Ep. 6.10 Street Money

[TVFan]

RUSH AND THE TEAM INVESTIGATE THE 2005 MURDER OF AN UP-AND- COMING POLITICIAN WHO VOWED TO RID THE LOWER-CLASS NEIGHBORHOOD HE GREW UP IN OF DRUG DEALERS WHO PREY ON YOUNG KIDS, ON "COLD CASE," SUNDAY, NOV. 30

Jonathan LaPaglia ("The District") Guest Stars as Assistant District Attorney Curtis Bell

Lilly Rush: Kathryn Morris
Scotty Valens: Danny Pino
Lt. John Stillman: John Finn
Nick Vera: Jeremy Ratchford
Will Jeffries: Thom Barry
Kat Miller: Tracie Thoms
Frankie Rafferty: Tania Raymonde
Dexter "Dex" Collins '05: Chadwick Boseman
Cassie Michaels '05/'08: Christine Woods
Harold '05: Peter Holden
Victor Nash '05/'08: Gbenga Akinnagbe
Luther Carp '08: Wilmer Calderon
Warren Wilson '05/'08: Tyrees Allen
Ronnie Collins '05/'08: Henry G. Sanders
Patrick Hogan '05/'08: Keith Szarabajka
Jay Quincy: James Luca McBride
Ada Curtis Bell: Jonathan LaPaglia
Grover Boone '05/'08: Bill Duke
Josephine '05/'08: Wanda-Lee Evans
Frank Mulwrey '05/'08: Cosimo Canale
Jorge Gomez '05/'08: Euriamis Losada

WRITTEN BY: Christopher Silber

DIRECTED BY: Carlos Avila

[Naj]

Please wait for the episode to air before discussing, commenting or voting.

In the meantime those that wish to discuss spoilers may do so in the Spoilers forum.

I will be back later to alert members if Cold Case is NOT airing on time this evening.


Thanks


ETA:

CBS Eye Alert

Revised start times for tonight's CBS programs: 60 Minutes (7:39pm ET), Amazing Race (8:39pm ET), Cold Case (9:39pm ET) and The Unit (10:39pm ET) due to a NFL runover

[Naj]

Thread is now open.

[longislanditalian2]

This episode didn't grab me as much, i was expecting somewhat more of a better case. I'll give it a good, but I kind of figured it out who was the doer. The new ADA was pathically annoying; but all of them are on this show. I did like Stillman's interview with Boone the most.


Looking in the mirror part, I thought back to 5X01- with Lilly looking into the mirror and seeing herself right before getting shot. Now using making the doer ( I forgot his name), to look there and see what he now sees, is very interesting.

[boxman]

To me, this episode is easily the best inner-city/North Philly stories that this series has ever done. And that means a whole lot because its in the company of "Wunderkind", "The Badlands", and "Saving Patrick Bubley", all excellent episodes.

[Electrophile]

I can't vote because the poll isn't working for me for some reason, so I'll just start with my observations of the episode.


I was bothered by the obvious connection to Barack Obama. Both young black men coming from nowhere to take on the big party leaders and bring "change" to the streets, both campaigns centered around a slogan (in this case, "faith"), both having to deal with questions about their lives before they got into politics, both came from Ivy League backgrounds, both were thought to be too "elite" to connect to urban voters.....it was waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay heavy-handed. I mean, it got to the point where I was like "gee, what next?" I don't know if that was their intention from the start, but I felt like they were relying far too much on that meme rather than developing Dexter Collins into his own man. Barack Obama is an amazing figure, one who I've had the pleasure of seeing speak twice and has definitely filled ME with the hope that maybe this country can get turned around.....but his life and his past and who he his shouldn't be aped so badly in a 1 hour crime drama. There was so much the writers could have done with this story and this character, and I was extremely disappointed that they did so little do it. Philadelphia might as well be a stand-in for Chicago; both are heavily Democratic cities, both have similar political machines.....it was like "The Barack Obama Story, tonight on Cold Case."


I intially thought the doer was either Boone or the dirty cop (I felt the cop was dirty, anyway), and I didn't suspect Warren as the guy.....but the set-up at the end that led to the murder was pretty weak and fell flat. Warren was being harrassed by Boone's men and couldn't stand up to the pressure of supporting the underdog, so he shoots him? I just didn't get it.


I had such high hopes for this episode. I thought based on what I had read and what I saw in the promo that this was going to be one of "those" episodes where we're all sitting there at the end, tears in our eyes wondering "why the hell did this have to happen?" as has happened in the past with other episodes. Instead, I was left saying "why the hell did this have to happen" because the episode was so god-awful. Really, I think the bulk of my disappointment with this episode was the fact that they could have really made this a powerful, moving episode about one man's desire to make his neighborhood a better place and how he paid for it in the end with his life. Shame on you Cold Case, we have come to expect better than this.


