Season 16: Ciao! Fontana

[andromeda331]

13 hours ago, Xeliou66 said:

Yeah Fontana’s actions were wrong, and it almost led to the perp getting off where he could continue he pattern of robbery, kidnapping and fraud. Fontana didn’t seem to even care about that, and if he had just done his job the right way he would’ve discovered the girl anyway. And yeah torture is unreliable as well as immoral. I just am not a big Fontana fan because of how he had some fascist tendencies and seemed to be fond of abusing his power, and he had an aura of smugness about him. Like I say, it was convenient that we didn’t see Green or Van Buren after Fontana’s stunt, Anita would’ve been livid with him IMO.

Yeah, Anita was always quick to go after her cops when they did that as others had found out. She really should have with Fontana too. What he did was wrong and it was in character for her to do so.

Quote

I liked Dworkin as always though, and Jack was really good as well. Borgia was a bit whiny, I get that she was disturbed by Fontana’s actions but she seemed to feel bad that the perp was going to prison, which was ridiculous, the dude was blatantly guilty of kidnapping and bank robbery. Borgia was kind of acting like Serena in this one. So I like the episode for Dworkin and Jack, but Fontana was a moron who abused his power greatly in this one.

Dworkin was always great. I don't get Borgia either for being sad that he was going to jail. He still kidnapped a girl and the bank robbery. It wasn't forced to do it or anything. He chose to do it. Borgia was a lot like Serena. While Serena liked to defend all criminals Borgia liked to defend all Christian criminals. Same thing.

 

[Xeliou66]

2 minutes ago, andromeda331 said:

Yeah, Anita was always quick to go after her cops when they did that as others had found out. She really should have with Fontana too. What he did was wrong and it was in character for her to do so.

Dworkin was always great. I don't get Borgia either for being sad that he was going to jail. He still kidnapped a girl and the bank robbery. It wasn't forced to do it or anything. He chose to do it. Borgia was a lot like Serena. While Serena liked to defend all criminals Borgia liked to defend all Christian criminals. Same thing.

 

Yeah I have a feeling Anita would be angry about Fontana’s stunt, she never tolerated rule breaking or abuses of power. Fontana all too often came off like he thought he was above the rules, it made him unlikable a lot of the time.

Dworkin is an awesome character, I wish he would make an appearance on the revival, he was on SVU a few years ago so you never know. I loved his colorful antics. It was a good twist that it was the dad of the guy killed robbing the bank that masterminded the scheme. I’m not sure why Borgia acted upset that she salvaged the case, the guy belonged in prison, Fontana’s actions not withstanding. Borgia and Serena are the only two second chair ADAs I dislike, the rest are good. 

[Xeliou66]

We were talking about Borgia on the season 15 thread, and while I’m not a Borgia fan overall and hated her in In God We Trust, she had one good episode in the episode that is on right now, Cost of Capital. She was really good with Katie and with her disgust with the doctor who covered up Andrew Keener raping his daughter and granddaughter. She had personality in this one and was an effective lawyer, usually she was just kind of there without doing much and sometimes she was very irritating. But she was good in this one. 
This is a great episode, it might be my favorite from season 16, it was a strong case from start to finish. I loved the investigation by Green/Fontana and the trial. Both Andrew and Sophia were evil, Andrew was a sociopathic predator who raped his daughter and granddaughter and Sophia was a sociopath as well who murdered a man in cold blood and then threw her daughter under the bus to try to save her own ass. She should’ve gotten away from her dad, and if she really cared about her daughter she never would’ve let her garbage father anywhere near her, but she didn’t, I think she was just as big of a sociopath as her father, what happened to her was awful but she didn’t care about anyone but herself and murdered an innocent man and felt no remorse for it and then had her daughter publicly humiliated to try to defend herself. I liked Jack at the end saying “no more deals” and refusing to deal with either Sophia or Andrew.

Next up is America Inc, which is worth watching if only for Jack blowing up at the always irritating and self righteous Melnick at the end - “who gives a damn what you think, anyway?!”. Very satisfying. Fucking twat should’ve been disbarred back in season 13. 

[andromeda331]

On 11/2/2023 at 2:47 PM, Xeliou66 said:

We were talking about Borgia on the season 15 thread, and while I’m not a Borgia fan overall and hated her in In God We Trust, she had one good episode in the episode that is on right now, Cost of Capital. She was really good with Katie and with her disgust with the doctor who covered up Andrew Keener raping his daughter and granddaughter. She had personality in this one and was an effective lawyer, usually she was just kind of there without doing much and sometimes she was very irritating. But she was good in this one. 
This is a great episode, it might be my favorite from season 16, it was a strong case from start to finish. I loved the investigation by Green/Fontana and the trial. Both Andrew and Sophia were evil, Andrew was a sociopathic predator who raped his daughter and granddaughter and Sophia was a sociopath as well who murdered a man in cold blood and then threw her daughter under the bus to try to save her own ass. She should’ve gotten away from her dad, and if she really cared about her daughter she never would’ve let her garbage father anywhere near her, but she didn’t, I think she was just as big of a sociopath as her father, what happened to her was awful but she didn’t care about anyone but herself and murdered an innocent man and felt no remorse for it and then had her daughter publicly humiliated to try to defend herself. I liked Jack at the end saying “no more deals” and refusing to deal with either Sophia or Andrew.

