S01.E06: The Evil Twin

[ottoDbusdriver]

Episode Description:

 

Avery and her team investigate the murder of a woman whose electronic devices indicate that she was alive for three days after her official time of death.

 

[ottoDbusdriver]

Wow that was stupid.  Even stupider than normal.  And it's the return of the 'evil twin router' -- are they already recycling plot ideas or are they showing these episodes out of sequence ?

 

Let me get this straight -- bad guy has a brutal fight with his girlfriend in his apartment, girlfriend leaves the apartment in East Rutherford, NJ (no less) and goes all the way to a fancy schmancy high-tech hotel by the UN building in New York to escape from the bad guy, and decides to go clubbing.  A random dude kisses the bad guy's girlfriend in the club, and somehow the bad guy sees this go down.  The bad guy then decides to assault his now ex-girlfriend in her fancy hotel room over the random kiss in the club, "accidentally" kills her, and then decides to hack the hotel network to make it look like she was alive for 3 days, and then use an 'evil twin router' to frame the random dude she kissed at the club.  The Aristocrats !!!!

 

If bad guy (Shane) was actually trying to kill himself by jumping off the roof, why was he holding onto Mundo's arm for dear life ?  Nor did he try to wiggle free from Mundo's grasp. 

 

That animation recreated with the chips from the two phones was even worse than 'The Cave'.

 

Look out -- free public Wifi will kill you and everyone you love !!!

 

Does Avery even bother to listen to herself ?  She just finishes telling the hotel lawyer (who's concerned about documents being deleted by the hacker) that nothing is every permanently deleted, but then when 7 days of digital video surveillance files are mysteriously deleted by the hacker -- oh, those are unrecoverable. Who writes this crap ?

Edited April 16, 2015 by ottoDbusdriver

[shapeshifter]

Did I miss something, or did they explain how the psycho boyfriend in the flannel shirt--looking every bit the Luddite--picked up his mad hacker skilz?

Also, did I miss their reactions to the stench of a 3-day old body?

[Jamoche]

I think we need a drinking game. First nominee: any time they track a hacker by IP address. Spoofing that has got to be one of the first things script kiddies learn.

[Tony]

That scene in the cafe when Dawson was explaining the fake Wifi signal to Avery in mind-numbing details felt like it went on forever. This show should cut it out with the handholding like its viewers were Neanderthals who don't know how to turn on a computer.

 

Also, the dead girlfriend, who lives in a basic New Jersey apartment, runs off to Manhattan and stay at a luxury suite which probably costs over $1000 a night? Makes perfect sense to me.

Edited April 16, 2015 by Tony

[henripootel]

If bad guy (Shane) was actually trying to kill himself by jumping off the roof, why was he holding onto Mundo's arm for dear life ?  Nor did he try to wiggle free from Mundo's grasp.

Not for nothing but this almost made sense.  Read an article recently about people who jump off the Golden Gate bridge, and while most succeed, enough have now survived that we have a statistical sample.  Surprisingly, many of them regretted jumping right after they did, which is a good argument for trying to talk jumpers out of it.  Apparently if you can talk them past the crisis point, many jumpers never jump.  One cop apparently got pretty good at this and saved tons of folks by telling them 'why not think about this tonight - you can always jump tomorrow'.

 

Seems to me that one essential flaw in this show is that it relies on the idea that hackers can hack basically anything, so the can fake the digital record to make it look like most anything they want.  Every week they reconstruct this hackery and prove someone altered the digital record by using ... the digital record.  I get that you can prove that somebody tampered with the code in something, but what makes them think that the 'real' record they uncover hasn't also been tampered with?  Would not every defense lawyer have a go at this?  There's your reasonable doubt right there.

 

And not to be unkind but who is dressing this show?  Avery's red and black outfit made her look like a hunched-up goblin, which I would think would be hard to do given that Patricia Arquette is a pretty lady.

 

And Peter MacNicol's entire job is now solidly 'exposition guy' - he drops in whenever someone needs to explain something out loud.  Oh, and he also delivers inspirational praise so we can get awkward shots of Even Fatter Neil glowing happily.  Ugh, this show.

