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S05.E06: Objection

ElectricBoogaloo

By ElectricBoogaloo
in Longmire [V]

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Kohola3

Kohola3

 I'm a little confused as to why they let The Ferg go unharmed, not that I am unhappy about it.  Did they figure Walt would really go nuts if they'd killed him?

Poor Henry - he just has people pulling him from all directions.

Walker Browning - wish to hell he'd been shot along with Trot.  What a piece of work.

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Kohola3

Kohola3

I forgot he was in the books but he was much older in that series.  And a lot different as well.  IMBD just lists him as The Ferg so no idea where Archie comes in.    But I think his girlfriend is adorable - and a great morale booster for him.

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margol29

margol29

I am a bit confused as to why (not sure who the guy is who is sueing Walt from Barlow's estate) he thinks he can get more than the insurance amount of $250,000 from Walt. I'm sure that his sheriff's salery is not that great. It's not like he has big bucks stashed away somewhere. I would think that his personal property is safe because he is a public official and things that he does in the line of duty they could not sue his personal assets. IDK maybe I'm wrong. 

Spoiler

I am binge watching these episodes, so I am not sure if this was the episode where Walt personally dielivered the fish to the mob boss. But that was GREAT!!! Watlt does have some huge cajones!!!!

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Kohola3

Kohola3

I was assuming that they would want to go after everything Walt owns but, not being a lawyer, I don't know if that's even possible.  Was Barlow's death technically in the line of duty?  I would think so because Walt was looking for Branch's killer.

Didn't Barlow hate him partly because of the amount of land he has?  I can see Barlow's evilness stretching beyond the grave to make Walt suffer.  But what I want to know is who gets the money?  Who is actually behind the lawsuit?  Who benefits from pursuing this?  I guess the Good Old Boy attorney would since he gets a cut but who else?  The heavily veiled ex-wife we saw at Branch's funeral?

Maybe it's all explained in later episodes I haven't watched yet.  

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Kohola3

Kohola3

 But the estate has to be linked to some human, doesn't it?  I don't know much about estates.  Or does the money just get funneled into his businesses?  But that doesn't explain who is behind the decision to go for broke, well at least breaking Longmire.  It sounds more personal than that.

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SimoneS

SimoneS

(edited)

So this is why they had Vic kiss Walt in the hospital. They wanted to discredit Vic as a character witness at Walt's trial.

I thought that Walt snarking at Jacob for presenting the casino as providing viable careers reflected how out of touch he is with the lives of the kids on the rez. Most of them don't have the education or resources to go to college. The other career person there was a military recruiter. Between the two opportunities, the casino is preferable, imo. They can prosper, stay in their community, help their family, and be safe.

I am glad that they didn't kill Ferg. I can handwave it as the Irish mob not wanting to kill a law enforcement officer because it would bring the feds down on them. Ferg's girlfriend is sweet, understanding, and supportive.

Edited by SimoneS
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dubbel zout

dubbel zout

On 11/3/2016 at 5:15 PM, Kohola3 said:

But the estate has to be linked to some human, doesn't it?

The estate has a trustee who oversees it, but if there are shenanigans by the trustee, I think someone else can sue on the estate's behalf. (Depending on how the estate is drawn up, it can get really complicated.)

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Nashville

Nashville

On 12/22/2017 at 8:30 PM, SimoneS said:

I thought that Walt snarking at Jacob for presenting the casino as providing viable careers reflected how out of touch he is with the lives of the kids on the rez.

Walt’s Jacob-centric snarkfest didn’t really have anything to do with the casino proper, and everything to do with illustrating Walt’s quasi-irrational* over-the-top hate for Nighthorse.  The entire storyline surrounding the development of the casino is pretty much out of touch with reality, though, so I just see that as par for the course - more on that below.

 

* FYI: I qualify with the “quasi-“ solely because Jacob has put in more than his fair share of overtime in earning his rep as a shady operator.  There’s no denying, though, the fact Walt has totally surrendered any semblance of rational, objective critique on any issue with which Jacob is even tangentially associated.  The moment Nighthorse’s name enters discussion, it’s as though Walt is mentally incapable of considering ANY scenario which doesn’t feature Jacob as the Biggest Baddie.  Me, I generally consider Jacob to be small potatoes on the Evil Mastermind scale.  I will freely admit, however - if *I* had gone an extended period of time thinking (however erroneously) Jacob had been a prime instigator in my wife’s death...? Even after Jacob’s vindication on THAT particular question, I too might still have some trouble cleaning that tint off the lens with which I viewed Nighthorse.

 

On 12/22/2017 at 8:30 PM, SimoneS said:

Most of them don't have the education or resources to go to college. The other career person there was a military recruiter. Between the two opportunities, the casino is preferable, imo. They can prosper, stay in their community, help their family, and be safe.

