Chicago Redshirt

If they take Cody in custody, he should be cuffed. He's a grown man, and hell, even if they had suspected him back when he was 15, I would think it protocol to cuff anyone they'd arrest for transport for both the officers' safety and the suspect's. Yes, it's possible that the DA would not want to prosecute under the circumstances. But to be like, "Well, don't you go anywhere, we're going to check with the DA first before we arrest you and see what they want to do" strikes me as more unrealistic than what was shown. It also would be a massive example of class privilege and/or incompetence if a confessed murderer did not get arrested then and there. In fairness, the characters on this show and on most murder mystery shows act like it's a done deal that with the person's confession/arrest, their conviction is inevitable. Obviously in real life, sometimes confessions are not enough. In this particular case, it doesn't seem like Cody has much fight left so if the DA brings a case against him (which, again, one would have to imagine that they will given that it was such a heater case a decade ago), it shouldn't be an uphill battle to get a conviction. There is a little nugget of objective truth that is the foundation of Morgan's theories. Here, it's the fact that the one bathroom outlet nearest the shower did not match the rest of the bathroom. She formed a hypothesis on it that the killer had tried to use the old-school hair dryer to electrocute Barry and make it seem like a natural causes death and then resorted to panic when the outlet caught flame, and switched the scorched outlet cover with a mismatching one. Farfetched, but when they found proof corroborating Morgan's theory (scorching at the bathroom outlet, and the cover from the bathroom placed elsewhere) it basically invalidated George's confession, which has a hole in it on the face of the facts as they knew them: George had a hip replacement, making it very unlikely on its face that his geriatric ass could have carried Barry and positioned him in the sauna. It doesn't really make sense that Cody might be lying to protect George's reputation. George is dead and nothing as far as we know is going to change for George or the family if George is suspected of murder.

Like others, I loved Morgan putting herself in the place of the murderer As always, a few nitpicks: I can't see any internal-to-HP reason why Soto would not have gone to her captain early on and said, "Hey Captain, this guy's confession doesn't add up to me" or "My consultant has come up with a theory showing that this murder didn't happen the way we thought it did. Do you mind if we test it out?" TPTB kinda undermine Soto by having her sneak around and trying to solve this case without running it up the chain. They gave Keith David a thankless role and made Soto look like she's willing to risk her career for essentially nothing. A line cop, let alone a captain, shouldn't be like "It's easier to get forgiveness than permission." Think of how much better it would have been if she sat down with the captain and had that conversation and he bought in grudgingly. I could understand the captain being like "this cleaning lady experiment is OVER" if this was like only the second or third time Morgan had solved a murder, or if she had flubbed an investigation previously, but since she has brought 10 people to justice before this, I'd say that even if she had fumbled the ball on this one, she probably has earned herself a little more leeway than one-and-done. No offense to Daphne and Oz, but the show just doesn't really have enough for both of them to do on a given episode. I hope it either gives them more stuff to do, or alternates between them, or mixes up the formula so that sometimes it's Morgan and Oz who are in the field and Karadec and Daphne working leads at the station and so forth. I do get why the family never told the investigators about Barry's supposedly blasting the war show and the porno. But one would have to wonder about whether they discussed such things, or the murder itself, amongst themselves. In the first place, it seems like it would be a weird choice for someone who just caused the scene he did and who was revealed to be a domestic abuser to then storm off and blast a war documentary. But then on top of that to switch to a porno and blast THAT loudly that people would feel the need to be like knock it off. One would expect that was odd behavior for the murder victim in general, but especially so when he had just been outed as an abuser and the whole family was pissed at him. Also, did Cody deliberately switch from a channel showing a war program to a porno? Because I don't think that would be a normal programming choice on most channels. Also, one would have to think that the family had its suspicions about who the murderer was. It seems clear that it had to be one of them because the security footage was deleted. So the jury should not have bought the coke dealer as a possible suspect, because if he had done it, he did not have the means or the opportunity to delete the video footage. Like I guess the family might be like "Well it's just as well Barry got got because he was a dickhead." But they had to wonder about who actually did it, right? And given that they actually prosecuted George, one might have thought that they would rally behind him if they thought he didn't do it, or that Cody's guilt might make him come forward. If Gramps was going to confess, he probably should have gotten the details from Cody to make the confession seem real.

