Ep. 5.15 The Road

[TVFan]

LILLY AND VALENS HEAD TO WEST VIRGINIA TO RETRIEVE A PRIMARY SUSPECT IN THE 2007 CASE OF A PRESUMED-MURDERED WOMAN WHO WAS ABDUCTED STEPS AWAY FROM HER ENGAGEMENT PARTY, ON "COLD CASE," SUNDAY, APRIL 6

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
John Smith: Damon Herriman
John Smith (1983): Field Cate
Brenda MacDowell (2007, 2008): Kathleen Munroe
David Nelson: Jeff Hephner
Deputy Sheriff Ted Huffard: Kevin Cooney
Dotty Phillips: Jayne Taini
Colleen Legarth: Eileen Grubba
Monica Capcot: Annie Abrams
Cocky Dude (2007): Sunil Malhotra
Hot Woman (2007): Kincaid Walker
Male Party Guest: Michael Proctor
Newark Resident: Stevie Johnson
Dreadlocks: Zone
Young Woman (1983): Kristen Faye Hunter

WRITTEN BY: Jennifer Johnson, one of the series' co-executive producers

DIRECTED BY: Holly Dale

[Naj]

While I absolutley loved this ep I don't get the ending. How could Brenda be alive from August of 2007 if she's locked up and left with no food or water.... I thought the ep was brillant until the very end. Guess I missed something.

[longislanditalian2]

That was one creepy episode. John Doe was a little like George but not as creepy. I like how the light at the end represented possibly a change for Lilly as she is coming to terms with everything in her life.

How each of the woman fought, especially how he showed one woman the video of her baby. That was horrific especially seeing the daughter now putting her hands on the screen. It in a way showed that Lilly was still wasn't over her mother's death.

The song was was playing in when little brenda was riding her bike, also was the ending song to " Wishing" in the second season.
I do like Scotty's comment at the beginning" I was going to wash my hair". The chemistry between the two was great how Lilly managed to stop him and how she didn't lose it at the end.

I think the connection to Kensignton really reminded Lilly of where she comes from, the ending song really said it all.

[leslie33]

Man, that guy was creepy, creepy, creepy. He was kind of like a younger version of George. I was so creeped out, I checked to see that the front door was locked. That's how good that episode was.
Did anyone else get the sense that Lilly knew John? That's the impression I got from the way she looks at his video as she and Scotty were leaving for West Virginia. Then when they were interrogating him, she kept giving him nasty looks. Not the usual, "you disgust me" glares, but it was more personal. Kind of like she had seen him before. At least that's the impression I got. She kept on looking at him like she had had a run in with him, or knew she had seen him before.

[boxman]

Wow! Bravo!!

I'm not only voting this as "One of the Season's Best", I also want to say that I think this episode will be remembered as among the best and most pivotal in the entire series! I quickly began expecting the storyline to be something between the psycho Robin Williams' movie, "One Hour Photo", and S3's "One Night". Or in other words, "just another episode". It was truly amazing watching how "The Road" really pulled together a lot of long-running themes and story lines together. While the case itself totally creeped me out, I was also very pleasantly surprised and pleased with the entire episode. I'm definitely amazed with what they did here and especially how this story relates to the entire series. I'm sure we'll all be talking about this episode for quite some time.

[longislanditalian2]

At first when I saw why he was recreating I thought back to " It takes a village" that had aired earlier on this season. The well kinda made me think about the move" The ring" for some reason.

Good camera work showing how the young killer didn't care about the woman as it show him spitting down into the water. Watching her die, reflected on Lilly about her nightmares. Although she almost lost it a part of her old self snapped back.

The one place that gave her special memory was Kensignton the song that church near her old house. Maybe that it's symbolize hope that things can change and get better. I could see how when Lilly found Brenda she saw herself for a moment after being shot.

But watching Brenda being reunited with her fiance gave her hope about everything. The look over at Stillman is puzzling, maybe there is something deeper between the two. Like maybe he is her real father or he was there when she was attacked as a child?


Scotty's face in front of the bars, could foreshadow something darker in his own past or something yet to come?

[vavavoomya]

YES!!!!!!!!!!
COLD CASE IS BACK IN TOWN Yeah
I feel like it is old home week

This is like a season 1 Cold Case.

GREAT writing and directing and Lily at her best and Danny WOW. it was like a feature film not like TV. I am so excited it;s like Cold Case has be reborn. i was scared creeped out sad and angry. All the reasons i love this show
Oh Joy Thank you Cold Case. i have missed you.