Edited April 16, 2015 by henripootel

[Zahdii]

Patricia still isn't selling it for me.  There was an absurd amount of time devoted to the office rats arguing about stupid stuff.

 

I agree that there's a lot of research that indicates that a lot of people who attempt suicide regret it almost as soon as they've started to do the final deed.  The jumpers regret it about halfway down, the people who try to shoot themselves often flinch and blow out only part of their face and brain, the pill poppers often get up and throw up.

 

The cop who asks people to "do it tomorrow" was a smart cookie.  I heard a story (not verified) about a guy who decided to end it all, and he went deep into the woods with his dog.  He dug a nice deep grave, shot the dog and threw it into the grave, then got into the grave and shot himself.  He must have had second thoughts at the last second, because when a hunter found him several months later, he was well and truly dead.  But the way his body was positioned, the angle of the gunshot wound, the scratch marks on the side of the grave and the dirt under his fingernails indicated that he survived his shot and tried to get out of the grave, presumably to try to get help.

 

Nailed to a nearby tree was a note asking that whoever found him to throw the note into the grave and use the shovel (helpfully propped up against the tree) to cover him up and tell no one.  Probably a made up story.

[Pepper the Cat]

That body would have stunk to Hugh heaven so the manager would have known something was wrong right away.

The bickering of the tech guts is stupid and getting old.

[Trini]

That scene in the cafe when Dawson was explaining the fake Wifi signal to Avery in mind-numbing details felt like it went on forever. This show should cut it out with the handholding like its viewers were Neanderthals who don't know how to turn on a computer.

 

I would guess that the majority of people that actually watch this show would need the explanations. Everyone else is watching something else. :)

[Jamoche]

OK, yes there's a separate chip for the motion sensor in an iPhone, but processors and memory chips are entirely separate things. The motion chip does have an internal storage cache - about 64K worth, so it can retain enough recent data to tell what kind of motion is happening, but *not* enough to have that whole fight scene plus whatever else it stored in the subsequent few days - that would eat up all your user data space. It would also be a privacy violation of the sort that gets reported on Consumerist quite often.

 

Oh, and while they're right that people wear their phones in their pants pockets, the murder victim was wearing a dress. No pockets!

 

I would guess that the majority of people that actually watch this show would need the explanations. Everyone else is watching something else. :)

 

I'd bet the majority is techy types hate-watching it. It's not competence-porn like original recipe CSI, the characters aren't compelling and have no chemistry, so what's left?

Edited April 16, 2015 by Jamoche

[BooksRule]

Not for nothing but this almost made sense.  Read an article recently about people who jump off the Golden Gate bridge, and while most succeed, enough have now survived that we have a statistical sample.  Surprisingly, many of them regretted jumping right after they did, which is a good argument for trying to talk jumpers out of it.  Apparently if you can talk them past the crisis point, many jumpers never jump.  One cop apparently got pretty good at this and saved tons of folks by telling them 'why not think about this tonight - you can always jump tomorrow'.

 

This reminds me of the old John Ritter show where he played a cop.  I think it was called Hooperman.  One of his 'things' was to try to talk potential jumpers off of a roof or ledge by pulling out a watermelon from a bag and dropping it to the street while he was talking to the person.  When that person saw the melon go splat! on the ground, they would change their mind about jumping.  (It's funny how scenes from old shows will stick in your mind when you can't remember anything else about the rest of it--except I do remember the plot of the pilot).

 

I was also confused about why the woman spent her savings on a hotel room in NYC when she lived in New Jersey.  They should have had her come from further away to make it realistic, but I guess that would make it harder for the characters to jump back and forth from the apartment to the hotel (although Horatio Caine never had problems moving back and forth huge distances in one day on 'CSI: Miami'!)

[Kromm]

Wow that was stupid.  Even stupider than normal.  

We keep saying that each episode, and yet somehow magically they manage to make them dumber and more insane each episode.

 

It's GOT to be on purpose, right?   There's no way they didn't realize they were making a comedy by the third or fourth episode and just run with it, right?

 

Or am I just deluding myself?

