Chicago Redshirt

Again, it is a question of whether you have the two elements of murder -- mens rea (guilty mind) and actus reus (physical act). You have to have them for each of the individuals for them to be guilty of murder. The only one who has the actus reus is Wes. The only way any of the others could be guilty of murder or any other crime is either through felony-murder or some sort of conspiracy/accomplice liability. I don't think there can be any conspiracy liability because a conspiracy requires a "meeting of the minds" to accomplish something. As to the mens rea, I don't think you can say that Wes had the classic "malice aforethought" guilty mindset. http://dictionary.law.com/Default.aspx?selected=1198 That is, when he swung the statue, was he thinking "I'm going to kill/really hurt this sonuvagun!" That would be malice aforethought. More likely, Capt. Save-a-ho was thinking "I've gotta save a ho." It could be manslaughter because arguably this was a killing in the heat of the moment, or because there was what at worst could be called "imperfect self-defense/defense of others" -- basically Wes was under the belief that he had to act to save Rebecca, but he was incorrect in how he acted. So really the only way this might fit as "murder" is felony murder, which sidesteps all that and just says basically "if you were intending to commit a felony and someone dies in the midst of it, it doesn't matter that you didn't intend to kill him." Anyway, as to hitting Sam in the head while he was choking Rebecca, There was no meeting of the minds to steal the computer info originally. One could say that there was once Sam went berserk. But it's still an open question as to why Wes wanted Laurel to take the flash drive, why Laurel took it, and why Michaela defended Laurel. I don't think it can be truly said that they were all of one mind on any of this. Clearly if this wasn't an idiot plot, Michaela should have called Annalise and 911 at some point before the rest of the Scoobies got there. (And I wish there were a better term for them because they deserve to be comingled either with the cartoon Scoobies or the Buffy Scoobies. They just aren't cool or smart or funny enough.) But once it became a struggle with Sam, there wasn't a ton of time to call the cops. They were debating as to what to do when they thought he was dead, and then he immediately sprang up and started to choke Rebecca. If you take the facts as we saw them, Sam told them to get out. As the homeowner, he can rescind the invitation to these people for any reason or no reason. Staying after the homeowner has told them to leave is trespassing, even if they were like "We'll leave as soon as you calm down.". Of course, since they could tell any story that they wanted, they could just say that they were welcomed in the home initially but then Sam went cray and started attacking them.

Actual attorney here, and I'll expand a little more about what I said above. Felony-murder IMO would not likely apply here among the Scoobies because there was not a conspiracy to commit the underlying felonies relating to the breaking and entering and stealing the computer data. (Interestingly enough, Nate hypothetically could be on the hook for felony-murder because he and Rebecca did have an agreement to get the computer data, and it seems like that agreement involved the understanding that she would do so by committing a felony.) Rebecca did not have any plans with any of the Scoobies to break in to the home. One could argue that a conspiracy to steal the flash drive was formed while the Scoobies were struggling over the flash drive itself. Wes told Lauren to get it, Lauren actually took it, Laurel and Michaela ran away together. I personally think that is a relatively weak argument, especially because it's unclear what any of the three ultimately planned to do with the flash drive. As portrayed, when Sam went over the stairs looked like an accident to me. It didn't even seem like Michaela pushed him. And with Sam choking Rebecca, he was using lethal force in defense of property. My understanding (although I've not done research in this) is that would be an overreaction. You are only justified in using lethal force in self-defense if faced with lethal force. So I would think Wes would be justified in striking out in defense of Rebecca. But even accepting for argument's sake that there would be enough for felony murder under the actual facts of what happened, this is all unbelievably silly because the five people there are the only ones who know what actually happened in the house. They can pretend that there was no flash drive, make up whatever story they want about why Sam went crazy and started attacking them. Surely coming up with a cover story that seemed plausible and clear self-defense would be easier and better than the extreme lengths that the Scoobies went to in order to cover up the non-murder.

