S01.E02: A Place We Came Together

[Whimsy]

Quote

When Roz and Eileen find a lead in Gloria’s case, Eileen calls in a favor to help them track down the person of interest. Meanwhile, Claire investigates why beloved local restaurant Rita’s is selling to a big corporation. After landing her first front page story, Yuna learns that success in journalism sometimes comes at a cost.

Original airdate 10/13/22

[SouthernChick]

I liked it.

[possibilities]

I liked it, too, but I'm still bothered that the local reporters need Eileen to tell them things like "ask the Historical Society". They seem more interested in painting her as a savior than as a fish out of water, which I find disappointing. It's insulting to the locals.

[thuganomics85]

So, judging from this episode and last week, it looks like while Eileen and Roz are going to be working the main case for most of each episode, one of the other reporters will be handling the "case of the week" parts of the series.  Last week it was Yuma and tonight was Claire.  I'm guessing it will be Austin next week.  I guess that's a good way to expand upon the rest of the staff.

Suspected early on that Rita herself was going to be behind the arson attack.  Figured it was going to be a simply case of insurance fraud or not wanting the burger corporation to have it, but nope!  It was just because she's was tired of all the hate and anger that comes with, well, almost every customer service job ever and she didn't want any part of that anymore.  A bit of an overkill, but as someone who has worked in that field before, I kind of feel her on that one.

Looks like Eileen and Stanley's bad history is simple on the surface: she had a story and he squashed it due to pressure from the publisher.  Have to imagine there will be more to it though.

Scenery is still great to look at it.

Those burgers actually did look kind of good...

[possibilities]

They had to make the big corporate burgers good or they'd never get another big corporation to run ads again. 

[Shorty186]

I liked it too but it definitely seems like a slow-moving show. Not that that's bad but having to wait a week, makes it lose its momentum, I think.

[Snazzy Daisy]

Are they going to reveal one Person of Interest in Gloria’s case in each episode? The slow pace of this investigation is killing me!

Rita’s frustration is understandable but human behaviors aren’t something you can control. Her impromptu act to burn down her own diner is far fetched, especially in this economy. So, next week must be Austin’s turn for COTW.

Err…why their Town Hall meeting was held in some kind of log cabin??! 

Am I the only one who think that Jamie the poet pilot is the ‘concerned citizen’ who’s threatening Eileen? 🤨

[SG429]

1 hour ago, SnazzyDaisy said:

Are they going to reveal one Person of Interest in Gloria’s case in each episode? The slow pace of this investigation is killing me!

I think Eileen said something to her would-be suitor that she'd only been in town for 4 days, so she's definitely moving along at a tv-episodic pace.

[CrystalBlue]

Moose sighting!!

Isn't arson illegal?  Why would it be okay to be in the paper that Rita admitted doing it?  Even if it's her own property, having a building burning down is a fire and environmental hazard.

[zapper]

gotta love the moose. gotta laugh at the need to Siri moose danger level. Personally, even if Siri had said "he's cool" i would have turned tail and slowly walked away.  A bull moose is territorial at best, aggressive in the wrong season.

I'm not far from the place where they did the burn. They set it up in a parking lot and a couple of days later I saw pictures in the media of the burn being done.  Would love to meet Jeff Perry, great to see him again in a show.

[CrystalBlue]

I am glad Eileen walked away from Mr. Moose.  Seems prudent with or without Siri advice.

[txhorns79]

8 hours ago, SnazzyDaisy said:

Are they going to reveal one Person of Interest in Gloria’s case in each episode? The slow pace of this investigation is killing me!

In fairness, it's only been two episodes.

On 10/14/2022 at 2:11 AM, thuganomics85 said:

Suspected early on that Rita herself was going to be behind the arson attack.  Figured it was going to be a simply case of insurance fraud or not wanting the burger corporation to have it, but nope!  It was just because she's was tired of all the hate and anger that comes with, well, almost every customer service job ever and she didn't want any part of that anymore.  A bit of an overkill, but as someone who has worked in that field before, I kind of feel her on that one.

I just rolled my eyes at the whole thing.  Rita ended up looking just as nuts as the people she was upset over.  She's just lucky that her stunt didn't end up hurting anyone.   

[possibilities]

Seriously, if you're tired of the public, sell the business, retire, hire staff to deal with the public, pretty much anything other than arson.

How will she make a living now, I wonder? She won't get the burger money, will she?

[txhorns79]

6 minutes ago, possibilities said:

She won't get the burger money, will she?

I think she said the burger place was going to tear down her building anyways, so perhaps the fire won't matter to them.  I do presume she will be in danger of getting criminal charges filed against her for the arson.  And yeah, she obviously had a lot of other options than to burn it all down. 

[CrystalBlue]

1 hour ago, txhorns79 said:

I think she said the burger place was going to tear down her building anyways, so perhaps the fire won't matter to them.  I do presume she will be in danger of getting criminal charges filed against her for the arson.  And yeah, she obviously had a lot of other options than to burn it all down. 