Sophia turned out to be every bit of a sociopath as her father maybe even more so. She had plenty of time to get away from him. To keep her daughter away from him. Hell, she could have taken his business and money away from him. She didn't. She stayed with him. She worked with him, thought nothing of using him as an alibi. Thought nothing of murdering a man and then used her ex to help her with it making a deal for custody of her daughter. Thought nothing of destroying her daughter on the stand. She knew exactly what would happen if her daughter stayed with him. They were horrible people. I hope the doctor gets taken down too.

Quote

Next up is America Inc, which is worth watching if only for Jack blowing up at the always irritating and self righteous Melnick at the end - “who gives a damn what you think, anyway?!”. Very satisfying. Fucking twat should’ve been disbarred back in season 13. 

Yes she should. Disbarred and in jail.

[Xeliou66]

9 hours ago, andromeda331 said:

Sophia turned out to be every bit of a sociopath as her father maybe even more so. She had plenty of time to get away from him. To keep her daughter away from him. Hell, she could have taken his business and money away from him. She didn't. She stayed with him. She worked with him, thought nothing of using him as an alibi. Thought nothing of murdering a man and then used her ex to help her with it making a deal for custody of her daughter. Thought nothing of destroying her daughter on the stand. She knew exactly what would happen if her daughter stayed with him. They were horrible people. I hope the doctor gets taken down too.

Yes she should. Disbarred and in jail.

Yeah Sophia was evil, she didn’t care at all about her daughter and had no problem publicly humiliating her to try to get off the hook for murder. I loved that Jack told both Sophia and her piece of scum father to shove their deals and that he was going for the maximum punishment for both of them. Both of them were garbage. The one that I couldn’t get a read on was Sophia’s ex, he seemed like he cared about his daughter but he didn’t seem to care very much that his daughter was abused, most parents would be determined to get to the bottom of who hurt their child and to protect their child from any further abuse, but this dude seemed nonchalant about the whole thing. Obviously Sophia knew everything and told Katie never to tell anyone, but the dad’s attitude about it seemed weird. I did like when Green yelled at him in the interrogation room - his whole attitude was off.

Melnick is one of my least favorite characters in the show - she should’ve had her license yanked after defying the judge’s order in Open Season and Jack going to bat for her is one of the few moments I was annoyed with Jack. It was very satisfying here to see Jack blow up on her for not giving her client good advice, she was willing to send him to jail for life just so she could make a statement. She was so smug. 

[andromeda331]

17 hours ago, Xeliou66 said:

Yeah Sophia was evil, she didn’t care at all about her daughter and had no problem publicly humiliating her to try to get off the hook for murder. I loved that Jack told both Sophia and her piece of scum father to shove their deals and that he was going for the maximum punishment for both of them. Both of them were garbage. The one that I couldn’t get a read on was Sophia’s ex, he seemed like he cared about his daughter but he didn’t seem to care very much that his daughter was abused, most parents would be determined to get to the bottom of who hurt their child and to protect their child from any further abuse, but this dude seemed nonchalant about the whole thing. Obviously Sophia knew everything and told Katie never to tell anyone, but the dad’s attitude about it seemed weird. I did like when Green yelled at him in the interrogation room - his whole attitude was off.

I can't either. He at least cared about his daughter and what happened to her. But he also went along with helping Sophia cover up her murder. Sure she leverage custody of their daughter. But he still did it. 

[Xeliou66]

4 hours ago, andromeda331 said:

I can't either. He at least cared about his daughter and what happened to her. But he also went along with helping Sophia cover up her murder. Sure she leverage custody of their daughter. But he still did it. 

Yeah he was puzzling - he seemed to care about the daughter, but he didn’t seem that interested in finding out who abused her, and yeah he helped Sophia cover up the murder so he clearly wasn’t that great of a guy. It was satisfying when Green yelled at him to wake up. Sophia and Andrew were just pure evil. 
This is definitely Borgia’s best episode, it’s one of the only episodes that she made a strong impact in and in a good way. Usually she was just kind of there. 

