S01.E09: Bye Bye Birdie

[CooperTV]

Quote

When Celia Baxter, a successful author, is almost killed in her home, Dylan and Lizzie’s suspect list includes several people who may have held a grudge as she rose in stature in the publishing world. Also, Lizzie gets closer to learning the truth about the death of her fiancé, who was killed while undercover.

[shapeshifter]

Best episode so far but briefly ruined for me by the writers' misunderstanding of a chemo port vs. a chemo port scar and the makeup folks rendering of a currently implanted chemo port. I'm going to give the dying cancer patient's glowing good health a pass because it's par for that TV trope's course. 

ETA:
I knew in the first scene with the attack "victim" that her wounds were self inflicted because they were all on her left side where a right-handed person could reach.
I was expecting Dylan to notice it right away, but: plot.

Edited June 4, 2018 by shapeshifter

[Free]

Both the case of the week and Lizzie's backstory getting closure made it feel like a mini finale.

[biakbiak]

I guessed the outcome as soon as they showed the flashback of Joan rejecting the authors book. 

[shapeshifter]

58 minutes ago, biakbiak said:

I guessed the outcome as soon as they showed the flashback of Joan rejecting the authors book. 

This show is sort of Elementary For Dummies.

[Writing Wrongs]

The best scene was Lizzie confronting the dirty cop at the end.

I know the scene with Joan drinking the "special" tea was supposed to be suspenseful, but it just came off dumb. The acting and staging seemed off.

Edited June 4, 2018 by Writing Wrongs

[Free]

26 minutes ago, Writing Wrongs said:

I know the scene with Joan drinking the "special" tea was supposed to be suspenseful, but it just came off dumb. The acting and staging seemed off.

It came off as too goofy.

[rhys]

I thought this was one of the better episode too. I didn't know anything about synthetic blood. I hope I am remembering right--I think that's how they explained it in the show. I found that interesting.

then it was good to find out Charlie was a good cop after all.

[Packerbrewerbadger]

So obvious she hadn’t been attacked when she gave the over the top detailed description of her attacker!  Can’t believe they didn’t pick up on that - Duh!  Tho I thought initially she was doing it as a publicity stunt for her career. 

L&O SVU had a synthetic blood plot years ago, setting up someone - Olivia maybe?  Can’t remember. Scary tho if you can’t trust DNA. 

[sinycalone]

I thought, overall, it was well done...and particularly liked that they ended Charlie's story....not dragging it on forever.

The overly-detailed description of her assailant probably was not questioned at first...because they chalked it up to her being a mystery writer with an eye for detail.  If there hadn't been that second victim with the very similar m.o. they might have begun to doubt her story much sooner.

[mythoughtis]

They are annoying me though with letting the non detective part of the team be the one with all the answers.   All these types of shows do this and it’s really demeaning to detectives. 

[Free]

1 hour ago, mythoughtis said:

They are annoying me though with letting the non detective part of the team be the one with all the answers.   All these types of shows do this and it’s really demeaning to detectives. 

It's an annoying part of the trope and characterizations of these kinds of shows: Castle, Bones, The Mentalist, etc.

One of them is the agent character who does cop/detective stuff, the other is an expert who is usually the more charismatic and eccentric one who usually solves the case. in their own way.

[shapeshifter]

17 hours ago, Free said:

18 hours ago, Writing Wrongs said:

I know the scene with Joan drinking the "special" tea was supposed to be suspenseful, but it just came off dumb. The acting and staging seemed off.

It came off as too goofy.

I excused the goofy suspense of the poison tea drinking trope because Whoopi and goofy kind of go together. 
Plus I loved the shooting of the glass out of her hand (without hurting her). 

 

12 hours ago, sinycalone said:

liked that they ended Charlie's story....not dragging it on forever

Yes, at least that's over with.

[Free]

6 hours ago, shapeshifter said:

I excused the goofy suspense of the poison tea drinking trope because Whoopi and goofy kind of go together. 
Plus I loved the shooting of the glass out of her hand (without hurting her). 

Yeah, but it's the tone I wasn't sure what they were going for in that scene.

6 hours ago, shapeshifter said:

Yes, at least that's over with.