Sorry if this comes across harsh, but this is one of the rare times CC has managed to anger me, rather than impress me.

[Electrophile]

A note to a moderator that might be reading this, can we get the poll open so we can vote?

[boxman]

Nov 30, 2008 22:57:14 GMT -5 Electrophile said:

I was bothered by the obvious connection to Barack Obama. Both young black men coming from nowhere to take on the big party leaders and bring "change" to the streets, both campaigns centered around a slogan (in this case, "faith"), both having to deal with questions about their lives before they got into politics, both came from Ivy League backgrounds, both were thought to be too "elite" to connect to urban voters.....it was waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay heavy-handed.....

Heh... Very interesting. Yeah, I did think of Obama, but only briefly. It's not like he's the only black politician that's gone to an Ivy League university, and Obama wasn't even born and raised in the inner city like Dexter was. For example, Philly's current mayor, Michael Nutter, is from the heart of West Philly (which can be a pretty rough neighborhood) and went to UPenn's Wharton, a top business school. Obama, on the other hand, lived much of his early life in sunny Hawaii and Indonesia. When Obama went to Chicago, it was a conscious decision to do so, unlike how Dexter was there to clean up the neighborhood he grew up in. I hardly made the same connection that you did.

[Electrophile]

Nov 30, 2008 23:23:12 GMT -5 boxman said:

Nov 30, 2008 22:57:14 GMT -5 Electrophile said:

I was bothered by the obvious connection to Barack Obama. Both young black men coming from nowhere to take on the big party leaders and bring "change" to the streets, both campaigns centered around a slogan (in this case, "faith"), both having to deal with questions about their lives before they got into politics, both came from Ivy League backgrounds, both were thought to be too "elite" to connect to urban voters.....it was waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay heavy-handed.....

Heh... Very interesting. Yeah, I did think of Obama, but only briefly. It's not like he's the only black politician that's gone to an Ivy League university, and Obama wasn't even born and raised in the inner city like Dexter was. For example, Philly's current mayor, Michael Nutter, is from the heart of West Philly (which can be a pretty rough neighborhood) and went to UPenn's Wharton, a top business school. Obama, on the other hand, lived much of his early life in sunny Hawaii and Indonesia. When Obama went to Chicago, it was a conscious decision to do so, unlike how Dexter was there to clean up the neighborhood he grew up in. I hardly made the same connection that you did.

It might not have slapped other people in the face as hard as it did for me, but it was like BLAMMO! and it didn't stop. I know that the biography of Dexter Collins is not a verbatim match to that of Barack Obama. The things you pointed out above were to me, the only exceptions. Past that, and I'm from Chicago so I'm a little too aware of it, the way they were describing Philly politics (which I am assuming was accurate) is quite literally what Chicago politics is.

It's almost like they made a conscious decision to run with this and went whole-hog.

Just as an aside, I know that Obama is not the only black politican to attend an Ivy League school or the only black politican to do the things that he did.....but it's the timing. Had this episode aired in maybe 2005 or 2006.....I would have liked it.

[cellogal]

Well, I liked this episode. It was full of twists and turns and intriguing characters, and I loved how almost everyone got their moment to shine. Stillman's interview with Boone was his typical brand of sternly awesome, and I also adored Kat's interview with Jay. "I'm a cop and a mom, so you've tiffed me off twice." The new ADA was definitely more entertaining than some of the others they've had, and the looks Kat gave him were priceless.

I liked how they portrayed Dex. He seemed too good to be true at first, so I appreciate that they made him someone who learned from youthful folly rather than someone who simply was too good to be true. I appreciated his passion for his neighborhood and his refusal to play games. That scene with Boone and the photos was particularly powerful.

Also, Scotty and Vera with Frankie? Hilarious.

[Electrophile]

I agree that Dex was a compelling character. I think what he was trying to do was very noble, and the way he was trying to go about doing it was against the norm for politics anymore. I just had too many problems with outside parallels.


There is one more thing about this episode that irked me, and it had nothing to do with the plot. Why oh why is Lilly continuing to hide her interest in Paul Cooper (right now we don't know who he is, although I think it's obvious) and why is she lying about it? I mean, "I keep getting my neighbor's mail?" That's not even a good lie. Why would she bring her neighbor's mail to work with her? I'd just leave at home and deal with it when I was off work. There's an old expression "Poop [edited version of the word] or get off the pot", basically meaning do what you need to do or leave. How long are we going to get strung along on this minor plot issue before we see some resolution?

[cellogal]

I agree. I'm not the world's biggest fan of Lilly drama anyway, so I'm ready for this story arc to move along already. The quasi-stalking is getting old.

[irishkale]

Excellent Episode!