[TakomaSnark]

On 2/28/2024 at 6:37 PM, Xeliou66 said:

It’s so satisfying to see Jack blow up at self serving  Melnick in America Inc, Melnick was just the fucking worst, smug, unlikable and unethical, always putting herself and her agendas ahead of her clients and her ethics, and I loved seeing Jack tell the defendant Melnick didn’t have his best interests in mind and was giving him lousy advice, and the bellowing at her “who gives a damn what you think anyway?!”. Very satisfying, fuck Melnick, she’s my least favorite of all of the attorneys - she was one of the few who I felt was unethical and extremely self righteous. Why Jack went to bat for her in Open Season is beyond me. The case itself was just kind of average, one of the many Iraq war themed episodes from that time, but Jack finally having enough of Melnick’s crap was great.

Thinking Makes It So is on now, where Fontana sticks the dude’s head in the toilet. I love Dworkin, he was always an entertaining defense attorney, his rant at the arraignment was funny and he was his usual unorthodox self. He tried to make his client less sympathetic than Fontana and it almost worked. Fontana really pissed me off here - what was he thinking? Had he just done his job properly he would’ve found the girl and there wouldn’t have been an issue, and did he really think the defense attorney wouldn’t make an issue out of his actions? Fontana was just not likable most of the time, he came off as a bully who abused his power and thought the rules didn’t apply to him. I imagine Van Buren would be furious when she found out about Fontana’s stunt here. But the defendant deserved to be found guilty and Jack’s closing was strong as always, the defendant was guilty of kidnapping and robbery, regardless of Fontana’s actions. I liked Arthur’s colorful anecdote about fishing. It’s a strong episode.

The rest of the season will air tonight as well - Positive and Kingmaker are just average episodes, I’m not a fan of Hindsight, Falco really annoys me, I disliked him in his 4 episodes in season 15 and he was a moron in this episode. Invaders is a pretty good season finale - Borgia’s murder was shocking, Jack had a lot of good scenes in that one and I liked his interactions with Green/Fontana/Van Buren. 

I actually thought of your Melnick dislike while watching that scene last night!! 

[shapeshifter]

10 hours ago, Xeliou66 said:

Thinking Makes It So is on now, where Fontana sticks the dude’s head in the toilet.
…what was he thinking? Had he just done his job properly he would’ve found the girl and there wouldn’t have been an issue, and did he really think the defense attorney wouldn’t make an issue out of his actions? Fontana…
came off as a bully who abused his power

These are probably mostly rhetorical questions for which you aren't really seeking excuses, but, on the outside chance my insights might be of interest:

Dennis Farina (Fontana) was born in 1944; I was born in 1953. So the character of Farina and I would have experienced similar child rearing practices. Although I never had my head flushed in a toilet or my mouth washed out with soap for saying a bad word or lying, I think my older sister might have once or twice. 😱

So I (and other viewers of my age) more easily accepted Fontana thinking giving the kidnapper a "swirly" was necessary to save the life of a child, and he might even have thought there was a good chance that his actions, while illegal by 2006, would have been brushed aside by his fellow officers since it did not leave permanent marks or injuries.

HOWEVER, my initial interpretation of the scene was NOT realistic.
Actually, such coercion was outlawed for criminal interrogation long before it lost acceptance as a parenting technique of last resort: 
law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-5/custodial-interrogation-doctrine-from-1940s-to-1960s

[Xeliou66]

3 hours ago, TakomaSnark said:

I actually thought of your Melnick dislike while watching that scene last night!! 

That scene was awesome. Melnick should’ve been disbarred back in season 13 and it was beyond time she got called out for putting herself above her clients and behaving in a slimy manner. The rest of the episode was just average but it was great to see Melnick get called out.

2 hours ago, shapeshifter said:

These are probably mostly rhetorical questions for which you aren't really seeking excuses, but, on the outside chance my insights might be of interest:

Dennis Farina (Fontana) was born in 1944; I was born in 1953. So the character of Farina and I would have experienced similar child rearing practices. Although I never had my head flushed in a toilet or my mouth washed out with soap for saying a bad word or lying, I think my older sister might have once or twice. 😱

So I (and other viewers of my age) more easily accepted Fontana thinking giving the kidnapper a "swirly" was necessary to save the life of a child, and he might even have thought there was a good chance that his actions, while illegal by 2006, would have been brushed aside by his fellow officers since it did not leave permanent marks or injuries.

HOWEVER, my initial interpretation of the scene was NOT realistic.
Actually, such coercion was outlawed for criminal interrogation long before it lost acceptance as a parenting technique of last resort: 
law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-5/custodial-interrogation-doctrine-from-1940s-to-1960s

I get that Fontana was a very old school cop who came from a different time, but he should’ve known his actions could come back to bite him in the ass. Fontana was just not likable to me usually - he came off as a bully much of the time and he was borderline unethical, and Green even hinted at it saying he didn’t know if Fontana was a wiseguy or a cop in his first episode.