I don't think the timeline works for Doakes to show up at this point. As I talked about above, if Doakes is about the age of his actor, he's about 27 now. We know that sometime between now and the start of OG Dexter, he and LaGuerta are partnered, but that's a span of 15 years. With LaGuerta currently a detective, it would seem like a push to have Doakes have done his time in the Army special forces, then become a police officer, do a few years in patrol before also trying to make detective. It's not going to be the case that someone can go straight from the military to a detective slot. I suppose he could be a uni like Clark (?), the gay officer that has been a recurring character this season.

Soto jumped the gun there IMO. She seems to be operating under the assumption that the DA will keep the case in Juvenile Court, which typically retains jurisdiction until the juvenile turns 18. Since Cody was 15 years at the time of the offense, she is figuring that he would serve 3 years. Hypothetically, the DA could seek to try Cody in adult court, and seek the max penalty. Given the facts of this case and Cody's confession to a roomful of people, it seems to make more sense for the DA to agree to some sort of plea that is on the lighter side. But Soto can't say authoritatively in any case what he might face. On the facts as presented in the case, it would seem to be 1st degree murder. Cody intended to kill his father and make it look like a heart attack. That's textbook "malice aforethought." One can excuse his desire to kill Barry because of the abuse Barry was visiting on his mother. But 1st degree murder all the same. The brothers said that they had knocked on Barry's door to get him to stop with the porn, and he didn't respond. Presumably that is true, and Cody turned down the TV volume after the knocking/"confrontation," and the brothers just assumed that Barry was being an uncommunicative douche who at least finally had the decency to turn off the porn he was watching loudly. There was no real reason either brother would have had to raise this interaction during the previous investigation because a) the investigators thought that Barry had died well after midnight thanks to matriarch saying she saw Barry go downstairs around then, and so were focused on what people were doing past midnight rather than before and b) this is too tied to the domestic violence stuff that the family wanted to keep silent about. Why wouldn't the cops have cuffed Cody and taken him away? He was a confessed murderer, even though he was contrite about it.

I'll defend the "teach non-chefs to chef" challenge (which the show has done a number of times with the chefs teaching their relatives or little kids IIRC) as at least somewhat relevant. It tests a) how well the cheftestants can understand a recipe that they are learning the first time b) how well they can communicate that recipe AND cooking techniques to people c) how inspirational they might be. Do a good enough job instructing noobs how to cook and it's a given you can instruct and manage culinary school graduates and veteran line cooks. Granted, I would think this particular recipe is something even I could do, and my day-to-day cooking skills typically are "Preheat oven to 350, put frozen pizza in for 20ish minutes."

Different offices use the different terms to refer to the front-line prosecutors. To make it more confusing, it is often the case where assistant district attorney refers to the front-line prosecutors that a deputy district attorney is more senior (either second in command or in a command structure directly under THE district attorney), and where deputy district attorney refers to the front-line prosecutors that assistant or chief assistant district attorney are more senior.

As to Sofia/Dexter, it's hard for me to follow/believe. Yes, I'll buy that he tracked a condom wrapper into the truck. But how clueless are we supposed to believe Dexter is about girls and sex? He presumably enjoyed getting the BJ and wants more, so why didn't he call? Why didn't he come up with something better to reassure Sofia than "I must have tracked that in at the crime scene?" Like at 20, he must have seen enough to know faking being normal would involve saying something like, "Sofia, you're special to me. I would never cheat on you. I don't know how that condom wrapper got in my truck, but I promise you that I'm not seeing anyone else." And there was probably a way for Deb to have also conveyed the truth that she did -- that there's no chance that Dex has hooked up with another woman because he's socially awkward -- in a way that felt more supportive of Sofia. Like if she had been, "I know it looks bad that he had a condom wrapper in his truck, but I'd fucking know if any other skank was sniffing around Dexter. He's too focused on his stupid job being butt buddies with Dad to have time to be a player."