[vavavoomya]

This is truly one of the best episodes in all 5 seasons. WOW

[boxman]

naj said:

While I absolutley loved this ep I don't get the ending. How could Brenda be alive from August of 2007 if she's locked up and left with no food or water.... I thought the ep was brillant until the very end. Guess I missed something.

Huh? John Smith kept his victims alive until their strength and willpower broke down... That was his entire MO, and it was said several times in the episode. You really missed that, Naj??

[longislanditalian2]

The car ride reminded me of the X-fiels the whole time. How the camera kept on one of the charaters the darkness. Especially how Lilly and Scotty communitcated with on another. How she was able to stop him from physically hurting the guy.

[anneinchicago]

Okay, I am never, ever, ever sending my photos or videos out anywhere. Printing them at home, that's for me from now on.

Boxman mentioned the Robin Williams' movie, "One Hour Photo", but I saw more similarities to the movie "Red Dragon'. The killer in that movie was also a home video editor only he slaughtered entire families.

I did think the ending a bit contrived (would the victim have really been able to just walk out? I would think an ambulance would have been better), but other than that, I agree with everyone that it had to be one of the best.

Including the uncomfortable look Scotty had when John Smith asked him (paraphrasing) if he hadn't thought about Lilly in *that* way. <g>

[snickerdoodle]

Hello - first time poster here

I thought the episode was good, but I was wondering if anyone read the sides for this episode at nowcasting.com? I read them a couple of weeks ago and was really, really excited for the episode to air. I know that they make changes in the script all the time, but they sure changed a LOT in the final episode. And I have to say that I liked the original sides a lot more. Even on paper it felt much more intense and there was more focus on Lilly... I actually enjoyed reading those sides more than watching the actual episode and I just wish they would have stuck to them.

But oh well, the episode was still good.

PS: If anyone wants to read the sides, they're still up on nowcasting.com under "archived sides". You have to be a member, though, but the sign up is free

[Naj]

No I didn't miss that, boxman. I guess I missed how long it was since he was in jai ... a person can't live without food and water. That would only take a week or two unless a stash of food and water was in her cell but I didn't see any such thing in the flashbacks with the others. So if he was in jail and unable to be there to offer food or he never left food ..... that's the part I don't see. I have to rewatch the ep. Otherwise it was the Best of Ep and if not then they forgot something major which I can't believe. Or.... I'm missing something.

boxman said:

naj said:

While I absolutley loved this ep I don't get the ending. How could Brenda be alive from August of 2007 if she's locked up and left with no food or water.... I thought the ep was brillant until the very end. Guess I missed something.

Huh? John Smith kept his victims alive until their strength and willpower broke down... That was his entire MO, and it was said several times in the episode. You really missed that, Naj??

[Naj]

Hello snickerdoodle and I'll have to check out the site you reference.

[Collider]

Since I've only been here a couple days, this is my first time posting on the episode-specific thread... so advance apologies if I mess it up.

I'll admit... I had low expectations for this episode. I'm one of the very very few people who love the show, but don't particularly like when it focuses too heavily on Lilly. I can't give you a reason why, it just bugs me sometimes. So, naturally, given the blurb on this one, it wasn't something I was holding my breath for.

And I was SO wrong.

This episode was absolutely stunning, in the sort of way that makes me really really uncomfortable to watch, and yet leaves me feeling so pleased for having watched it. Lilly's life and experience provided the perfect foil for John's special brand of sadism, and it worked exceptionally well (I do find some of the plots do tend to be Lilly-centric just for the sake of being Lilly-centric, but in this case, it absolutely made perfect sense to me, and worked beautifully).

I'll accept the questionmark over how Brenda managed to stay alive for so long, even though it's a valid plot hole. But, IMHO, it was vital that she still be there, given Lilly's refusal to accept the alternative. They needed to keep her alive there, to reinforce Lilly's hope, her reason for getting out of bed in the morning, and to give her that strength of remembering who she is and why she does what she does. And, moreover, to end what had been a disturbing and rather painful viewing experience, on a note of bittersweet positivity.

Also... I'll admit that I do tend to cry a lot when watching this programme ('cause I'm a total wuss when it comes to crying at stuff on TV)... but, nonetheless, that scene at the end, with the little girl watching the videos of her mother, absolutely broke me into little tiny pieces.