Thaaaat... can vary a lot - and, to a large degree, touches on my primary issue with the entire casino startup storyline.  Said issue being an impoverished tribe - or a group of locals associated with same - getting together the amount of cash necessary to fully fund a major casino startup.  

Casino startups are expensive shit - and I do mean, EXPENSIVE.  Even before the doors open - on Grand Opening Day or any day thereafter - the casino manager has to have on hand documentation presentable to the IRS and/or State gaming commissions  to verify there’s enough cash in the vaults to cover ALL bets in the facility.  That includes every chip in the facility PLUS any big-bonus prizes PLUS any additional action offered (off-track betting, sports events, boxing, etc.).  For a Class III casino (which the Four Arrows is presented as being), you’re talking having to have nine figures or better - hundreds of millions of dollars - on-premises before the first customer walks up to a blackjack table.

Even with 100% of their resources pooled, NO WAY Jacob Nighthorse and Barlow Connally had pockets deep enough to fund such a startup; very few individuals on the planet do.  You have to be Bill Gates or Richard Branson levels of rich to pull THAT shit off, and Barlow Connally weren’t no Bill Gates.  

Most Tribes encountered this same dilemma when the IGRA went into effect.  Prior to gaming, most Tribal reservations were the closest correspondent America had to Third World living and economic conditions.  IGRA offered Tribes their best option to enrich their impoverished communities - but the Tribes couldn’t take full advantage of it without sufficient startup capital, which they didn’t have.  Another issue was most Tribes also had had next to no experience in managing gaming operations; some did have some experience - Tribal bingo operations and such - but not on a scale necessary to manage a Class III operation.

Enter the Tribes’ white knight (pun intended): the large-scale Vegas gaming outfits like Harrah’s, The Sands, etc.  Desperate to break out of the Nevada/New Jersey gaming niches to which they had been consigned, the Vegas crews set to wooing the Tribes with propositions of partnering with the Tribes to stand up new casinos - with the Vegas shops bankrolling the initial startup costs, providing operational support, and focusing on Tribal members as their primary employment pool.  To the Tribes, this was almost too good to be true, especially when the offers were framed as “temporary partnerships” - Vegas initially providing 100% of the operations management, but setting up “executive training programs” wherein Tribal members would be trained to gradually take over operations management on a phased schedule to convert the operation to 100% Tribal.

Well, it was - too good to be true, that is:

  • The “tons of casino jobs for Indians” never fully materialized; many Tribal members did get employed, but usually in the housekeeping and other hospitality service positions.  For the better-paying game floor positions (dealers and such), “cattle calls” went out nationwide for applicants with previous experience - which the Tribal folks didn’t have.  I was working in Philadelphia, MS when one such cattle call went out prior to the opening of Silver Star; you could walk through the casino parking lot and start counting the Nevada license plates, and quit whenever you got over a thousand.
  • The “executive training programs” were a joke as well.  Participants were paid lavish salaries to live at top-scale casino resorts all over the world for 2-3 years, to work with those casino staffs and “learn the ropes”.  No real training took place, however, and ETP participants returned home with little more knowledge of how to manage a casino operation than when they left - and this was all by design, because Harrah’s et al had never had any real intention of ever relinquishing control of the casinos to the Tribes.  ETP participants were presented with a choice: sit back and continue to collect their fat paychecks as “assistant managers” while the Vegas staff continued to manage ops, or be declared “unsuitable” and get kicked out the door.  Most kept their mouths shut, kept cashing the checks, and annually stood in front of the Vegas-Tribal joint management board and dutifully pronounced themselves “not ready” to take over the casino operation.  Harrah’s Cherokee is a perfect example: Harrah’s original agreement with Eastern Band of Cherokee was for Harrah’s to run the casino 100% for the first 5 years (while the ETP participants went through their “training”), after which casino operations would be phased to 100% Tribal management over the next ten years - which meant Harrah’s name should’ve been off the front door by 2012.  Well, guess what...?  :P
  • So far as being a “safe” working environment - that’s kind of relative.  Casinos generally aren’t particularly violent or dangerous work environments, true.  Casinos do tend to be astounding in the degree of sexual harassment which goes on, though, as well as its underreporting.  Also, most Tribal casinos are set in pretty remote areas to make use of reservation land which isn’t good for much else - and while the actual casino grounds are policed pretty well, carjackings and robberies on the lonely roads to/from the casinos are not uncommon.  And that’s not even taking into account the toll taken on Tribal families by developing gambling addictions, or alcoholism (many - most, even - reservations are “dry”, but the casinos get special exemptions to get butts in the door).

Sorry for the Great American novel, but this has been a sticking point in my craw since the formal casino operation became a larger part of the ongoing story line.  The Four Arrows plot devices make for good TV, but they’re barely rubbing shoulders with reality.