Time will tell, but I think because of genre/show conventions, it is harder for me to buy that there is a separate killer of the judge's kid to yet be revealed and Spencer decided semi-spontaneously to copy-cat him. I think that if Spencer did not commit a murder and merely kidnapped and maimed his own kid, he probably doesn't fit the Code and can't be killed. And it's hard for me to envision him not ending on Dexter's table at this point. In short, it was Aaron all along, if you'll forgive my WandaVision reference. The motives you mentioned, plus trying to put heat on the cartel, seem like the best shots for me.

Assuming that Elliot goes to a school with a reasonable size class (say, 15 kids or more), I would call a snub of that sort bullying, since his absence is going to be conspicuous. The kids are almost certainly going to talk about Elliot being disinvited before, during and after the event in person and on social media. I take it as an article of faith that Elliot was telling the truth that he was singled out to be disinvited, especially since he seems to be portrayed so far as a straightforward good kid with no tendencies for exaggeration or drama. Like if this had been Ava saying that every kid got invited but her, I would hold out the possibility that she was exaggerating like a normal kid ("Like omigod, so embarrassing, I'm the only one not going to so-and-so's party!".) But I think that Elliot is innocent and also neurodivergent in such a way that it would not occur to him to say something that was not literally true in this context like a "normal" kid might. I also take it that the mom was either lying (probably) or ignorant (almost certainly not, but maybe a 5 percent chance) about how many invites went out. She may not have specifically known that Elliot was excluded or why, but she had to know it wasn't just an instance where Bully didn't invite Elliot due to not having enough familiarity with him. If Morgan took Bully's Mom at face value, suggesting a playdate might make sense. But it doesn't make sense for Morgan to take Bully's Mom at face value. She isn't the sort of neurodivergent where she can't understand the notion of people offering social niceties and not really meaning what they say. She's demonstrated that repeatedly and reinforced that notion in this very episode when she talked about how she's been on the outside of mom groups enough to know when people are saying nice things to your face but judging you behind your back.

Sorry to hear about your being bullied. For me, it's not the ultimate treatment of the bully that is the issue. It's that Morgan was apparently naive enough about social dynamics and/or Elliot's being an odd duck to think that arranging a playdate with Bully would solve the issue. If she called up Bully's mom and said, "Hey that was shitty of Bully to single out Elliot as the one kid in a class of X to not get a birthday invite," brava! But to either buy it was because Bully doesn't know Elliot that well, or to see through that and hope for a good result? Nope nope nope. As she said in this episode, she's been on the outside of enough mom groups to know fakeness. How could someone with a 160 IQ and at least normal emotional IQ think that the kid who singled Elliot out for a non-invite did so because he just didn't know Elliot all that well, and that a single playdate will rectify that? It's just somewhat jarring to me that her big brain can contain all this trivia about all these things, see all these hidden motives of murderers, but could not figure out without being explicitly told that Bully was a douchebag. I do hope that Morgan does have the actual cash to make good on her threat to take the rest of the class to Knott's Berry Farm and exclude Bully, though.

I'm here for the premise of House crossed with the Sherlock Holmes mythos and Morris Chestnut. It was going to be difficult to screw that up. I do feel like I would prefer it if Watson's team of doctor-detectives were slimmed down somehow. The sibling bickering has already gotten old, methinks. Couldn't place my finger on why Ingrid seemed familiar until I visited IMDB and found that she was Moll on the last season of Star Trek: Discovery. The role of Watson's estranged wife is a thankless one, it seems. I expected that Moriarty survived but I kinda hoped that it would be at least a while before he showed up. But nope, here he is. Wonder why he's not just running his crime syndicate in London with no Holmes to foil him. Wonder how long it will be before we find out that Holmes survived too. (I take it for granted that there will be a Holmes). Any idea why Pittsburgh?

