in which Jack McCoy moonlights as Tim Gunn
(Second write-up in two weeks! Kids, take note! Just saying!)
I... kind of can't believe that all just happened!
um.
Just so we're clear, here is what happened in this episode:
1. Mike had a crappy opinion about abortion, according to Connie.
2. Jack made a crappy decision about a potential witness, and viably I will call it crappy because this dude went to a ethics committee hearing once on charges that he purposely withheld potentially exculpatory evidence (because he was upset about Claire) SO HE SHOULD KNOW BETTER (see #6).
3. Connie, moved by the spirit OF BEING A HUMAN BEING and also HATING MIKE'S CRAPPY OPINION, decided to fuck Jack's decision about the potential witness and tell the defense.
4. Mike got PISSED AS HELL SO MUCH HE COULDN'T SPEAK TO HER FOR A DAY.
5. MIKE AND CONNIE HAD A REALLY BIG ACTUAL FIGHT.
6. MIKE GAVE CONNIE THE SAME ADVICE THAT JACK GAVE CLAIRE IN "PRO SE" WHEN SHE WANTED TO QUIT, TWO EPISODES BEFORE SHE DIED (SADNESS AND WOE), except it... didn't actually work this time (probably because Mike didn't have the KO of also we can have sex back at your place first).
7. Mike, mid-summation, "lost it," and changed his argument to just basically QUOTING ALL OF CONNIE'S ENTIRE ARGUMENT FROM BEFORE. During which she spent the entire STARING SADLY AT HIM (wondering, like me, I imagine, if it was really all just an act) (BECAUSE IT WAS; he took her words and turned them into a summation, but not in a good way - in a "oh hey, that's a good line!" way) (HER FACE. HER SAD, DISAPPOINTED, HORRIBLE FACE - THAT HE WAS USING WHAT SHE THOUGHT WAS TRUE AS A LINE TO WIN A VERDICT) (which hey remember when he pimped her out to a creepy juror? I'll bet she was thinking of that, too) (holy shit, they have Actual Real Multi-Season-Spanning Issues).
8. CONNIE REQUESTS A TRANSFER.
9. JACK MCCOY TELLS THEM TO MAKE IT WORK, TIM GUNN STYLE.*
10. THE EPISODE ENDS WITH THEM STARING EPICALLY AT EACH OTHER, SILENTLY SAYING, "FUCK, WE ACTUALLY HAVE TO TALK ABOUT THIS, DON'T WE?"
I should probably also add the epilogue:
11. Me, DYING OF FLAIL AS I REWIND TIVO TO MAKE SURE I JUST SAW THAT RIGHT.
Guys.
GUYS.
The only thing keeping The Mike and Connie Show from being 100% canon is one asking the other, "Hey, do you wanna get a drink later?" LIKE REALLY. THAT IS ALL.
* I love Jack. I really do. I think sometimes Jack calls Adam late at night (or at 7pm, which I think is at this point the Adam-equivalent of late) and asks, "On the whole, how bad was I at the beginning?" and Adam chuckles, not saying anything. Jack replies, "That bad, huh?"
HONESTLY. THIS SHOW NEEDS TO STOP TRYING TO CONVINCE ME THAT JACK IS TRYING MAKE SURE MIKE AND CONNIE DON'T BECOME THE NEXT HIM AND CLAIRE. BECAUSE RIGHT NOW, THAT'S WHAT IT'S TELLING ME.
(Although, if I had to say, Mike and Connie remind me much more of Jack and Jamie, except with flirting. Whereas Claire was a character who bounced from Ben Stone [crazy righteous who essentially treated her like an assistant and nothing more] to Jack [CRAZY RIGHTEOUS AND FLIRTATIOUSLY SEXY AS HELL], Jamie called Jack on his drunken alcoholic shit multiples times. Including the saddest, when she tries so hard to hold it together yelling at him in "Under the Influence" until she can't. I REALLY LIKED JAMIE, GUYS. She spent two years looking at the sad sack of omg Jack McCoy had become and just thought, "Oh, you." She was his Donna, guys. SHE WAS HIS DONNA NOBLE.)