Annie and Sam have an argument in which Sam goes from begging Annie to believe him and his innocence to choking her, Annie then leaves. Wes, Connor and Laurel are diverted from their study grouping to check on Rebecca. Wes tells the car that Sam killed Lila. Because anybody can just walk into Prof. Keating's office/home 24/7, Michaela does so without knocking or anything. She's thinking she can redeem the trophy she stole as a get-out-of-exam-card. Despite the fact that not a single light is on in the house for some reason, she walks right in and is confronted by Sam. Rebecca, who has no doubt seen Michaela enter the front door, decides that on the eve of her trial to try to commit a crime by sneaking in to copy Sam's hard drive. She too can walk in almost unnoticed until Michaela says "Rebecca?" Sam assumes that Rebecca and Michaela are in cahoots and waits an eternity before Rebecca tells Michaela to call Wes and then bolts. She manages to get upstairs, find his computer, which is apparently not password protected or anything, stick the flash drive in it and it starts downloading everything on it. Sam threatens to call the police and busts open her own door. Rebecca manages to hide in another room. Meanwhile, Michaela does call the study group and lets them know what is happening. They arrive before Sam breaks down door #2, and Wes tries to convince Sam to calm down and they'll leave. Sam's freaking out about what Rebecca might be doing with his computer. (Which, given that he erased his cell phone records, makes me wonder why he would be so stupid to leave anything incriminating on there.) Anyway, he pretends to calm down. Wes talks Rebecca down after the magic flash drive has finished copying everything on Sam's computer. Instead of hiding the flash drive, Rebecca keeps it in her hand. Sam pretends to be calm and then bum-rushes Rebecca. There's some melee action in which despite being outnumbered five to one, middle-aged Sam can get the best of everyone. Laurel for some reason listens to Wes and grabs the Magic Flash Drive. Sam starts to chase after her. For some reason, Michaela is able to push Sam over a railing. Let's go with his momentum. Sam falls over the railing and there's a nasty thud. Not one of these law students checks Sam for a pulse, breath, or whatever. They all presume that Sam is dead and spend a few minutes arguing. They are busy having an argument about felony-murder. (In short, it's a doctrine that if people are co-conspirators in a felony and someone gets killed during the commission of the felony -- even one of the co-conspirators -- the co-conpsirators can be found guilty of murder. The idea is that felonies are so dangerous it should be considered foreseeable that someone might be killed during them and thus you have the mens rea, or guilty mind, element satisfied.) The trouble of course is that they are not and were not co-conspirators in stealing the computer information initially. They just were for plot reasons when Sam goes cray. Also, the five of them can tell basically any story that they want to the cops. It's not like there's any proof they were fighting over the flash drive in the first place. Also, I don't know how one could show that the students, who have had free rein of this place "broke into" the unlocked Keating home as Laurel said that they did. Somehow, without anyone noticing and in the best horror-movie-villain fashion, Sam has gotten up and gotten to Rebecca and started choking her. Wes grabs the trophy and smacks Sam on the back of his head. (Because why just pull Sam off of her with your four to one advantage). It does not take Dexter quit being a lumberjack to show that it is impossible for a hit to the back of someone's head is not going to cause blood to spatter on the front of someone's head. Yet, Rebecca, who has Sam on top of her, gets blood all over her face. Despite there being all these witnesses to this being an act of self-defense, and despite some people not having anything to do with the killing of Sam, despite these students not liking each other, despite knowing a world-class defense attorney, the folks rapidly come to the conclusion that they are all equally responsible and the best thing to do would be to cover up the killing. (Which, as portrayed, was basically self-defense. But "How to Get Away With Self-Defense" is no where near as catchy a title.) Wes cleans Rebecca up. Luckily he has a spare t-shirt and sweatshirt or something. Asher shows up, and apparently the Keating home has been locked. Or at least, he doesn't try the door and get in like everyone else does. Asher apparently thinks to come to the Keating house instead of just calling Michaela to get the trophy back. The co-conspirators don't even bother trying to talk in quiet tones. But Asher doesn't pick up on it, and eventually gets tired and goes to the bonfire where he gets his dance moves on. Wes drops Rebecca off at the hotel and tells her not to leave, which as we've seen she already does. Wes returns to campus and gets lost in thought in time for a driver to get mad and not even possibly remember the asshat. He goes to the Keatings, picks up the trophy with his bare hands and says, "I'm so sorry." As we find out at the end of the episode, Annie is there watching. Wes heads to meet the students, presumably after Annie has talked him through what to do. Previously, Annie had gone to the police station and was thinking of ratting Sam out. (Or was she?) Then she goes to Nate's house and sobs on his shoulder. And then they hook up. (I'm under the impression that she has already talked with Wes and knows that Sam is dead, Which is actually an interesting double bluff. If she were trying to concoct an alibi for herself, fucking her sidepiece after confessing to him that she just got into a fight with her husband is probably not the move. Unless you are counting on it being perceived as such a bad move that it's a brilliant move). Annie leaves a long-ass voicemail that is of the same nature -- either incriminating sounding or so blatantly incriminating that it's actually exculpatory. Part of the plan is that smoke from burning Sam's body will be covered up by the bonfire, even though the two are in completely separatelocations. First of all, unless I missed something, there's no guarantee that there is anything incriminating on Sam's computer. We can suspect that there is because he went a little crazy trying to get the flash drive back. Second, the computer is presumably still there and they can still copy stuff from it. It's just that the Magic Flash Drive would show when the files were copied, which would put them at the house at the time of the murder.