The story was very well done! The plot had a gritty "documentary" feel to it. Like those crime shows on NBC (Law & Order CI, SVU, etc.) I found that I was also drawn in by the variety of suspects & possible motives. I didn't know which way the story was going to turn, and it really kept my attention.

The actor who played the main character of Dex was a very charismatic actor and easy to like. I find that I have to care for the victim to be properly drawn into the episode, and this one worked for me.

Bill Duke was right-on as the slimy councilman. He's not just an actor, he's a PRESENCE. His scenes with Stillman were chilling (and wonderful.)

Lapaglia as the new DA was great -- it was odd to see him as a comedic actor because I've only seen him in roles as a "tough guy" character (you couldn't see his muscles underneath that suit). They seemed to be linking him to Kat in some way. I think this would be quite a funny pairing. I guess we'll see later if he returns in later episodes.

And just a bit of trivia for the hardcore KM fan -- Lapaglia & KM were in the movie "Inferno" together in 1998.

I liked that little "Lilly trick" used in the final interrogation. She could see that Scotty's "bad cop" approach was getting the guy riled up, then she switches up and asks the guy to look in the mirror of the interrogation room. Nice idea by the writer of the script.


The Obama angle seemed obvious to me ; if anything I thought that the little nod to "real life" made the story even better and more interesting to watch (at least for me.) Alot of CC's stories have a link in real life -- there's a thread I think in Fan Fiction that has links to the roots of some CC episodes.

All-in-all I liked this one alot!

[boxman]

Nov 30, 2008 23:50:21 GMT -5 irishkale said:

The Obama angle seemed obvious to me ; if anything I thought that the little nod to "real life" made the story even better and more interesting to watch (at least for me.) Alot of CC's stories have a link in real life -- there's a thread I think in Fan Fiction that has links to the roots of some CC episodes.

Now see, last night I watched America's Most Wanted, and they profiled the murder of Baltimore Councilman Ken Harris. I think the real-life Harris case is a much better fit as an inspiration for this episode:

Baltimore-Sun link #1
AMW link
Baltimore-Sun link #2
Wikipedia link

Only problem is that Harris' murder took place only recently, so it's probably less likely they'd turn it into an episode so quickly....

[eduardodelroice]

Nov 30, 2008 22:56:57 GMT -5 boxman said:

To me, this episode is easily the best inner-city/North Philly stories that this series has ever done. And that means a whole lot because its in the company of "Wunderkind", "The Badlands", and "Saving Patrick Bubley", all excellent episodes.

True Calling was also an inner city episode... Not as others but showed something

Nov 30, 2008 23:12:20 GMT -5 Electrophile said:

A note to a moderator that might be reading this, can we get the poll open so we can vote?

yeah, the poll is not working =(

[mitchy]

I liked this, although even if the poll was working, I wouldn't vote just yet. I want to watch it again when it's broadcast on Sky here in the UK on Thursday, as I had problems hearing several sections. I got the gist though, but won't vote until I've seen it properly.

My interim impressions are - excellent expose of the sleazy political system and what really goes on behind the scenes. Yes, the Obama comparisons were bound to happen but truthfully, I felt it makes it more poignant. You think Barack getting elected was miraculous? Yes, yes it was, look at what could have happened. The line between success and failure is so small.

I liked Jonathan LaPaglia as the new, clumsy ADA. A bit of light relief is always welcome and he's going to be a good foil for Kat, I think - at least, they seem to be setting it up that way.

Major, major probs to John Finn for the way the Boone scene was played. Very nicely done indeed and nice to see that Stillman isn't above displaying some muscle. It will be very interesting to see if they actually develop any ramifications from this - knowing CC's disdain for continuity, I doubt it but it's always a possibility.

The stalking thing - old, lame, old. Get it over and done with already. Seriously, they should have dealt with this right after One Small Step, not drag it out. *yawns* Boring!

Scotty and Vera with Frankie? Bwahahaha! Scotty can be such a jerk :)

All in all, I think I'll rate this as a good but as I said, will wait until I re-watch the episode before voting. I might bump it up to excellent afterwards :)

[riche]

The poll worked for me. Is it working for anyone else?

[riche]

Dec 1, 2008 5:09:10 GMT -5 mitchy said:

I want to watch it again when it's broadcast on Sky here in the UK on Thursday

According to Sky's website it is not on on Thursday. In fact it doesn't look like any new episodes will be on until late January at the earliest. Perhaps there will be more breaks in the US schedule next year and Sky just want to run them all back-to-back without breaks so they are leaving them for a while.

[myril]

Poll is open, so go voting. Sorry for being a little late

[eduardodelroice]

Dec 1, 2008 8:25:40 GMT -5 @riche said:

The poll worked for me. Is it working for anyone else?

Dec 1, 2008 8:31:49 GMT -5 myril said:

Poll is open, so go voting. Sorry for being a little late

Thank you Riche and myril, the poll is working now