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Kohola3

Kohola3

40 minutes ago, Nashville said:

Sorry for the Great American novel, but this has been a sticking point in my craw since the formal casino operation became a larger part of the ongoing story line.  The Four Arrows plot devices make for good TV, but they’re barely rubbing shoulders with reality.

Interesting information and one wonders if Martha was supposed to have known a lot about these issues when she made her opposition known.

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SimoneS

SimoneS

(edited)
On 1/10/2018 at 3:15 PM, Nashville said:

Sorry for the Great American novel, but this has been a sticking point in my craw since the formal casino operation became a larger part of the ongoing story line.  The Four Arrows plot devices make for good TV, but they’re barely rubbing shoulders with reality.

Obviously the show isn't going to be realistic about the impact of the casino on an Indian reservation, no tv show could possibly capture every aspect of such a complex situation. However, after moving to Netflix, I think that the show did a stellar job interweaving the numerous social problems that impact the Cheyenne despite the claims that the casino will bring prosperity into the seasons 4 to 6; the oil rig workers gambling at the casino and then coming onto the rez and raping Indian women with no consequences, the lack of proper medical training and resources to treat Gab at the rez clinic, the corruption that comes with the casino (e.g. loan sharking, money laundering prostitution, etc.), the casino checks funding addictions and overdoses which contribute to the suicides of Mingan and other children, the ongoing problem of women who are subjected to domestic violence. I give the showrunner and writing team a lot of credit for not shying away from telling stories about these difficult issues. 

 

On 1/10/2018 at 3:15 PM, Nashville said:

Walt’s Jacob-centric snarkfest didn’t really have anything to do with the casino proper, and everything to do with illustrating Walt’s quasi-irrational* over-the-top hate for Nighthorse.  

I think that the show has always made sure that the audience understood that Walt's blindness about Jacob and conflicts with Cady and Henry ignore the challenges that the Cheyenne face on the rez. In all these scenes, the characters rebut Walt by pointing out how difficult life was on the rez for the Cheyenne and how they were pushed to the edge to act and protect them, that right and wrong is far more complex he was often willing acknowledge.

Edited by SimoneS
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Kohola3

Kohola3

2 hours ago, SimoneS said:

In all these scenes, the characters rebut Walt by pointing out how difficult life was on the rez for the Cheyenne and how they were pushed to the edge to act and protect them, that right and wrong is far more complex he was often willing acknowledge.

I always thought that was so strange since Walt had obviously been "adopted" by the Cheyenne (invited to a sweat) and was so close to Henry.  Yet he didn't really seem to listen to Henry unless it fit his preconceived notions.

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Nashville

Nashville

5 hours ago, Kohola3 said:
7 hours ago, SimoneS said:

\I think that the show has always made sure that the audience understood that Walt's blindness about Jacob and conflicts with Cady and Henry ignore the challenges that the Cheyenne face on the rez. In all these scenes, the characters rebut Walt by pointing out how difficult life was on the rez for the Cheyenne and how they were pushed to the edge to act and protect them, that right and wrong is far more complex he was often willing acknowledge.

I always thought that was so strange since Walt had obviously been "adopted" by the Cheyenne (invited to a sweat) and was so close to Henry.  Yet he didn't really seem to listen to Henry unless it fit his preconceived notions.

Not faulting the TV series too much; it is, of course, subject to the limitations of its medium.  

IMHO though, the books handled Walt's relationships - particularly the Cheyenne ones (Henry specifically, and the tribe in general) - in a much more detailed and nuanced manner.

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Clanstarling

Clanstarling

I respectfully disagree that tv is a limited medium. Books and tv are different media and certain things (like internal monologues) tend to fall by the wayside. But that doesn't mean that it's limited.I've watched series that handled complicated issues and relationships, both personal and cultural, in nuanced, intelligent, and thoughtful ways. 

But that's clearly not the type series they wanted to write, though amusingly enough, the native american characters - to me - were far more interesting than Walt.  I haven't read the books, and don't have the affection for the characters because I already know and love them so I'm less forgiving of wasted opportunity. No judgment, there are other shows where I'm in exactly the opposite position, filling in the story because I know how it was written.

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SimoneS

SimoneS

(edited)
14 hours ago, Nashville said:

Not faulting the TV series too much; it is, of course, subject to the limitations of its medium.  

IMHO though, the books handled Walt's relationships - particularly the Cheyenne ones (Henry specifically, and the tribe in general) - in a much more detailed and nuanced manner.

I also agree about the book doing a better job portraying Walt's relationships with the Cheyenne. However, I think that the show did a much better job at fleshing out the Cheyenne characters beyond Henry. Characters like Mathias, Jacob, Malachi and even the lesser recurring characters like May, Gab, Sam Poteet, and Marilyn were much more clearly drawn and compelling on the show than in the books where Walt and Henry naturally dominate the narrative. 

Edited by SimoneS
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