LifeEvil... and His Brother Ziggy
Original Air Date: 3 Dec 2008
Brittany Wells – TwoCents Reviewer
brittanyw@twocentscorp.com
I’ve heard stories of people naming their kids some pretty embarrassing things. Frank Zappa, after all, named his kids Dweezil and Moon Unit. But you have to ask yourself what on Earth were these two parents thinking when they named their kids Eval and Ziggy? Still, those are just two of the characters Crews and Reese get to meet as they investigate the death of a county sheriff on an Indian reservation.
Continue Reading...
[photo: Chris Haston/NBC]
Posts
I’ve heard stories of people naming their kids some pretty embarrassing things. Frank Zappa, after all, named his kids Dweezil and Moon Unit. But you have to ask yourself what on Earth were these two parents thinking when they named their kids Eval and Ziggy? Still, those are just two of the characters Crews and Reese get to meet as they investigate the death of a county sheriff on an Indian reservation.
ReplyDeleteBefore we get to that point, though, we find out Reese and Tidwell’s relationship has taken a very wild turn. To be honest, it’s not one I needed to see, either. They’re in bed, obviously having ramped things up from just kissing last week. I know neither of these two are known for their relationship skills, but I was kind of enjoying the show slowly nudging them together. Anyway, once I manage to look back at the TV, Dani is commenting that Tidwell needs a haircut, which he does. By the time she gets in the car with Crews, she’s humming, and Charlie correctly calls her out on her change of behavior. You really can’t sneak anything by Charlie Crews.
As far as the case of the week goes, Sheriff Hawes had no shortage of enemies. He wasn’t a favorite son among the Indians, as the tribal police captain tells us, meddling in their affairs. One guy in particular named Thomas always seemed to be getting into it with the sheriff. Thomas’s fiancee, Lucy, also has a past with the sheriff, seen visiting the spot where he died. Actually, it turns out nobody on the reservation really likes cops in general, as Crews and Reese find their car stolen and later get confronted by a carload of unhappy citizens that make it clear they really don’t care who killed the sheriff.
It’s the former point that leads to the most hilarious scene of the night, where Crews and Reese are stuck in a very ugly hotel room together. Charlie starts asking all sorts of inane questions, like which bed his partner prefers, and Dani is just fed up with everything in general. It only displays the great chemistry between Damian Lewis and Sarah Shahi. The writers sort of undercut the scene, though, when Charlie picks up the hotel phone only to find Tidwell on the other end, trying to talk dirty to his new girlfriend. Wisely, Charlie hangs up and when Tidwell calls back, Reese realizes Charlie heard the whole thing the first time and kicks him out of the hotel room. Mildly funny, yes, but was it really necessary? No. To be honest, it just kind of weirded me out.
There’s no shortage of suspects, though. Including the bizarrely named Eval Vadas and his brother Ziggy, involved in a development project on the reservation. Eval isn’t too happy when the cops raid his house (“It’s just a name, you morons!” he shrieks) to find a bunch of guns he’s been hiding. Considering his name is the title of the episode, you’d think he’s the murderer, or at least somehow crucial to the plot. Not really, which makes me wonder why the episode is named after him (other than the writers thought it was funny).
The culprit is Lucy’s father. You see, the sheriff had been helping Lucy look for her mother, and had discovered that Lucy wasn’t actually Native American. If that got out, Lucy’s dad wouldn’t be able to be on the reservation nor get a piece of the money coming in from the casino Eval and his brother are building. But if she married Thomas, then she would be married to an Indian and all would be well for daddy. As Crews breaks this to her by presenting her with a copy of her birth certificate he found in the dead sheriff’s home, she whips out a rifle seemingly out of nowhere and aims it at her dad. I’m pretty sure that’s not what the sheriff meant when he told her to always keep one on her. Carrying a rifle around would get really unwieldy. But daddy dearest gets hauled in, and all should be well.
It would be. Except Rachel Seybolt’s running off to heaven knows where pissed that Charlie isn’t home, Ted blurts out at the dinner table that he’s in love with Olivia (finally, thank God), and in the last scene Charlie attends a fundraiser hosted by Mickey Raybourn, one of the suspected dirty cops. Mickey goes all Robert Downey Jr. on him, alluding that he’s got some sort of fatal illness and has things he has to do…things we’re not going to find out until next week. Oh, and Tidwell? Got that haircut.
