A Man. And His Blog.

The episode was pretty good, considering how the series arc fell back to the usual crime-story-of-the-week and had less character moments than the pilot (which was to be expected). But after the pilot I was expecting a bit more from PRIME SUSPECT. Like it would go into another direction and not hop on the slow-driving train of all those other crime procedurals.

The story was okay. It was predictable (thanks to it being the series premise) that Chris (David Meunier) didn’t have to do anything with the murder/kidnapping, and I was just waiting for the moment, when Jane (Maria Bello) got the information, which leads her to the real perp. I was literally counting the seconds… And thankfully it didn’t take too much time and the writers were good enough to craft an interesting story around Chris. Even after the crime was solved and Jane declared herself the winner against Duffy (Brían F. O’Byrne).Basically, the whole scenery after the conclusion of the case was the most interesting part of the episode, but only because it showed that a fuck-up of the police can have those kind of repercussions. And I really wanted to see more of that, instead of the case, which went predictably its course, and never had a surprise to offer.

Beginning with Noelle (Paula Malcomson) being lied to by Chris; continuing with the cops having a metaphorically hard-on for Chris, because he looks like he killed a mother and kidnapped a baby; ending with Jane going her own ways to solve the case and not even informing her “buddies”. Sorry, but that’s old after two episodes already. So I hope there’s gonna be some variety in the near future, or PRIME SUSPECT might be boring, before NBC gets the chance to cancel it (editor’s note: That review was written before NBC officially cancelled the show).

Jane’s private life storyline was okay. Again, she “battles” with Matt’s ex-wife Tricia (Lena Georgas), again there’s the question whether she thinks that Jane is a perfect environment for Tricia’s son. I kinda find it funny when Jane cam with the danger of a perp breaking into a home through the window and kidnapping a child, so that somewhat worked on a hilarious note. But I’d wish for some variety here as well. And somehow I don’t buy that Jane and Matt (Kenny Johnson) are in a relationship and are in fact living together. There aren’t even “I love you” scenes or kinds like that – no kisses, no deep thoughts from both of them, no romantic eye contact. Something’s definitely missing here, and as long as the writers don’t bring it into the show, I will always have difficulties in the believability of the show.

And I noticed exactly that while watching the third episode. Somehow, I’m currently not into a crime show like this, no matter if the characters are gritty like I want them to be, which is why I decided to hold off on the rest of the show. I probably would have continued to watch, if PRIME SUSPECT would have been a success on NBC. Maybe I’ll get back to the rest of the show, when I have time, or when I get bored with THE MENTALIST. Which will probably happen around April and the beginning of May. 6/10

It's not just the hat, it's also the sunglasses who make the character

It's cry-time!

To be honest, I haven’t expected much from this show, even though Maria Bello stars in it and even though I kinda knew it would be a clever crime procedural instead of the standard procedural CSI-ish something, which never succeeds with really good and thought-through storylines. And even though the pilot of PRIME SUSPECT wasn’t much clever in its story, it totally succeeded with its characters, and how they interesting seem to be, despite their statuses of not being heroes in the police force.

Instead they’re just normal detectives. Some hate their colleagues, some try to like them, but don’t succeed, because everybody else is hating, and one lonely detective tries every time to show it to them all, but is failing as well, because there is no such thing of having and being friends in the homicide department. That’s why Jane was so interesting in her first hour: She wants to be a good detective, she probably is a good detective, and there might be even a reason, other than having slept her way up, of why she is in this particular homicide department, but for this episode alone, it was an interesting way of depicting Jane’s character in a world of man, where they usually have the pants on. This was the better part of the episode for me, and I can’t understand why so many critics saw sexism in that character arc. Because I didn’t. Instead Jane’s biggest enemy just hated her for stealing Keating’s (Jason Beghe) job after he died, and because he was a guy and he and his friends used the opportunity to gossip about a woman they barely know and absolutely hate. There wasn’t much sexism there, and it was surely not over the top, like some of the critics want to say. They just hate her for this situation she put herself in. Except I have overlooked something, or I don’t know the state of sexism in the United States, when it comes to women in the field of men… But please, share your insights in the comment section, maybe I’ll learn something.

Now to the episode itself: It was a great premiere. Dark, gritty, edgy, violent, absolutely not funny, and the characters partly blow me away. They aren’t superheroes, who can solve every case and see every little mistake during a murder investigation, which leads to the conclusion and catching the killer, and they aren’t even heroes in general. They are just people who do their jobs. I hope this characterizations of all the main characters is going to be continued over the rest of the season to make the show look more authentic and continue the gritty look. Because I’m tired of all the funny detectives, who seem to think they can look sharp and think clearly to solve a complicated murder case, which the audience has already solved after ten minutes (hello, Patrick Jane). So, PRIME SUSPECT could be pretty much a different little cop show, who is able to go a different way than other cop shows. Unfortunately the character work wasn’t really that strong. I know all about Jane already, but what about the other detectives? They barely could show what they were up to and why they were hating Jane; and they didn’t even have the chance to prove themselves in the job. This is why I think the pilot focused a bit too much on Jane and her troubles in the job and in her private life, and the episode would have been even more great, when the rest of the homicide division would have gotten some worthy screentime.

The murder case was forgettable though. First, there was probably only seven minutes spent on the case; second I didn’t understand why Jane connected the town hall murder (the guy who threw his girlfriend from the roof) with the rape killings. I didn’t see the connection there, and it would have been great to let the audience take part in Jane’s thoughts here. Yes, she mentioned that the rape killings centered around town hall, but that couldn’t have been all of it? The two interesting scenes where the interview with the kid and the thing with the wrong address. The first one, because it showed that Jane is willing to go a couple of steps further than any other detective in her division; and the second because it looked so damn real. Just having a wrong address, and the killer is about to escape. A little mistake with a big outcome – another factor why the episode looked so authentic to me, when even Jane is doing those kind of mistakes.

All in all, I’d wish for PRIME SUSPECT to continue with its characters and to go more into Jane’s colleagues, and not just focus on her. After all, the series is called “Prime Suspect”, so it should be mostly about a prime suspect and not really the investigators. In addition, I’d wish for the grittiness of New York to continue – it’s another thing, when you have sunshine and seemingly warm weather in USA dramas every damn time. And finally, don’t forget Maria Bello during the Golden Globes or Emmy Awards. After one episode she could be considered a future winner. Though she has to get a lot more good material to be an actual winner. 7.5/10

Ears wide shut for those hateful man-comments

Eyes wide open for a murder case