Also - no one will work with Mike? Really? Is that for real, or did Jack just make that up to make his whole I AM TOO BUSY FOR THIS SHIT FOLKS SO JUST WORK IT OUT LIKE GROWN-UPS argument that much more convincing? (Or was it just "lol your ego, so like mine back in the day - yeah, not so much") Because if that's actually true, and up until now Connie and Mike work basically awesome together... yeah, that adds A WHOLE NEW LAYER TO THE MIKE AND CONNIE SHOW. Which I will not even bother to wrap my brain around until if/when this comes up again. Oh, goodness, never mind. I watched it a second time, and that line is quite clearly, "ahahaha, Michael Cutter! You are exactly like me back in the day, thinking you are hot shit and that you can just ~run through assistants~ like nobody's business. I mean, I slept with all of mine, sure; you just piss them off, apparently. NEWS FLASH: OCCASIONALLY YOU CAN'T DO THAT. I LEARNED THIS THE HARD WAY. SO NOW I AM SAYING TO YOU: MAKE IT WORK."
Dear show,
When did you start doing this stuff for real?
P.S., to say something deep and meaningful about this episode:
I was surprised to learn from that NYT article that this is only the third time in L&O's history that they've done an episode on abortion. In 20 years, jeez that's surprising. On the whole, though, I felt this episode was REALLY GREAT on that count. It didn't try to say that one side was absolutely Right or Wrong; it used all the various political phrases for the sides (pro-choice/anti-life, pro-life/anti-choice) to describe the issue without couching it that one or the other was blatantly Crazy and Obsessed. In the end, it found its strength in the grey area, and made it about how HARD it is to define what is or is not right. That it doesn't make you a bad or inconsistent person if occasionally you might waver on that front. In the end, it was about Mike and Connie arguing in a room. Literally.
...
LITERALLY THE EPISODE WAS ULTIMATELY ABOUT MIKE AND CONNIE ARGUING IN A ROOM.
GUYS.
GUYS.
GUYS.
edit: Things I forgot to mention: fuck you, show, you will not be killing Anita Van Buren with cancer any time soon, thank you very much. STOP. DOING. THIS. TO. ME. EVERY. WEEK.
Also? STORYLINES. People. THERE ARE STORYLINES. Not since Season 8. I will say it every episode until I am blue in the face, this is incredible.
I... kind of can't believe that all just happened!
um.
Just so we're clear, here is what happened in this episode:
1. Mike had a crappy opinion about abortion, according to Connie.
2. Jack made a crappy decision about a potential witness, and viably I will call it crappy because this dude went to a ethics committee hearing once on charges that he purposely withheld potentially exculpatory evidence (because he was upset about Claire) SO HE SHOULD KNOW BETTER (see #6).
3. Connie, moved by the spirit OF BEING A HUMAN BEING and also HATING MIKE'S CRAPPY OPINION, decided to fuck Jack's decision about the potential witness and tell the defense.
4. Mike got PISSED AS HELL SO MUCH HE COULDN'T SPEAK TO HER FOR A DAY.
5. MIKE AND CONNIE HAD A REALLY BIG ACTUAL FIGHT.
6. MIKE GAVE CONNIE THE SAME ADVICE THAT JACK GAVE CLAIRE IN "PRO SE" WHEN SHE WANTED TO QUIT, TWO EPISODES BEFORE SHE DIED (SADNESS AND WOE), except it... didn't actually work this time (probably because Mike didn't have the KO of also we can have sex back at your place first).
7. Mike, mid-summation, "lost it," and changed his argument to just basically QUOTING ALL OF CONNIE'S ENTIRE ARGUMENT FROM BEFORE. During which she spent the entire STARING SADLY AT HIM (wondering, like me, I imagine, if it was really all just an act) (BECAUSE IT WAS; he took her words and turned them into a summation, but not in a good way - in a "oh hey, that's a good line!" way) (HER FACE. HER SAD, DISAPPOINTED, HORRIBLE FACE - THAT HE WAS USING WHAT SHE THOUGHT WAS TRUE AS A LINE TO WIN A VERDICT) (which hey remember when he pimped her out to a creepy juror? I'll bet she was thinking of that, too) (holy shit, they have Actual Real Multi-Season-Spanning Issues).