Same here, there was actual closure instead of dragging it past S1.

[Driad]

On 6/4/2018 at 7:01 AM, Writing Wrongs said:

I know the scene with Joan drinking the "special" tea was supposed to be suspenseful, but it just came off dumb. The acting and staging seemed off.

It would have had a better chance at being suspenseful if they hadn't used it in the promos.  I would complain about "promo monkeys" but I don't like comparing people to animals when they do things that animals wouldn't do.

[Accidental Martyr]

Why was the writing teacher’s DNA on file to begin with? 

I liked it when Lizzie said she would “put a rush on the DNA” in the second case. The few minutes it apparently takes to get a DNA test done wasn’t fast enough? ;)

[shapeshifter]

6 hours ago, Accidental Martyr said:

Why was the writing teacher’s DNA on file to begin with? 

I liked it when Lizzie said she would “put a rush on the DNA” in the second case. The few minutes it apparently takes to get a DNA test done wasn’t fast enough? ;)

I'm pretty sure that they would be comparing the teacher's DNA to the DNA of the blood found (planted) at the scene, which had already been processed (unlike the DNA of all those with life sentences who were convicted in Chicago during the 20+ years of the systematic torture-for-confesssion policy, or the DNA of 1000s of rape kits in the US alone).

Edited June 6, 2018 by shapeshifter

[Toothbrush]

It was clearly obvious that Celia injured herself & that Charlie was not going to have been dirty.

I didn't like that Naveen's character reached out to Lizzie for 2 reasons. One, Dylan had never given him a reason to suspect that Lizzie was dirty, so why would he have to make sure? He should know Dylan well enough to know that Dylan would never get involved with a cop he thought was on the take, and should trust Dylan's instincts (heh) to know the difference between a good cop & a bad cop. Secondly, I liked the idea of Naveen's character being a ghost to Lizzie. Who is he? Does he really exist? I don't want the 3 of them to become a super duper crime-solving trio next season.

The Dylan/Lizzie hug at the end was sweet. They have a nice friendship.

On 6/4/2018 at 1:00 PM, mythoughtis said:

They are annoying me though with letting the non detective part of the team be the one with all the answers.   All these types of shows do this and it’s really demeaning to detectives. 

 

On 6/4/2018 at 2:48 PM, Free said:

It's an annoying part of the trope and characterizations of these kinds of shows: Castle, Bones, The Mentalist, etc.

One of them is the agent character who does cop/detective stuff, the other is an expert who is usually the more charismatic and eccentric one who usually solves the case. in their own way.

And as much as I adore the show, Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries is another. At least Miss Fisher acknowledges in most of the episodes that she does not have to follow protocol the way the police do, so at least the police do not look incompetent the way they do in many of the "baker/caterer/bookstore owner/female contractor/socialite solve crimes better than the actual police do" book series, Lifetime movies, etc. 

On 6/5/2018 at 12:20 AM, shapeshifter said:

Plus I loved the shooting of the glass out of her hand (without hurting her). 

That was pretty badass. 

[Clanstarling]

On 6/3/2018 at 6:37 PM, shapeshifter said:

Best episode so far but briefly ruined for me by the writers' misunderstanding of a chemo port vs. a chemo port scar and the makeup folks rendering of a currently implanted chemo port. I'm going to give the dying cancer patient's glowing good health a pass because it's par for that TV trope's course.

 

I was wondering about that. I have a friend who likely has a chemo port scar, but I'm not going to ask her to show it to me.

On 6/4/2018 at 9:32 AM, sinycalone said:

The overly-detailed description of her assailant probably was not questioned at first...because they chalked it up to her being a mystery writer with an eye for detail.  If there hadn't been that second victim with the very similar m.o. they might have begun to doubt her story much sooner.

That's the way I took it too.

On 6/4/2018 at 10:20 PM, shapeshifter said:

I excused the goofy suspense of the poison tea drinking trope because Whoopi and goofy kind of go together. 
Plus I loved the shooting of the glass out of her hand (without hurting her).

I did not. I guess I'm not much for whimsy with bullets. It seemed over the top - a good shout would have done it.