End point, and not to ramble on for a thousand pages as I'm wont to do about this show... easily one of the best episodes in a very long time (though it's still not knocked "World's End" off the top spot for my favourite of the season; don't ask me why, I just utterly adored that one). I found it beautifully shot, brilliantly acted, and just all-round excellent... but at the same time, it's an episode I don't see myself re-watching any time soon, if only for the sake of my sanity.

[teledetective]

There's not that many episodes of Cold Case that leave me feeling disturbed about what I had just watched, but...wow. Such a chilling episode...

I found it particularly chilling that John didn't seem to have any sort of event, traumatic or otherwise, that caused him to become a killer (unless you count the well incident as one). Damon Harriman, John's actor, did a really good job in portraying the deranged mind that brough so many people so much grief. Not only that, they also did a good job with the more technical aspects of the episode (the lighting, the camerawork, etc.)

I also loved how they intertwined Lilly's issues with the case (more below). As boxman noted, it was because of her connection to Kensington that Lilly remembered where she was from. Also enjoyed hearing some OneRepublic at the end, too. (LOL)

Anyway, the most interesting thing about this episode is how they connected Lilly's issues with the case, especially with Brenda. I suppose that in a way, their stories parallel each other's -- all the problems and issues Lilly could be a metaphor to the room that Brenda was sealed inside, the darkness that seemed impossible to be able to escape from. And we can see that John succeeded in rattling them both quite a bit. But neither of them let their will to live slip away. And as we saw at the end of the episode, Brenda escaped with her life, while Lilly had hope after her encounter with the John Smith character.

Certainly, Cold Case is one of the best shows on TV out there, and it's good to see that even with the writer's strike CC is still as solid and brilliant as ever.

[cellogal]

I haven't voted yet, because I honestly can't figure out how to vote yet. It was obviously well-written, well-acted, and generally well-done, and I think it'll go down as one of the pivotal episodes for the show. But I usually reserve the "best of season" ratings for eps I enjoyed, and I honestly didn't enjoy this one all that much. It seriously gave me the creeps. I'm kind of a wuss when it comes to sociopaths, so episodes like Mind Hunters and this one are generally not eps I can stomach more than once. The well scene made me almost sick to my stomach, and the scene with the mom and the baby video, and then at the end with the little girl and the mom video...that was heartbreaking.

But I did like several things about this one. I was pleasantly surprised when Brenda was found alive...I think if she hadn't been, that would have messed Lil up good, and I'm glad they decided to give her a break. Lots of really good Lil insight in this one, and it worked with the case quite well.

And of course, what kind of shipper would I be if I didn't mention all the Lilly/Scotty interaction? I love seeing them together in any capacity because they just fit together so well as partners and friends. Whether they ever "go there" or not, Lilly and Scotty are great together, so any scene featuring interaction between the two of them is one I will enjoy, and this ep was a gold mine. I loved how concerned Scotty was that Lilly still isn't sleeping, and he did his coiled rattlesnake routine in the car. You knew something was going to set him off, you just didn't know what. And when he did snap, and Lilly pulled him off the guy...that right there was Lilly and Scotty in a nutshell. He protected her, in a way, and she protected him. I LOVE scenes like that.

Also loved the little funny moments; there weren't many, but Vera playing the casserole card, Scotty having plans to wash his hair, the "you get a piece of that?" question, and Scotty getting all bristly about his "flowery" aftershave all made me giggle, and Lil insisting on driving was all kinds of wonderful.

A well-done episode, but one that was so dark, twisty, and disturbing that I was compelled to sit down at my computer and pound out a chapter of ETTFC about donut wars. That still didn't keep me from having a nightmare in which John Smith had me in the dungeon, asking me what I had to live for. Gah.

ETA: Oh, who am I kidding? It gets a "best."

[LillyKat]

Well, wow. Just wow.

Almost three seasons removed from George Marks, there finally IS a CC episode that is a worthy sequel to the George / "Mindhunters" / "The Woods" legend. Am not sure I thought I'd see that day, so glad to be proven wrong by Team CC.

Given the obvious George-ness look/feel of the preview of this ep, I actually tried NOT to get my hopes up too high. In these last two seasons, I’ve been burned by spoilers, deceptive promos and/or my overly optimistic expectation of what I thought was supposed to be happening with certain eps that are billed as ones where Lilly is dealing with … well, herself.

But with this episode, IMHO, someone on Team CC (writer/co-exec producer Jennifer Johnson) FINALLY went back to what this show was originally supposed to be about – Lilly’s life as seen through the eyes of the long forgotten victims for which she seeks justice. Remember the whole people shouldn’t be forgotten thing? Remember the front row seat to people’s lives thing? Remember the dealing with her OWN stuff in the face of bringing closure to everyone else?