Edited April 17, 2015 by Kromm

[thuganomics85]

I actually was investigated in the case, only because I just didn't want it to be the bar owner, because Bow Wow's character was being so obnoxious about how he thought the guy was setting himself up, in order to throw the cops off.  Even if there was a possibility to it, he was just being so smug about it, that I wanted to see that smirked wiped off his face.  Of course, he ends up being wrong, but no one calls him out on it, so that ended up not mattering.

 

In general though, Bow Wow and the other dude (Krummy?), have to be one of the most annoying pairs out there.  I know I'm suppose to find their bantering "entertaining", but I really don't.  I just end up wanting both of them to shut it.  I would ask why does that Raven gal not tell them both to act their ages, but I have a feeling she's not on top of the writers' list, when it comes to getting any kind of character development, outside of exposition or being in the background during another character's exposition.

 

Hey, maybe that spider will stick around and be the new team mascot.  I mean every other CBS show has one (Clyde on Elementary, Bear on Person of Interest), so why not this show?  I will probably like the spider more then the cast, to be honest.  Get him in the credits!

 

So, next week, they're going to put this on Tuesday, in Person of Interest's time-slot.  I guess their hoping maybe the NCIS audience will stick around for this junk.  And, judging from the previews, they're bringing the big guns: cyber-bulling.  I almost shudder at how this show is going to take on that subject.  I just hope the season finale will be the team taking on one of those Nigerian Prince scams.  Hopefully, it will end with "Elijah Mundo" heroically taking down the entire organization with his Beek badassery, while Avery barely moves her face.

[Malif]

My idea to make the show better:  the spider solves the crime and then spins a web with the name of the murderer/hacker.  Of course, the spider will be named Charlotte.  And when that spider is accidentally stepped on by one of the idiots on this show, her children (Joy, Nellie, and Aranea) will continue to solve the crimes.  

[solotrek]

Also, did I miss their reactions to the stench of a 3-day old body?

 

Not only did the body seem to have no smell, it was the cleanest most serene looking dead body I've seen.

 

What is the point of Krummitz and Bow Wow bickering all the time? Takes away from the show. Plus, Raven has basically become the person that rolls her eyes at them and then gives exposition. Peter Macnicol plays a useless character who can't keep his ex-blackhats in check. 

 

I don't get the motion sensing thing that was the evidence they used against the ex-boyfriend. So it senses any moves the phone is making, but how can they extrapolate that into showing what the body is doing at the same time? If I have it in my left pocket, surely the only thing it can say is that it's moving back and forth or up and down when my left leg is moving and not what my right arm or my head is doing? And syncing two of them up to show the fight that may have happened?

 

Also, did Adel have her phone in her underwear?

[UncleChuck]

 

Also, the dead girlfriend, who lives in a basic New Jersey apartment, runs off to Manhattan and stay at a luxury suite which probably costs over $1000 a night?

Actually, it was only $474.00 plus tax and extras.  About what I've budgeted for a week long stay next month when I attend an out-of-town wedding.

 

And I assume that some/most of the gobbledygook that they use for this show is supposed to be at least partially feasible in the real world, but I swear -- magic spells and curses and potions on OUAT or Grimm make more sense than most of this stuff.

[shapeshifter]

...I don't get the motion sensing thing that was the evidence they used against the ex-boyfriend. So it senses any moves the phone is making, but how can they extrapolate that into showing what the body is doing at the same time? If I have it in my left pocket, surely the only thing it can say is that it's moving back and forth or up and down when my left leg is moving and not what my right arm or my head is doing? And syncing two of them up to show the fight that may have happened?

Am I the only one who was trying to figure out if maybe they were really just having sex during the interminably long shots of the computer-imagined fight to the death?

...There's no way they didn't realize they were making a comedy by the third or fourth episode and just run with it, right?...

Naming the blond male lead Elijah Mundo seems to verify that. I think Arquette's Oscar was not anticipated by the time the episodes were in the can. Somebody should be writing a comedy right now about the making of a terrible crime show that the writers and actors are just phoning in, not expecting it to even be picked up, and then one of the actors gets an Oscar out of the blue for a reason as silly as this show is (I'm assuming Arquette's Oscar was deserved--haven't seen the movie).