She's a soldier (in this incarnation) and believes in service and sacrifice. I could see her not caring so much about her own wellbeing or best interests once the bigger picture is framed.

I think Wells' argument is perfectly persuasive, actually, to anyone familiar with Eiling or who has been hunted by him, as Plastique has. Eiling is ruthless and will never stop hunting her. In fact, Eiling will also never stop hunting metahumans, who she has now learned exist, and now knows of only the one good one in Barry, Eiling undoubtedly intends to either enslave these metahumans or turn them into lab rats or both. Or worse. The only way to protect her and people like her from Eiling is to take him out. The main problem with this logic is, to quote another comic franchise, cut off one head and two more will rise to take its place. It's not like the death of General Eiling would cause the military to say "Huh, I guess we should leave those metas alone then."

It's good to know that Ollie has some sexual boundaries other than blood relatives. It strains credibility that Cupid can last more than 5 seconds in a fist fight with him, but whatevs. I love me some Felicity, but she has now had some level of romance with Green Arrow, Flash and now future Atom. Arsenal's probably, "When's my hook-up?"

This brings one thing up that I'm wondering about: what exactly does the press/public or even the average copper know about all these incidents? I mean, so far we've had metahumans create tornados, clone themselves a gazillion times, freeze people to death, choke people to death by turning into poison gas, blow up real good on the river, turn into metal and steal stuff. (Not to mention Barry's own actions, plus the reference to Firestorm being around, plus Grodd doing something or another, plus various metahumans who we haven't yet seen but who presumably have been doing stuff for quite some time.) Is the Central City Citizen covering this? Is Iris the only reporter-adjacent person looking at any of these freaky circumstances? What do to the police have to say all this weird stuff?

When Joe was questioning Harrison, Harrison told him to look into Tess Morgan to get to the truth about him. From their later conversation, it appears that Tess Morgan was a scientist that Wells said was much more brilliant than him, who died around the time of Nora Allen's murder. Harrison tried to shoot down the notion that anyone had developed the particle accelerator tech 14 years ago, so therefore there couldn't have been the creation of someone with similar super-powers to Barry's 14 years ago.

Basically, I want to have more insight into what Annalise is thinking and more scenes for Viola Davis, preferably with another established actor/actress. Having a mentor would help in both these regards. I'd be fine with multiple DAs too...I just would prefer it to not be that they play the Washington Generals to Annie's Harlem Globetrotters. At least give them the illusion of being competent, layered, and ethical rather than the whining, beat-down, paper-thin excuses we've had so far. It probably would be easiest to accomplish that with a single person than a team.