On 6/5/2018 at 4:32 AM, Free said:

Yeah, but it's the tone I wasn't sure what they were going for in that scene.

Agree.

On 6/6/2018 at 4:26 AM, shapeshifter said:

On 6/5/2018 at 9:53 PM, Accidental Martyr said:

Why was the writing teacher’s DNA on file to begin with? 

I liked it when Lizzie said she would “put a rush on the DNA” in the second case. The few minutes it apparently takes to get a DNA test done wasn’t fast enough? ;)

I'm pretty sure that they would be comparing the teacher's DNA to the DNA of the blood found (planted) at the scene, which had already been processed (unlike the DNA of all those with life sentences who were convicted in Chicago during the 20+ years of the systematic torture-for-confesssion policy, or the DNA of 1000s of rape kits in the US alone).

I think the question is why is his DNA in a database in the first place. IIRC, the blood was matched to his DNA before he was a suspect - and that's how he became a person of interest. If his DNA wasn't already on file, they wouldn't have had a match.

Edited June 20, 2018 by Clanstarling

[shapeshifter]

4 hours ago, Clanstarling said:

On 6/6/2018 at 6:26 AM, shapeshifter said:

On 6/5/2018 at 11:53 PM, Accidental Martyr said:

Why was the writing teacher’s DNA on file to begin with? 

I liked it when Lizzie said she would “put a rush on the DNA” in the second case. The few minutes it apparently takes to get a DNA test done wasn’t fast enough? ;)

I'm pretty sure that they would be comparing the teacher's DNA to the DNA of the blood found (planted) at the scene, which had already been processed (unlike the DNA of all those with life sentences who were convicted in Chicago during the 20+ years of the systematic torture-for-confesssion policy, or the DNA of 1000s of rape kits in the US alone).

I think the question is why is his DNA in a database in the first place. IIRC, the blood was matched to his DNA before he was a suspect - and that's how he became a person of interest. If his DNA wasn't already on file, they wouldn't have had a match.

Oh. Right. Teachers are generally fingerprinted. Maybe the writers got confused.

[Accidental Martyr]

8 hours ago, shapeshifter said:

Oh. Right. Teachers are generally fingerprinted. Maybe the writers got confused.

Not surprising with this show.

[Orbert]

Late to the party again, still getting caught up.  I have concluded that it's the characters and definitely not the writing that I like.  The "tone" is all over the place.  They want the light-hearted banter, they want the serious, and they just don't know how to mix it up properly.

When Julian was describing "the most dangerous mission ever undertaken by the NYPD" (or something like that) I was laughing.  It was supposed to be so serious, but really, don't cops have "cases" not "missions"?  It wasn't the CIA on a mission; it was the NYPD working a case.

The attacker, who she only caught glimpses of and while being attacked, was about five-foot-ten, 175 pounds.  But others have already commented on that.

Grrr.  I want to like this show more.  But they make it tough.

[Ceindreadh]

On 9/7/2018 at 5:30 PM, Orbert said:

Late to the party again, still getting caught up.  I have concluded that it's the characters and definitely not the writing that I like.  The "tone" is all over the place.  They want the light-hearted banter, they want the serious, and they just don't know how to mix it up properly.

When Julian was describing "the most dangerous mission ever undertaken by the NYPD" (or something like that) I was laughing.  It was supposed to be so serious, but really, don't cops have "cases" not "missions"?  It wasn't the CIA on a mission; it was the NYPD working a case.

The attacker, who she only caught glimpses of and while being attacked, was about five-foot-ten, 175 pounds.  But others have already commented on that.

Grrr.  I want to like this show more.  But they make it tough.

To my mind they seem to want the tone of say Diagnosis Murder or Murder she wrote, but they’re doing much more serious levels of crime. (Yes I know those two shows had dead bodies a plenty but it was all very wholesome murders)

[Clanstarling]

3 hours ago, Ceindreadh said:

To my mind they seem to want the tone of say Diagnosis Murder or Murder she wrote, but they’re doing much more serious levels of crime. (Yes I know those two shows had dead bodies a plenty but it was all very wholesome murders)

I love the concept of "wholesome murders." I could totally describe them that way, as much as it seems an oxymoron.