[Scott]

Finally watched it--my favorite part was the box the killer carried into the bar in order to sneak in was "Russian Mafia" brand vodka.

[Oscirus]

You guys bring up good points but I just got one question.  Is it normal for these CSI shows to describe the technique used to solve the crime, show the using of said technique in action and then having the cops go into the interrogation room and once again describe the technique they used to solve said crime to the criminals?  That makes it seem like they ran out of time and needed to stretch out the show somehow.

[henripootel]

Is it normal for these CSI shows to describe the technique used to solve the crime, show the using of said technique in action and then having the cops go into the interrogation room and once again describe the technique they used to solve said crime to the criminals?

Yes.  Just as it's common for them to blur the responsibilities of CSI guys and cops.  In reality, pretty sure the CSI guys don't interrogate suspects, go in with guns pointed, or arrest folks, any more than the cops would jump in and do an autopsy.  Also pretty sure the cops don't spend that much time hanging out with the lab guys (nor that the lab results come back in like 20 seconds) but these were lines that got blurred in the original CSI.  Now that lab procedurals have been around for a while, things have evolved such that, on this show, they don't even pretend to be remotely realistic.

 

I think the part about describing the results to the criminals though - that might actually be true.  I think this is part of what cops actually do, try to get suspects to incriminate themselves by convincing them that they're cooked anyway.  

Edited April 19, 2015 by henripootel

[Oscirus]

I think the part about describing the results to the criminals though - that might actually be true.  I think this is part of what cops actually do, try to get suspects to incriminate themselves by convincing them that they're cooked anyway.

 

I get that part. I'm just wondering why they'd have that same bit of exposition repeated so close in the show.

[henripootel]

I get that part. I'm just wondering why they'd have that same bit of exposition repeated so close in the show.

This show is unusually hand-holdy when it comes to exposition.  It's clumsy, poor writing, and they seem to give us no credit for paying attention, which is probably for the best because there seems to be no reward at all for doing so.  This show routinely trots out plot points so ridiculous they'd make Gil Grissom vomit. 

[Driad]

Because Gil Grissom knows about bugs.

[shapeshifter]

This show is unusually hand-holdy when it comes to exposition...

I'm not trying to make excuses for the poor writing and plots in general on this show, but I do think it requires hand-holdiness with regards to the tech plot points. A lot of older viewers need it because they never got into technology, and the 20-somethings need it (if there are any) because they grew up not needing to know any back-end stuff in order to produce documents or post online.

[henripootel]

I'm not trying to make excuses for the poor writing and plots in general on this show, but I do think it requires hand-holdiness with regards to the tech plot points.

Yeah, but I'm not sure this is working for anyone.  Those of us who don't know tech probably don't care about the details, and those who know tech (I hear) cringe at the awfulness of the 'explanations'.  I'd be happy if they just gave the explanation as 'uh, wibbly-wobbly, techie-wechie .. stuff', although this would pretty much leave Peter MacNicol (as the Solicitor General of Exposition) nothing to do.  

[Jamoche]

... those who know tech (I hear) cringe at the awfulness of the 'explanations'.

As one of those who know tech - yep. And when Original Recipe started, they didn't spell out what GSR meant every single time, or explain exactly what post-mortem lividity was, or any of the other terms that I had no clue about then but can recognize now. So this show ought to just say "they were chatting on IRC" and get on with the plot - but then if they did, I'd have no drinking game.

 

Plus they'd need a plot.

[henripootel]

And when Original Recipe started, they didn't spell out what GSR meant every single time, or explain exactly what post-mortem lividity was, or any of the other terms that I had no clue about then but can recognize now

 

They've even made the odd in-joke about it when one character is getting a bit explainy and is stopped by a colleague saying 'Yeah, I know, I work here too'.  Hee.

 

Even the early days of Original Recipe weren't this bad, even though they hadn't really hashed out the characters yet (Jim Brass seemed like he might be a bit racist, Grissom a bit more cuddly) and they didn't really have the patter down flat.  This show seems like it's written by recent graduates of the No Trope Too Stupid school of screenwriting.