S03.E05: The Missing Piece

[thewhiteowl]

Bull tries to defend a doctor whose  DNA links him to a homicide.

[JessDVD]

Well if that wasn't just one long commercial for why NOT to do 23 and me... Mr. DVD and I were screaming "He's a twin!" at the screen around the 13 minute mark. Seriously, I know the unexpected twin is kind of a soap opera trope but I'm sure it's happened in real life and you'd think after no motive, means, or opportunity for the doctor came up, that they'd be investigating his family history to see if anything useful cropped up. I also think DNA under his fingernails is unfortunate as far as implication but does it really hold up as evidence? He could have encountered the victim somewhere not on camera. Probably not the coffee creamer handle though.

Pretty crappy parenting to not tell your kid he's adopted. They didn't mention much about his adoptive mom but I'd have a really hard time forgiving that one after being on trial for murder because of it...

[preeya]

This plotline/resolution was so obvious (and stale too). Can't these showrunners come up with something that hasn't been done a gazillion times since DNA became in vogue?

[muffkins]

Well, I figured it out last week after I watched the promo.  It was pretty obvious.

[Jlina]

I watched this show once and it was somewhat intelligent.  Gave me "Like to Me" vibes.  Then I skipped some funeral stuff and then this?  Wow.  The twin was so anvil at the 3 minute mark.  Not worth taking up an hour of a Monday night for.

[Ellee]

Am I wrong in thinking this epi was to show us the ‘new Cable’?  

[preeya]

1 hour ago, Ellee said:

Am I wrong in thinking this epi was to show us the ‘new Cable’?  

She was prominent, but the plot was simply asinine.

[Loves2Dance]

3 hours ago, Ellee said:

Am I wrong in thinking this epi was to show us the ‘new Cable’?  

I actually like the new Cable. But this episode was painful. I was thinking "He has an identical twin" by minute 5. It was way too obvious. 

[Bobbin]

Gil Grissom would have been hunting for an identical twin from the get-go. Is it just me and my bad hearing, or did they neglect to stress "identical" twins throughout the denoument?

The caricature of a smug ADA with canaray feathers dripping from his smirking lips was a bit much. He had to have known that the pieces didn't all fit.

Edited October 23, 2018 by Bobbin
Added thought.

[JessDVD]

2 hours ago, Bobbin said:

The caricature of a smug ADA with canaray feathers dripping from his smirking lips was a bit much. He had to have known that the pieces didn't all fit.

Right! All you need is a couple skeptics on the jury and you've got reasonable doubt. He seemed awfully confident that all twelve would view the DNA as incontrovertible.

[rhys]

Why did no one ask about scratches on the real doctor's skin? If there was dna under the dead guy's fingernails I thought maybe there could have been scratched skin on Dr Harper.

[Babalooie]

Nice to see Kearran Giovanni, who played Sykes on Major Crimes, on the show as the defense attorney.

[Jelly Ree]

Who played the doctor?

[Sarah 103]

On 10/22/2018 at 11:14 PM, JessDVD said:

Mr. DVD and I were screaming "He's a twin!" at the screen around the 13 minute mark.

Same here. Like @muffkins, I was pretty sure the plot twist was going to a brother he didn't know about after I saw the promo. 

[CheshireCat]

The neighbor couldn't have known if the Doc was addicted and he never said that he was. All he said was that he became concerned. But the ADA jumped directly into oxi leads to heroin and the judge really didn't think that it was all based on speculation? And Bull's team didn't even try to soften the blow by getting the neighbor to say that he's not an addict specialist, that he doesn't know if the Doc was addicted and that all he can go on are statistics?

And what was the point of that long onologue of the doctor when Bull suggested he take the deal?

I was really intrigued by the episode at the beginning but was kind of underwhelmed by the end.

[brgjoe]

Agreed.  I was yelling at my TV, "It's pure speculation!  Does the prosecution have ANY evidence AT ALL that my client EVER did heroin?  Any convictions for it?  Any arrests for it?  Any drug tests EVER that he had heroin in his system?  Heck, any witnesses who even saw him doing anything that is resembling heroin use!?"  Oops...forgot to say..."OBJECTION!"   ;)

Also, if the guy had the perp's DNA under his fingernails, couldn't they go to the guy's dead identical twin and look for evidence under his fingertips?  Though I suppose the DNA might not be viable at that point perhaps.

[CoyoteBlue]

The most unrealistic part of this ep was that NYPD CSI spent $99 to send a heroin dealer's fingernail scrapings to a commercial DNA tester on the off chance a heroin dealer's killer is the type of person with the discretionary funds for a vanity DNA profile.

 

This wasn't the Lindbergh baby or something, this was a drug dealer. I'm surprised they even put effort into investigating it.

[mythoughtis]

On 10/30/2018 at 10:39 PM, CoyoteBlue said:

The most unrealistic part of this ep was that NYPD CSI spent $99 to send a heroin dealer's fingernail scrapings to a commercial DNA tester on the off chance a heroin dealer's killer is the type of person with the discretionary funds for a vanity DNA profile.

 

This wasn't the Lindbergh baby or something, this was a drug dealer. I'm surprised they even put effort into investigating it.

Multiple DNA testers. So multiple $99.