I thought to start this thread after people in the 1.08 thread were talking about the dead weight they would drop or keep. Because even though I'm mostly enjoying the show, it could definitely be improved by cutting some characters (among other things). Here's what I would do: The main cast: Annalise (obviously) Connor (because he brings the snark, the sexy if you're into that thing) Michaela (because she's also snarky and getting stuff done on cases) Asher (in small doses, he's pretty hilarious) Nate (because I think he's a fun character, and he can be an investigator/love interest for Annie) New/recurring guest characters Elizabeth Perkins' character because she's hilarious and could form a friendship/sounding board for Annie A main prosecutor to be Annie's nemesis A judge or other attorney to be her mentor Characters I would fix or minimize Bonnie - I don't really get her character. Wes - I'm not sure if I like the Puppy persona or the Puppy-with-a-secret persona less. Frank/Laurel - dull with no real personality other than their arbitrary, chemistry-free interest in one another

Brands do have to be burned into the skin. His story as Lycisus (sp? and I noted that his cover ID uses Marcus Crassus's middle name) was that his master branded him in the groin area and he was so relieved to be free of him that he cut the branded skin off. I think that Caesar was just freaky and liked being cut down there and wove that into his cover story. They didn't explicitly show the plans to infiltrate Spartacusopolis (or whatever it's called really) so I could be wrong though. I actually thought that Tiberius might draw the white stone and the friend might swap with him to save his life. I actually thought the show explained the rationale reasonably well. If you buy into Crassus's logic that the reason why people fled was that they feared the enemy more than their own commanders, it follows that the way to remedy that is to get them to fear their own commanders more. The notion that as a first wave of punishment for retreat you might be savagely killed anyway, or at best, you would be forced to kill some of those you considered friend seems like a good way to drum the fear of one's commanders. Especially since there might be a second wave that's even worse somehow. In terms of keeping numbers up, Marcus has a humongous numbers advantage so I don't think he's worried about losing 5 men to decimation, especially if in the long-term it brings about the unity that prevents him from losing 500+ in future battles. One of the issues with this season to me compared to last one is that Glaber didn't know until the last few eps where the rebels were, and thus could not really fight them. Here, the Romans obviously know where the rebels are. it seems like the Romans could turn Spartacusopolis into a prison, staying far enough back to prevent any attacks on them, but preventing any food, weapons or slaves from coming to the city. Eventually, the rebels would just die. Or alternatively, they could just set up catapults and burn the city to the ground.

Law school exams are fairly different from other exams that at least I have taken. They generally are essay exams that consist of somewhere between 3-8 hypothetical scenarios that ask the students to determine how the law should apply in them. Some professors give open book, take-home exams, some give multiple-choice, some might have papers, and some give mix-and-match essays/multiple choice. But the standard approach is for you to have three hours in class to do an essay exam. Generally speaking, a professor is going to write a new exam each year for his/her class, in part because there may be changes in the law in the course, and in part because they like coming up with new hypothetical situations. A fair amount of mine liked to rip situations from the headlines. Also, the test Professor Smith might have for a contracts class might be very different than a test that Professor Jones might have for a class on the same subject. As far as I know, there was no issue about academic integrity in terms of obtaining old exams and using those to study. At least at my law school, and I suspect at most law schools, some professors even had copies of their past exams on reserve at the library.