For me, this ep held all three of those key elements. I've lamented the fact here (and elsewhere) that Lilly Rush has become that dreaded shell of herself. A zombie. A mess. Way too depressed. Call it a shift in priorities, one too many extra storylines, one too many extra characters or whatever the case may be, but it has been far TOO Long since we've seen Lilly like this. And it was just so entertaining to see her "back."

Her voice was back. Her aura was back. Her strength was back. Her chutzpah was back. She was strong and unsettled. Determined and unsure. At the point of cracking but held it together. She even seemed more mature. But nowhere in the process was she some sort of ridiculous mess. She was still HERSELF. True, not quite in the let-it-all-out there kind of way that occurred with her confrontation with George Marks, but nonetheless, there was PLENTY of original Lilly Rush on display (as evident with how she handled/tamed Scotty, which I really did love; but why is it Scotty can still get away with flying off the handle and beating up people WITHOUT ever getting in trouble? I swear, the guy needs anger management classes in the worst way).

Kathryn Morris once again proves why she is one of the most genuinely gifted and truly instinctive actresses working today. Her subtleties are not lost on this viewer, and her commitment to Lilly Rush character shines ever so brightly when she is given such depth of material with which to work. That focus has shifted in recent seasons; I, for one, which it would shift back to Lilly. For this viewer, Kathryn's performances drive the show. She is the reason I watch. And when she is at the forefront, with all of Lilly’s essence on display, is when, IMHO, this show is at its best.

John Smith was a worthy sequel to George Marks, and Damon Herriman’s performance is a worthy successor to the genius of John Billingsley. John was even MORE likable than George, even more charming, even more subtle and clever. I find I don’t have issues with the creepiness/darkness of this ep or the disturbing notions of this man keeping women caged. If anything, that is what made it compelling to me – the darkness of this ep contrasted against Lilly’s personal struggle to move past her OWN darkness. I’ve often said I wish George had NOT been killed in the second season so that he could still be around to torment Lilly today (LOL!). He seems to be the ONLY one who ever truly got to her, and the only one that ever made her own up.

Welcome back Lilly of old. The question I now have to wonder is, how long will she stay? I hope for a while. Perhaps this is a turning point for the show. Or a shot in the arm. Who knows.

I just want to really applaud Jennifer Johnson for going back and digging around what unfortunately seems to be the long-forgotten psyche of Lilly Rush – she twisted her up, forced her to deal, forced her to be accountable and yet still retained the best strengths and essence of character. And while I do find it interesting (or ironic) that it always seems to take a SERIAL KILLER to get Lilly to own up, hey, I’ll take it at this point. Anything to get Lilly back on track.

Bravo. Fantastic ep.

[boxman]

I'm on my lunch break (using my alloted internet "quota time" ), so let me briefly say that the episode was right on the money about that "Kensington Accent". People in the Kensington/Fishtown area of Philly have a noticably different accent from those in other parts of the city, and it's not too hard to identify that someone's from that part of town. Don't quote me, but I think the accent was developed from a mixture of the Irish, German, and Polish people who've settled in that area. To my knowledge, it's not too different from how some people of Northern European decent speak in Boston and Chicago. This accent is different from the Italian-derived "Rocky Balboa" or "Sopranos" accent you often hear with people in New York, New Jersey, and South Philly.

In actuality, Lilly/Kathryn doesn't have the "Kensington Accent" at all. She obviously speaks more like a mid-Westerner. I think this is perfectly okay, because if she did speak "Kensingtonese", it might be difficult for some people to understand her. ;D I think "Phil" from "Dog Day Afternoons" had one of the closest accents, and Vera can get close to sounding like it sometimes.

lillykat said:

John Smith was a worthy sequel to George Marks, and Damon Herriman’s performance is a worthy successor to the genius of John Billingsley. ... I’ve often said I wish George had NOT been killed in the second season so that he could still be around to torment Lilly today (LOL!).

I told ToddSmitts and CelloGal the other night in chat, that I now live about ten minutes from Media, Pennsylvania, the town that John Billingsley is from. And yes, there's a lot of woods in the area.

[longislanditalian2]

Did anyone notice that John said that he likes the Rush, now if you remember back in 3X15- San tuary Ana mentions that to Scotty during the flashbacks. Does this foreshadow Scotty and Lilly getting together at some point?

Join me tonight in the chat room, there will be more to discuss