Rita is a confessed arsonist with a newspaper article with quotes to prove it!  Are The Daily Alaskan reporters and editor going to wait for the Anchorage District Attorney to pursue charges?  Even the Big Burger place may not want a burned out building on their hands, although the sale didn't go through yet.

Edited October 16, 2022 by CrystalBlue

[proserpina65]

On 10/15/2022 at 6:28 PM, CrystalBlue said:

Isn't arson illegal?  Why would it be okay to be in the paper that Rita admitted doing it?  Even if it's her own property, having a building burning down is a fire and environmental hazard.

Unless she was trying to claim the insurance, she might only be charged with burning without a permit.  Possibly some environmental charges.  Nothing all that serious though since it was her property and no one was in the building when it happened.

On 10/15/2022 at 7:09 PM, CrystalBlue said:

I am glad Eileen walked away from Mr. Moose.  Seems prudent with or without Siri advice.

Yep.  Everything I've ever seen/read about moose/human interactions basically says to leave them the hell alone.

On 10/15/2022 at 11:08 PM, possibilities said:

Seriously, if you're tired of the public, sell the business, retire, hire staff to deal with the public, pretty much anything other than arson.

How will she make a living now, I wonder? She won't get the burger money, will she?

To be fair, she was selling the business until Claire stuck her nose in.  She may still have the deal with Big Burger since they wouldn't have wanted the building anyway.  But yeah, burning the building down was pretty extreme.

Did anyone else think of Deadliest Catch when they mentioned Dutch Harbor?

[Grrarrggh]

7 hours ago, proserpina65 said:

To be fair, she was selling the business until Claire stuck her nose in.

And she could have easily explained the why of it instead of going with the dramatic "I have to" response. Especially if she claimed to think of Claire as family. 

[andromeda331]

On 10/17/2022 at 7:09 PM, Grrarrggh said:

And she could have easily explained the why of it instead of going with the dramatic "I have to" response. Especially if she claimed to think of Claire as family. 

That's really all she had to do. Instead she made it sounded like she had to sell it. That's what made Claire think something was wrong and investigate. Then she got mad when it spiraled out of control. It was her fault. She could have chosen at any time to tell people why she was selling. She chose not to. And also chose to burn her own business down. I get being tired of customer service I got tired of it too but I switched jobs. She burned her business to the ground. What an idiot. I hope she does go to jail.

Edited October 20, 2022 by andromeda331

[mythoughtis]

I predicted the moose last week. However, I thought it would walk down the street rather than a jogging path.  I wouldn’t need Siri to tell me to avoid it.  I avoid animals bigger than me. 
Jordan Teller turned out to be a very weak man.  He  embezzled from the government and one story from a newspaper in a strip mall causes him to commit suicide?  Surely life has given him lemons at some other point.  
 

[proserpina65]

12 hours ago, andromeda331 said:

That's really all she had to do. Instead she made it sounded like she had to sell it. That's what made Claire think something was wrong and investigate. Then she got made when it spiraled out of control. It was her fault. She could have chosen at any time to tell people why she was selling. She chose not to. And also chose to burn her own business down. I get being tired of customer service I got tired of it too but I switched jobs. She burned her business to the ground. What an idiot. I hope she does go to jail.

My problem is I found that entire storyline ridiculous.  Why was that even a story?  Hell, I live in a small town in a rural county and it wouldn't have made the paper until it was time to build the new restaurant.

[possibilities]

Around here, the end of a community business does make the news. For sure! But I agree it was weird that she was pretending she couldn't talk about it. She's the one who started the rumors, by being all cagey about what was happening. Of course people will speculate and assume something nefarious with how she was acting.

[Cosmocrush]

5 hours ago, proserpina65 said:

Hell, I live in a small town in a rural county and it wouldn't have made the paper until it was time to build the new restaurant.

Anchorage is not a small town.  Maybe next to NYC but it's the largest city in the state.  Shopping, restaurants, two (or three?) universities (one public), multiple hospitals, museums, etc.   I've never considered a population of 300K rural.   Alaskans like to say  the best thing about Anchorage is it's only 30 min from Alaska, lol.   Still, we lived in midtown and it wasn't weird to see a moose in the backyard from time to time. 

I'm bummed that the show isn't being filmed there but I'm used to it  since so many shows set in PNW (where I live now) are filmed in Vancouver. 

Like some other posters, I was shocked to see the empty streets and sidewalks downtown in the pilot.  Then I assumed it was maybe filmed during 2020 or summer late at night.  Still, I've never seen that area that empty. 

Edited October 18, 2022 by Cosmocrush

[Grrarrggh]

10 hours ago, mythoughtis said:

Jordan Teller turned out to be a very weak man.  He  embezzled from the government and one story from a newspaper in a strip mall causes him to commit suicide?  Surely life has given him lemons at some other point.  
 

Nearly every man who does the things he did are fragile, weak jerks. It's because they know they're so weak that they have to act out and hurt others to feel powerful. And we can't be 100% he did commit suicide. Could be murder.... The young reporter needs to grow up though. Stop feeling sorry for people like Teller and blaming herself for their actions.