1. Annalise may have fired Bonnie because Bonnie withheld pretty key information from her. (The person their client is accused of killing came to Annie and Sam's house shortly before her disappearance wanting to talk to Annie about her husband.) Knowing that info might have not only changed how Annie would have defended Rebecca but also how she reacted to Sam personally and professionally. She may have fired Bonnie because of jealousy/envy over Sam trying to manipulate Bonnie because of perceived affection for her. She may have fired Bonnie just because she's feeling like lashing out. She may have fired Bonnie because Bonnie has basically been dead weight. (In now 8 episodes, what has she contributed to help Annie win? Nothing comes to my mind.) 2. There is an obvious conflict of interest between Rebecca and Sam. There is no telling necessarily that Annie would not throw Rebecca under the bus to protect Sam if it came down to it. Sam is, after all, her husband. Even though Wes knows that she has cheated on Sam, there is presumably something between them. And Annie has shown herself to not particularly care about scruples or rules when it comes to getting what she wants. She's planted evidence, broken gag rules, encouraged her students to trade sex for info and break whatever rules might stand in their way. As to why Rebecca doesn't just fire Annie because of the conflict, that doesn't really help much. First of all, Rebecca is not going to find a better legal team at this stage of the game. She can't afford one and of course, Annie is being depicted as all-world, undefeated, etc. Second, if Annie decides to want to screw Rebecca over in favor of Sam, being fired as her lawyer isn't going to necessarily stop her. At least by keeping Annie on as her lawyer, Rebecca and Wes have some inkling as to what Annie is up to. 3. Your guess as is good as anyone's (or at least, mine) as to what Nate's motivation(s) are. To win Annie? To get revenge against Annie? To win his job back? Just the interest of justice? Spite towards Sam? Because he's Lila's killer? 4. The trophy's the dumbest thing ever. I'm not sure if Annie really means that she doesn't care about who has it or if she just was fed up with things being out of control and she just told Michaela whatever. I have to assume that you can't really just steal the trophy and have it have full effect. 5. In law school, outlines are a key study tool. The idea is that you sum up the key points from all the cases/concepts from the semester in an easy-to-follow form. Some professors will let you use the outlines themselves while taking the exam. So having a good outline is something that students can cling to because there's so much uncertainty as to where you might stand. Most law schools grade classes -- especially first year classes -- on a curve. And they are usually based on one end-of-semester exam. People do pass down outlines from year to year, and the notion that you're using an A student's outline gives people a little extra confidence that they will thus be studying the right stuff and then be in a better position to get an A. Many of my law professors insisted -- I think correctly -- that the actual learning process comes from formulating your own outline rather than just copying someone else's. But that probably hasn't stopped any law student from trying to take the shortcut of getting either a commercial outline or the outline of a student who previously had a specific professor for a given subject. Similarly, getting a copy of an exam -- or several exams -- that a specific professor used before helps because it gives you a sense of what kinds of questions the professor might ask. (One professor can teach a given subject very differently from another professor, be interested in different things and grade very differently.) And it lets you practice writing the kind of answers they might be looking for. Oftentimes, the professor will make available model answers, or review answers to the old exams during office hours. And hypothetically, law school classes aren't entirely about rote memorization, but applying legal reasoning to facts and then reaching a conclusion.

Grant Gustin looks really young. But presumably he and Iris are supposed to be about the same age, and she's midway through grad school, so he would have to be done with college. When he first appeared on Arrow, they teased him about how young he looked.

I think Wells was using just regular ol' persuasiveness and manipulation rather than any mind control stuff based in part because of comics stuff... Plastique's real name is "Bette Sans Souci" so it may have sounded weird because you were expecting "Beth" rather than "Bette" (which is pronounced like "bet.")

Not that I'm aware of. But there's at least a looks resemblance between Kyle M and Maximus, Kyle M's character is an insane genius and he's connected to this alien stuff that we are now strongly is connected to the Inhumans/Attilan.

Thinking that Iris may be threatened by blogging about the Streak may be a problem of being genre-savvy. If I had $1 for every time someone threatened Lois or Jimmy because of their connections to Superman (but strangely, I can't think of any times people have threatened Clark directly) or Peter, JJJ or the rest of the Bugle crew in an attempt to get to Spider-Man and similar type relationships, I could probably finance my own Hollywood studio. Also, I wonder if she will in fact blog about the Streak contacting her and trying to encourage her to not continue blogging. On the one hand she has more proof that he exists. On the other hand, blogging "I'm blogging this despite this heroic figure telling me not to" is at least somewhat obnoxious. As for people coming back from the dead, I'd say that's a comics-wide thing. Pretty much every character has been brought back from the dead at least once, and most of the supporting characters and villains who have died in the midst of a superhero's career have also been brought back or pseudo-brought back. It's only characters that were dead before the hero became a hero that have stayed dead (like Thomas/Martha Wayne, Uncle Ben, Jor-El and Lara-El, for example).

