• Law & Order "A Perfect Family" S24.E17 (spoilers)

    From Ubiquitous@weberm@polaris.net to rec.arts.tv,alt.tv.law-and-order on Tue Apr 8 04:30:42 2025
    From Newsgroup: alt.tv.law-and-order

    In article <vss3l0$35jio$1@dont-email.me>, ahk@chinet.com wrote:

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    Law & Order, as revived, is at another low point with a particularly bad
    and offensive episode. For the second episode, Mehcad Brooks does not
    appear; Shaw is still said to be sick. I assume production weeks
    conflict for Brooks but I didn't find what he's doing.

    Riley (Reid Scott) has a father-daughter moment with Bridget (Justine
    Colan), who is being mildly bratty. Later in the episode, upset by >investigating the murder of a 12 year old girl at a prep school, Riley
    calls Bridget out of class to try to bond with her; Bridget is at best >indifferent.

    Emily has been tossed off a pedestrian bridge near her school. The red >herring is volleyball coach Redmond who has been transferred among
    schools Riley and Lt. Brady (Maura Tierney) suspect he's a molester or >pervert and Emily had some "private lessons". but this being Law &
    Order, it's just not worth investigating the possibility of other
    serious crimes, nor do they even suggest anything to the principal. In
    this case, the girl was upset about her family but never said anything >meaningful to the coach.

    Emily's perfect family the Chapmans, parents Melinda (Allison Miller)
    and Derek (Brett Zimmerman), younger daughter Amanda (Delaney Quinn),
    and a newborn gets more and more off putting, especially the mother.
    Yee (Connie Shi) works her magic on vast amount of video from networked >cameras, spotting the mother some place where she has no alibi for the
    crime. I wasn't sure why she knew what the mother looked like but I
    guess she had a driver's license photo or the actress's head shot.
    Later, Yee has footage from forward-facing cameras in transit buses that
    are amazing clear video and see the top of the pedestrian bridge
    clearly, showing the mother after the daughter was shoved off. No >forward-facing camera in a vehicle designed to capture images of a
    collision will have such footage.

    The case keeps getting more and more absurd. The mother, we learn, has
    been diagnosed with post-partum PSYCHOSIS, not just depression. The
    oldest daughter exhibited a slight amount of jealousy toward the
    newborn, very typical childish behavior. The mother overreacts and
    decided that Emily was going to harm the baby and murdered her to
    prevent this.

    This is pretty stupid stuff. But wait. There's more.

    In the L&O twist, the husband rejected the diagnosis and threw down the >antipscychotics the wife had been prescribed. So Price decides to charge >manslaughter in the second degree against the husband.

    As per usual, Price isn't the least bit prepared to proceed to trial. He >tries to get the father to accept a plea but the father refuses, even
    when Price tells him he'll put Amanda on the stand as she witnessed the >father preventing the mother's treatment. Price puts Amanda on the stand
    but in another incredibly dramatic moment, won't question her out of
    fear that she'll be psycologically harmed.

    At the end, Price tells Maroun that Derek's punishment will be feeling
    guilt and regret that Emily's death could have been prevented.

    Whatever helps you sleep at night, man.

    This was a bad episode.

    [Kerman's incorrect formatting fixed.]

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