservation, but it was the only play she could call with no time left on the clock. And no one except the boy (and the perp) will ever know what she did. But isn't that what they say about character? It's what you do and how you act when nobody's watching.

So I wonder who called Jake up on the Saga and told him where the crab were this time. Either it's Disco manipulating us every other episode for the last umpty seasons, or Jake really couldn't find a crab even at a swingers' party. He's obviously a competent enough vessel master, and he knows the mechanics of the boats, but he's not particularly adept at the core competency of his business. Now he wants to be part owner? Sheesh. I have to wonder if Sig ever schooled Jake on the finer points of pinpointing his quarry, because to this landlubber it sure doesn't look like he did (or the lessons didn't stick). Obviously not every string will hit, but for the most part, Sig, Keith, and Sean usually seem to be able to find decent numbers sooner rather than later. And while I like the idea of Sean and Jake working together (seems logical if you're both after the same thing, and you're both somewhat honorable), it seems that Jake just doesn't have the knack of getting on the bite early.

Doesn't matter who he's related to. In the real world a statement made to any court officer (police officer, lawyer, bailiff, etc) is evidence that would be presented to a Grand Jury, and I'd bet anybody a buck that Erin would have gotten a True Bill (i.e. they'd hand up an indictment). And Mirandized or not, in the circumstances shown, he volunteered the information without being questioned. It would absolutely be admissible, regardless of his BAC. There are people doing life without parole for murder who confessed while under the influence of drugs or alcohol. There are a gajillion videos out there on why you never ever make any statement to a cop. Even if you're their friend and are sharing a brew and watching the game. The words "I'm exercising my right to remain silent" (followed by keeping your yap shut) are the most important words you can ever say in that situation. Now that said, Jamie's credibility could be attacked by the defense at trial so who knows if Big Sis would get a conviction, but there's more than enough evidence to get an indictment. He wouldn't have the charges dismissed. I'm curious to see where they're going with Lena. Fun character and she'll certainly give Francis a few more grey hairs next season. Re the wedding ring. Perhaps Danny will give it to Jamie for his wedding to Eddie? That would have All The Feels. On the other hand, Rojas is still alive and (no doubt) after blood. Is he going to order a hit? He got to Linda, I'm hoping he doesn't get to Eddie, because they are sure setting this up to happen. I've said it before, and I really really want to be wrong here, but I'm not so sure Edit will be around for Season 10. She's a great character and they could do so much more with her.

At times Alyssa really reminded me of Elanor Shelstrop from The Good Place. I think the writers got that too, since in that dream sequence where she's in the knight's dream, she's in a surreal-looking field and exclaims "Holy Fucking Shitballs." Nice shoutout to that show. I'm still in the middle of the series and it's interesting, but the writing and acting are just terrible. And yeah, I'll be back for Season 2. ETA: I finished the series two days after posting the above and it definitely got a lot better in episodes 6 through 10, although I really hated how they left everything at the very end. What the show got right, IMO, was getting us interested in The Order and setting them up as the heroes, then slowly turning the tables as it progressed.

For the first two seasons this was appointment TV for me. This year it's gone so far off the rails as to be unwatchable. All! Outrage! All! The! Time! Yeah, no thanks. I'm far more interested in their universe's courtroom machinations, oddball judges, and defending clients than I am about the current administration. If I want Outrage!Politics I've got Twitter, Facebook, and the evening news. When I watch a dramatic TV show I want to be entertained, and for me, this ain't it. It was fine when this was subtext for main plots last year and the first year, but there are so many falling anvils on this show that even Plucky Duck is safe. And BTW, in any sane universe, Jay would have been instantly fired and escorted off the premises by security guards about 30 seconds after his meeting with the partners. In fact, while in the meeting, one of them should have been urgently paging I.T. to freeze his login credentials while the meeting was ongoing to prevent exactly what he did. Then, if he released all that stuff after he was terminated he'd be opening himself up to incredible legal jeopardy and it would guarantee he'd never work as an investigator again.

A followup since I couldn't edit my previous message. I've gotten through the 70 episodes of season 3 that are currently available. Supposedly there will be another 8 half-hours (4 full hours on Irish broadcast TV) airing in April 2019, and that will conclude the series forever. Thoughts after watching the 70 episodes from S3: It gets better in many ways that S2. Pacing is still slow but multiple stories are in play and the pace picks up significantly in the back half of the season. The Kileys continue to be riveting as always, and Keith finally comes into his own, whereas in the first two seasons he was little more than a plank and a sounding board for the rest of the family. All the character interactions get amped up in S3 and for the better. Several new baddies arise, and we get an amazing young actress named Lorna Reid playing Aoife Burke who comes in for about a dozen episodes. Where Amazon leaves off (late-winter 2019) two of the baddies have been dealt with, but there are several outstanding storylines that need to be concluded. Hopefully those final episodes will be added to the Amazon lineup once they've been broadcast over there. Both India Mullen and Jane McGrath left after season 2 and the show is the worse for their absence. Several other very notable departures as well. Tommy and Connor Tyrell, Nikki Grogan, and Michael Hennessy, (David Hennessey is gone for about 3/4 of S3). One big addition is Sgt. John O'Riordan ("Johno") who steals every scene he's in. Big spoiler below--and I really mean it.