People are pretty universally sure that the city is Attillan. I wonder: does that open up the possibility that Papa Skye is Maximus the Mad?

Compared to the various actresses on CW/The WB/UPN's genre shows over the years (such as Birds of Prey, Arrow, Smallville, etc. etc.), the woman who played Plastique was on the higher end of the scale both in terms of acting and hotness, IMO!

I would say that the character of Iris is somewhat a heedless and flaky teenager, or at least, has a fair amount of growing up to do. If she really wanted to be a cop, no amount of overprotectiveness from Joe could have tanked that. Even if he had the juice to keep her out of the Central City police academy, there's countless other police departments she could join. She could have early on come clean about dating her dad's partner, but she let that issue stay unresolved for as long as it did. Hopefully the writers will give Iris more dimensions beyond Joe's daughter, Barry's love interest, Eddie's love interest and Flash groupie. When we see pretty much every other character, I get what they're about and why they are jazzed about what they're jazzed about. (Wells being a slight exception, as at least some of his motivation is a mystery by design.)

On another topic, usually I love the Joe-Barry interactions. But Joe being all "I've known forever that you wanted to break off a piece of my daughter, quasi-son, and I'm psyched about that!" was a little squicky. That said, Jesse L. Martin did his level best to pull that off.

I like how Flash is willing to borrow from the rest of the DCU for its characters and update/tweak them for its use. Bette San Souci/Plastique originally was a French-Canadian terrorist whose adversary was Firestorm. General Wade Eiling helped create Captain Atom and in at least one incarnation of the character became a supervillain in his own right called the General. I kinda hope that we do get some Captain Atom stuff down the line, even if it's only Easter eggs. In comics as in soap operas, no body, no death. Barry should have gone back to where he dropped her off to check. As for Iris: I pretty much agree with what the consensus is. "I'm chasing the Streak down to convince Barry he's not crazy" doesn't really work as a motivation when Barry tells you to stop chasing the Streak down, and when it is presumably public knowledge on some level, or at least police knowledge, that a guy has controlled the weather, another guy has turned himself into poisonous mist, another guy has had the ability to control multiple spontaneous clones of himself and another guy has a cold gun. I will give the show this: Iris has gone the most episodes of such a character without being directly threatened, kidnapped or held hostage that I can think of. (I'm not counting Multiplex because really all Multiplex wanted was to kill Stagg. So he posed little threat to anyone who didn't get in the way of that). So although it is obvious to anyone who has read a comic or watched a TV show that that will not be the case forever, I could see how a character might think that not telling her about his abilities might in and of itself be a form of protecting her. (As opposed to Smallville/Arrow/Gotham, where Lana/Laurel/Barbara's lives were/are in jeopardy on a biweekly basis, and where knowing about what Clark/Ollie/Jim actually do, what they are facing, etc. would have been useful.) In addition to what has been said, the contrast between instantly telling Bette, who he doesn't know from a hole in the wall, and not telling Iris, mainly because Joe said so because reasons, is striking. I do hope that Iris puts the pieces together. She knows that Barry is acting strangely, and that he had this weird accident happen to him where he was struck with lightning. She knows the Streak has a lightning bolt on his chest. She knows that the Streak saved the security guard from being shot by a gunman, and she knows that Barry was next to her one second and then was passed out outside shortly thereafter. She knows the approximate height of the Streak and that of Barry.

I don't think that they have said exactly what Frank is in terms of his title. The only thing I remember him doing job-wise besides snark about the law students and hit on Laurel was having a contact who could wipe some of the data from the phone, presumably using that contact to do that, and then planting the phone in broad daylight. Then again, it's not like the show has had Bonnie do much of anything besides snark about the law students, give bitchface, and sit at counsel's table with Annalise. She got the unedited version of the confession tape thanks to blackmail and exposited that Lila was preggers.

Whoops, someone beat me to it on "Prayer is for the weak."

Hitting Sam, even such that he bled profusely, doesn't necessarily mean that Rebecca struck the death blow(s). He could be alive when Bonnie/Nate/take-your-pick-of-suspects came along and finished him off.