I think you are overthinking things. Dexter is by definition an unreliable narrator. His actions are the best thing to judge him on, and consistently across the three shows, he has been particularly bothered by violence against children and he has been able to relate best to children. Alas, high-profile guest star syndrome almost dictated it had to be either Spencer or Tanya, and it seemed clear from what we saw that the kidnapper was male. To be fair, I was more thinking that he was the killer of the NHI's and Possible motives for Spencer: 1. He found out his kid is not his biological kid. He has a lot of anger toward the ex-wife and the homewrecker and wants to punish them, albeit in this roundabout baroque way. 2. He wants to at some point "solve" the case and appear a hero, with all the benefits that come with it -- possible reconciliation with the ex, proving that he's better than Homewrecker, full custody of the son, a promotion, getting his house back. 3. He is frustrated that there's not enough resources targeting the cartels and so wanted to bring the full weight of Miami Metro on them, and figured the best way was to frame them for two kidnapping/murders. If a little kid or two have to die to make that happen, so be it. I don't think that it would be necessary to have Spencer's name come up on OG Dexter, assuming that it never comes out that he killed at least one person.

To me, it makes sense. On some level he has regret for his own innocence lost as a child and values that highly. Dexter clearly intellectually knows right from wrong, and can appreciate that someone who victimizes children and preys on the innoicent is extra monstrous. It also seemed like Dexter seemed to be most "genuine" when he was dealing with children. Like I don't remember him ever narrating having difficulty with dealing with kids, and in this series, he was friendly with the captain's kid and deeply disturbed by whoever went after the judge's son.

I think it is safe to say with most lawyers that they may give an initial consultation for no cost/low-cost, and only accept a retainer (or a more substantial payment) if both sides agree to an attorney-client relationship. In this case, we do not know for sure if Tara was in fact the client of the firm she had the number for. An additional nitpick -- a real person would probably not write "Lawyer" on a post-it note. Rather, it seems more natural that they would write "Dewey, Cheatem & Howe" (the firm's name) or "Perry Mason" (the name of the lawyer) or again, just put the number in their cell phone. Also, it seems like Karadec should have asked to speak to someone beyond the receptionist, explained that he was murder police, and that the person who they were asking about was murdered. I am not 100 percent sure if that dissolves the obligation to keep confidentiality about the actual fact of whether someone was a client of the firm, but I am 100 percent sure that they would be pretty likely to get some sort of answer that would prove useful. Anyway, I am operating under the presumption that Tara had determined that Oksana was behind the bullying campaign, which, I guess that is also not clear -- it took Daphne, Morgan and Karadec a significant amount of time to pierce the veil of the fake accounts and they had a specific incentive to do so, plus the weight of LAPD to do it. How would Tara figure out that these commenters were fake, let alone tie them to Oksana? Anyway, tie them she did. So my further presumption is that after she got salty that Oksana was badmouthing her online and threatening her job, she wanted to see what her legal options were for retaliation. So she put in a call to the immigration firm to find out if falsifying things on social media could lead to someone being deported. With no inherent knowledge of the subject, I would have to say that it seems extremely unrealistic that Tara's report that Oksana made up some fake social media accounts and posted (presumably) no more than a half-dozen times on them, getting no money and not causing any harm beyond shittalking Tara would lead to her actually being deported to Russia. Morgan claimed it was there was only one newsstand in L.A. with the French-language newspaper. I could buy various scenarios re: pay comparisons between Tara and Rosa: The couple could have paid Rosa more because she was more experienced than Tara or she was older or because they simply could. The couple could have paid the two differently because different halves were responsible for the nanny. It seems clear that the one dude was willing to pay out some money without the spouse knowing it, given that he hired Chuck the Canuck and had all them expensive nanny cams around. Tara could have accepted less because she really really needed the job with the debt she had accumulated and $25/hr is better than $0/hr. The nannies probably were aware of how much they were each getting paid, but that may not necessarily be the same. It might be, for instance, some were live-ins and thus maybe got a lower rate but then didn't have to pay for as much (or at all) for such things as rent/utilities/food. Or some had more kids or other responsibilities. We don't really get to know much about what Tara was like, but I don't think there's much from the show to base the notion that the other nannies thought Tara was racist. Of course we had the United Colors of Benneton (dated reference but what the hell. I'll try to bring it back) in terms of the Spice Girls -- one Black, one White, one Latina and one Asian.

I agree about the last part. The Googles tells me that the average salary for a nanny in L.A. is about $25/hour. It could be that's what Tara was making while the rest of the Spice Girls typically made $35/hour. It could be that the Spice Girls made $25ish, and she only made $15. Hard to believe someone could live solo as she did in L.A. on about $30k a year, but that's TV for you.