I love it when episode titles work beautifully in my reviews. Take this weeks episode, Identity Crisis, to quote Shakespeare, “There’s a double meaning in that.” Of course we have the portion of the story dealing with the cross dressing, trans-aged con artist, losing herself in an attempt to take from others, but then we have the Ellie/Jo portion. Ellie is forced to face the fact that she doesn’t come from where she thought she did. And then we also have the episode itself struggling with its identity; a case episode versus a character episode. And just to assure everyone, I am not confused about who I am...I don’t think...but maybe I really am unsure of who I am but just don’t realize it or know it and thus, paradoxically, I am more confused than any! *Looks down-sees short legs, some junk in the trunk, food stain on pants, spit up on shoulder* Never mind, I’m still me. Now, let’s dive in.
I had a roommate who was afraid of old people, she never trusted them. I thought she was crazy, but she may have been onto something. My grandmother use to tell us that she should look into becoming a drug runner for money because, and I quote, “Nobody will suspect the little granny with the dope in back [of her car].” I know for a fact she was crazy, but the point however is that people are more prone to believe in the helplessness of the elderly and our thief utilized that to swindle others. Interestingly enough, I believe it is also what led to her dieing. I don’t think our killer, Jayson Luck (*groan* Yes, that was his actual name...really Pam Veasey? There is a thin line between irony and goofiness) would have been apt to stab a woman, but it was easy for him to forget who she was because of her disguise. Kurt Vonnegut wrote, “We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be.” Because she took herself out of the equation, Jayson was able to kill her without even “remembering pulling the knife out of the bag.” Jayson himself was a conflicting character. His contrite statement to Mac about how he was sorry because he’d never be able to pay his brother back was full of emotion and loss, but who cares? Jayson was willing to rob an old man of his money, in fact he did rob “him.” He would have been content to live off another person’s money had it not been a scam. So I say have fun sitting in jail buddy, you deserve it. Conversely, Veasey was wise enough to offer a character who was genuinely interested in helping the old man. I liked that scene between Lindsay and Byron Wendle, the gentleman who was swindled (hee hee, it rhymes) because he offered to help, at least one person didn’t lose their money because of selfish motives. Although I could have done without The Sting dialogue, that was weak writing that made Lindsay look a tab bit more heartless than I think the situation called for.
Now we peel back another layer and find Ellie and Jo. I like when Veasey writes episodes because she includes personal storylines, and I enjoy learning more about our characters. I learned a lot about Jo both good and bad. I also don’t like it when Veasey writes episodes because she is the queen of failed continuity and rearranging things to fit her story. I enjoyed seeing Ellie’s conflict. I believed her reasoning for wanting to know her mother and was glad to see it went beyond typical teenage rebellion or angst. Jo’s own internal conflict was believable and, perversely, very entertaining to watch. It is clear her deep love for her daughter, which is why I find it difficult to believe Jo would chose to lie to Ellie for so long. It seemed out of character, also hypocritical, since she was all “sisterhood of the no secrets” earlier in the episode. We don’t lie to our kids in our family about anything, we don’t teach them that Santa brings presents or make up things about where rainbows come from. It’s a personal choice, though just to be clear we teach them the power of imagination and allow them to believe in what they chose to believe in, we just ensure they have all the information, and ensure that information is presented in an age appropriate way. Why did I tell you that? Simply to illustrate why I struggle to sympathize with Jo’s decision to keep the truth from Ellie. I was a little disappointed in Ellie’s rather lack luster acceptance of this new information. I would have preferred to see some tension and emotion develop between Jo and Ellie. But I think that goes back to Veasey forcing a story to fit her preference. Likewise, everyone remembers how Jo literally ran away from her ex-husband (who runs from DJE? Incidentally, he was criminally underused!) a few episodes ago. She didn’t want to talk to him, didn’t want to see him, had spent years avoiding him. Now suddenly he is in her apartment, hanging out, and Jo seemed perfectly fine with it. Another example of how things are changed to fit the story and thus killing the continuity. Oh, and speaking of failures in continuity, I like how Jo tells Mac he should have kids so she wouldn’t be alone in parenting...weird...I thought she shared an office with two parents...
Director Mike Vejar did a good job with keeping the pacing of the episode going-though the first confrontation between Jo and Ellie was a little too long, it at least had a lot of emotion and both Sela Ward and Sydney Park carried it well. Vejar seems to be able to get strong reactions from the actors and it was great to see. The scene between Adam, Danny and Lindsay was fun for me to watch because all three actors seemed to be really into, having fun and totally went for it. Vejar moved smoothly between the case and the character as well, and I was surprised when the episode ended because I wasn’t ready. I hadn’t looked at the clock once during the episode-a rarity for me.
Then we have the episode itself. I still see the struggle of being able to find the balance between plot driven and character driven aspects. We have had too many episodes recently where the character aspect has been completely ignored, and to me those are super boring episodes. This episode I think was a little too heavy on the personal. The case portion suffered as a result. There wasn’t a great deal of “meat” behind the crime solving process this week because there was a lot of time devoted to Jo’s story line. But if I had to choose between the two, I will always choose an episode that is a little heavier on character than plot. Snow Day is probably CSI:NY's crowning achievement when it comes to balance; action, drama, romance, emotion. I just wish instead of living in the episode’s shadow they would find a way to harness that awesomeness. (Plus, it would be nice to see shirtless Danny again, and if he happens to be making out with Lindsay so be it)
Overall a decent episode. It is a continuing trend of improvements. I don’t know what the problem was in the middle of this season as the show seemed to suffer its own identity crisis, but hopefully this means it is officially behind us and we can get back to the show we all love to watch.
Highlight of the episode: “We’re gonna grow old together.” I heard it, you heard it, and my DL loving heart grew!
Guilty pleasure: You can basically assume that any episode involving DJE is going to have him and his fine looking 6‘4“ body as my guilty pleasure.
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