Life“Not For Nothing”
Original Air Date: Oct. 10, 2008
Kristina – TwoCents Reviewer
kristina@thetwocentscorp.com
Alright, I went to college. We studied hard. We played harder. I never heard of a “prison experiment”. And especially not for credit! Geez. Maybe that's because in this one, something happened that resulted in one of the “guards” being killed.
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[photo: Adam Taylor/NBC]
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Life
ReplyDelete“Not For Nothing”
Original Air Date: Oct. 10, 2008
Kristina – TwoCents Reviewer
kristina@thetwocentscorp.com
Alright, I went to college. We studied hard. We played harder. I never heard of a “prison experiment”. And especially not for credit! Geez. Maybe that's because in this one, something happened that resulted in one of the “guards” being killed.
In the opening, Crews is listening to the wiretap on Jack Reese. There is someone who is speaking with him saying we go back a long way, not for nothing, but there was 6, now there's 5, there can easily be 4. While Charlie is puzzling over this, Reese calls to tell him they caught a murder. The murder victim turns out to be a dead prison guard. Wait, no... a dead college student playing a prison guard nicknamed Destro.
A sociology professor recruited a bunch of students who didn't know each other and randomly picked them to be guards and prisoners. They had a piano box which served as solitary confinement. They boarded up windows so there was no outside light. The experiment was supposed to last a week. Turns out he also does things to increase the tension such as have random 60 second power blackouts. This also explains why no one saw anything when the murder occurred.
They are short handed during the investigation. The school advises that they will have attorneys there within 2 hours for the students. Crews and Reese are told to wrap this investigation in those 2 hours. They can't find the murder weapon. They have a small riot and end up having to put the students back into their cells. Then Crews gets a phone call from his ex-wife telling him that a reporter calling her asking questions about his time in prison.
They talk to a guard and find out that the professor told them to focus on one “inmate” called Will. That if they break him, they will win. She said that they did all sorts of terrible things to him but they weren't recorded because it was always during the blackouts. Will becomes their top suspect, but he was in solitary confinement when the murder occurred. Then they find a segment of video where Destro attacks the professor. Turns out the professor gave him the personal files of the inmates. Destro threw him towards the door and told him to “get out of my prison!”
Crews and Reese confront the professor about why he stacked the deck like he did and why he didn't call an end to the experiment when Destro threw him out. The professor claimed he never gave those instructions saying he was only an observer. He added that that the students could have just walked out at any time because none of the doors were locked. “You don't need locks for a prison... just prisoners.” That gave Crews an idea. He called his ex-wife and asked her again about the reporter who called. He asked her to call the reporter when they hung-up and tell him that Crews said hello. A minute after he hung up, the professor's phone rang. The professor avoided answering it. Crews accuses him of trying to use his past to prevent him from doing his job and focusing on this investigation. He created the situation with Destro and then fled like a coward, leaving the other students at Destro's mercy. They arrest the professor... for murder? No, for “incitement to gross bodily harm” which carries 7 years for each offense. For 20 students, that'd be 140 years. But who actually killed Destro??
Back to the videos. Well, if the doors weren't locked, was “solitary”? Turns out, no, it wasn't locked. They found their murderer. Crews goes in and sits down with Will. Crews tells him that the first three years are the worst. He adds, “Just because you're in there, you don't have to be in there. You can go somewhere else.”
When Crews returns home, he returns to listening to the recording of Jack Reese and the unknown voice. After a little while, he stops it and digs through the file he has. He pulls out an article about a police officer's funeral and shows it to Ted. There are 5 guys in the picture...”there's 5”... it's a cop's funeral “there was 6.” “There can easily be 4” is a threat to Jack Reese. But who is threatening Jack Reese and why? Who are these other guys? What involvement do they have in this whole mess?
I'm thinking that there is so much more going on here than just a frame-up of Crews for the murder. But how high does it go and just how deep are they all in it? What do you think? Why did they frame Crews for the murder anyway? Was he too close to something? Was he in the wrong place at the wrong time? Did he tick off the wrong person? Will we find out any of these answers this season? What do you think?
Kristina-
ReplyDeleteScarily this is based on a true story. There was an actual prison experiment done back in 1971: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment
Great episode, though. Damian Lewis managed to scare the heck out of me and get me to sympathize with him.