[proserpina65]

17 hours ago, Cosmocrush said:

Anchorage is not a small town. 

I know it's not although the show acts like it is.  My point was that even in my small town/rural county, a local business being sold would NOT be newsworthy so it was unlikely to have been so in someplace bigger which is why I found that storyline to be ridiculous.  This is a large part of my dissatisfaction with the show, its treatment of Anchorage as some tiny, rural place rather than the moderate-sized city it is. Well that, and its behaving like all the reporters are rubes who have to be taught their jobs by Hillary Swank's obnoxious character.  Honestly, if it weren't for my interest in the murder storyline, I'd have been out after the first episode.

[Grrarrggh]

3 hours ago, proserpina65 said:

I know it's not although the show acts like it is.  My point was that even in my small town/rural county, a local business being sold would NOT be newsworthy so it was unlikely to have been so in someplace bigger which is why I found that storyline to be ridiculous. 

I don't know, I live in a large county and when a popular business was about to fold to be replaced with an unpopular business the story got a lot of print and some airtime. 

[proserpina65]

28 minutes ago, Grrarrggh said:

I don't know, I live in a large county and when a popular business was about to fold to be replaced with an unpopular business the story got a lot of print and some airtime. 

Idk, maybe we're just used to it here?

[Grrarrggh]

1 hour ago, proserpina65 said:

Idk, maybe we're just used to it here?

Or maybe where you live has shuttered all its local news sources? 

[proserpina65]

16 hours ago, Grrarrggh said:

Or maybe where you live has shuttered all its local news sources? 

No, we have a local paper but the reporters there don't scour the real estate postings trying to come up with ideas for stories.  Because there's real news going on in my county, which is probably unfortunate because a lot of it isn't good news.

[possibilities]

Local businesses are the lifeblood of local media, since they are usually ad sponsors. But more than that, they are part of the economy that cycles dollars back into the local economy (whereas the big chains tend to send the money back to headquarters and/or distant shareholders). We definitely get stories about long term local businesses in even the largest cities in the two nearest counties to where I live. 

I don't know how realistic it is for Anchorage, but I imagine that whether this happens depends on the nature of the local economy and the character of the community.

[SunnyBeBe]

I like the actor who plays Stanley.  He was Cyrus on the series Scandal.  
 

[chediavolo]

On 10/18/2022 at 1:44 PM, proserpina65 said:

My problem is I found that entire storyline ridiculous.  Why was that even a story?  Hell, I live in a small town in a rural county and it wouldn't have made the paper until it was time to build the new restaurant.

In the shithole county I live in, it would have made news in the local rag! As far as I’m concerned she can do what she wants with her own business. She probably didn’t tell anyone because of the backlash. It’s not like the dump was a beautiful old building. And the customers were obnoxious.  
I think the historical/preservation society would not have been a help in that stage of the game & 

the owner was a  ****ing loose cannon idiot for committing arson. Hope you like jail, maybe prison! 

[Dowel Jones]

It's interesting to me because almost this exact thing happened in my moderate sized city of 100K,  Old burger joint from before my time was being sold as the original owner had died and no one else was interested in running the place.  It was a popular high school hangout back in the day but had long since been supplanted my many other businesses, both local and corporate.  Local oldsters raised a stink about the possibility of it being torn down and all their old memories being destroyed (I'm serious), to the point of protests at the city hall meeting.  Finally, the big chain that bought it agreed to keep some of the architectural features while updating it for commercial viability and such.  It was pretty much a greasy spoon, after all.  Changes were made, oldsters were at least publicly mollified, and life moved on.  So I get the idea that the news item was just a foundation for the story at the end about 'talking to each other' and blah blah blah.  As far as I was concerned, it's her place and everyone else can piss off if she wants to sell it.  Go ahead and put an offer in if you want to keep it.

[LuvMyShows]

I liked what people said last week about this series being like a Shondaland production, and the particulars of how the town hall went from 0 to 60 felt Shondaland-ish.

On 10/17/2022 at 9:09 PM, Grrarrggh said:

And she could have easily explained the why of it instead of going with the dramatic "I have to" response. Especially if she claimed to think of Claire as family. 

On 10/18/2022 at 1:23 AM, andromeda331 said:

That's really all she had to do. Instead she made it sounded like she had to sell it. That's what made Claire think something was wrong and investigate. Then she got mad when it spiraled out of control. It was her fault. She could have chosen at any time to tell people why she was selling. She chose not to. 

Yeah, I actually kept waiting for some clarity about why everyone was up in arms about her declaration that she had to sell.  How would the burger chain have forced her to sell?  Didn't the townspeople, and Claire, find it odd that they were the ones getting soooo upset about her selling and she wasn't?

On 10/18/2022 at 6:23 AM, mythoughtis said:

Jordan Teller turned out to be a very weak man.  He  embezzled from the government and one story from a newspaper in a strip mall causes him to commit suicide?  Surely life has given him lemons at some other point.  

Remember, there was also the gay lover angle from that guy who was evicted.  Don't know if it was true or not, but married family man Jordan risked some reputation damage that may have pushed him over the edge.