8. CONNIE REQUESTS A TRANSFER.
9. JACK MCCOY TELLS THEM TO MAKE IT WORK, TIM GUNN STYLE.*
10. THE EPISODE ENDS WITH THEM STARING EPICALLY AT EACH OTHER, SILENTLY SAYING, "FUCK, WE ACTUALLY HAVE TO TALK ABOUT THIS, DON'T WE?"
I should probably also add the epilogue:
11. Me, DYING OF FLAIL AS I REWIND TIVO TO MAKE SURE I JUST SAW THAT RIGHT.
Guys.
GUYS.
The only thing keeping The Mike and Connie Show from being 100% canon is one asking the other, "Hey, do you wanna get a drink later?" LIKE REALLY. THAT IS ALL.
* I love Jack. I really do. I think sometimes Jack calls Adam late at night (or at 7pm, which I think is at this point the Adam-equivalent of late) and asks, "On the whole, how bad was I at the beginning?" and Adam chuckles, not saying anything. Jack replies, "That bad, huh?"
HONESTLY. THIS SHOW NEEDS TO STOP TRYING TO CONVINCE ME THAT JACK IS TRYING MAKE SURE MIKE AND CONNIE DON'T BECOME THE NEXT HIM AND CLAIRE. BECAUSE RIGHT NOW, THAT'S WHAT IT'S TELLING ME.
(Although, if I had to say, Mike and Connie remind me much more of Jack and Jamie, except with flirting. Whereas Claire was a character who bounced from Ben Stone [crazy righteous who essentially treated her like an assistant and nothing more] to Jack [CRAZY RIGHTEOUS AND FLIRTATIOUSLY SEXY AS HELL], Jamie called Jack on his drunken alcoholic shit multiples times. Including the saddest, when she tries so hard to hold it together yelling at him in "Under the Influence" until she can't. I REALLY LIKED JAMIE, GUYS. She spent two years looking at the sad sack of omg Jack McCoy had become and just thought, "Oh, you." She was his Donna, guys. SHE WAS HIS DONNA NOBLE.)
Also - no one will work with Mike? Really? Is that for real, or did Jack just make that up to make his whole I AM TOO BUSY FOR THIS SHIT FOLKS SO JUST WORK IT OUT LIKE GROWN-UPS argument that much more convincing? (Or was it just "lol your ego, so like mine back in the day - yeah, not so much") Because if that's actually true, and up until now Connie and Mike work basically awesome together... yeah, that adds A WHOLE NEW LAYER TO THE MIKE AND CONNIE SHOW. Which I will not even bother to wrap my brain around until if/when this comes up again. Oh, goodness, never mind. I watched it a second time, and that line is quite clearly, "ahahaha, Michael Cutter! You are exactly like me back in the day, thinking you are hot shit and that you can just ~run through assistants~ like nobody's business. I mean, I slept with all of mine, sure; you just piss them off, apparently. NEWS FLASH: OCCASIONALLY YOU CAN'T DO THAT. I LEARNED THIS THE HARD WAY. SO NOW I AM SAYING TO YOU: MAKE IT WORK."
Dear show,
When did you start doing this stuff for real?
P.S., to say something deep and meaningful about this episode:
I was surprised to learn from that NYT article that this is only the third time in L&O's history that they've done an episode on abortion. In 20 years, jeez that's surprising. On the whole, though, I felt this episode was REALLY GREAT on that count. It didn't try to say that one side was absolutely Right or Wrong; it used all the various political phrases for the sides (pro-choice/anti-life, pro-life/anti-choice) to describe the issue without couching it that one or the other was blatantly Crazy and Obsessed. In the end, it found its strength in the grey area, and made it about how HARD it is to define what is or is not right. That it doesn't make you a bad or inconsistent person if occasionally you might waver on that front. In the end, it was about Mike and Connie arguing in a room. Literally.
...
LITERALLY THE EPISODE WAS ULTIMATELY ABOUT MIKE AND CONNIE ARGUING IN A ROOM.
GUYS.
GUYS.
GUYS.
edit: Things I forgot to mention: fuck you, show, you will not be killing Anita Van Buren with cancer any time soon, thank you very much. STOP. DOING. THIS. TO. ME. EVERY. WEEK.
Also? STORYLINES. People. THERE ARE STORYLINES. Not since Season 8. I will say it every episode until I am blue in the face, this is incredible.