What did you think of this episode? And be honest – if anyone saw the previews for next week, am I the only person who thinks the dead guy reminded them of El Seed from the cartoon version of The Tick? And more importantly, how quickly will we be able to wrap things up before this show gets pulled for the midseason schedule change?
"we find out Reese and Tidwell’s relationship has taken a very wild turn. To be honest, it’s not one I needed to see"
ReplyDeleteOh gosh: *I* needed it indeed! And I hope they'll keep on doing that!
" They’re in bed, obviously having ramped things up from just kissing last week."
I don't think their "jumping in bed" was unannounced: at the shooting range Dani spoke aloud her intentions saying to him "I'm not used doing *that* sober" (or something like that ;P)
In fact I was expecting that *that* would have happened at the end of "Badge Bunny" (but the writers had no time, I think...)
"Reese realizes Charlie heard the whole thing the first time and kicks him out of the hotel room. Mildly funny, yes, but was it really necessary? No. To be honest, it just kind of weirded me out. "
Agreed.
But I think it's the way in which Dani faces the problems: she runs. (she did the same thing at the restaurant with Tidwell and she'll do the same thing with the "dude" comment). But as in that hotel room she was half naked, she made Charlie run! :)
"Ted blurts out at the dinner table that he’s in love with Olivia (finally, thank God)"
Oh yes, THANKS!
Hmmm...I noticed you didn't mention the entire "dude" thing or the possibility that Tidwell was/wasn't jealous...I suppose that the whole scene bothered you...
if you are going to ask, I LOVED that scene (obviously;P) I found that HOT and I agree: Tidwell IS an idiot!
I had a feeling somebody was going to disagree with me about that! Personally, I felt that it was something I didn't need to see (it probably also has something to do with the fact that on the list of people I'm interested in seeing in bed, Donal Logue is not one of them), but I knew that was probably an unpopular opinion.
ReplyDeleteAs for the "dude" thing, I was running out of word space, so yeah, I didn't...also, being from Southern California, I also tend to call everyone "dude"...so it didn't seem all that abnormal to me! (Granted, I've never had THAT happen to me.)
"on the list of people I'm interested in seeing in bed, Donal Logue is not one of them"
ReplyDeleteeheh, yes, maybe this thing affected your opinion ;P as the fact I was actually interested in seeing him in bed affected mine!
(I found that shirtless, muscolar, tattooed Tidwell VERY hot!)
"but I knew that was probably an unpopular opinion."
oh no, don't worry, it's *mine* opinion that is unpopular!
"being from Southern California, I also tend to call everyone "dude"...so it didn't seem all that abnormal to me!"
I don't live in US and all this "dude" thing was hard for me to understand, but I don't think that *it*'s a problem too...I think that the problem is that Tidwell disobeyed Dani. Their relationship is founded on this "dom/sub" thing and while Tidwell commands at work, she feels herself in charge in his bedroom...
or maybe the writers didn't find out anything better to split them this time...
No. I really didn't need to see Tidwell and Reese together. Actually, I'm beginning to resent the constant objectification of Reese, they were so good about handling women last season, particularly Reese.
ReplyDeleteI hate to think the writers did a back step about women in general.
Monic, glad to hear I'm not the only one! I agree with you. My complaint is a little bit broader, in addition to that, which is that it's commonplace now for a show to include a "love interest," regardless of what it is we're talking about. I miss the days when shows just had characters and if storylines developed between them, so be it, but it seems now that from the word "go" every series has two people making eyes at each other. It sort of takes the interest out of it when you know there's a match coming, especially if you as an audience don't feel it with the actors (I'm still on the fence with Tidwell/Reese, though it *was* growing on me).
ReplyDeleteI'd like to see these women grow a bit more. Jennifer, for example, seems now only to exist as a walking temptation to Charlie. And what's going on in Rachel's head? Sounds like there might be some interesting story with her if we had more time to develop it, especially her relationship with Jack Reese. We'll see how things go, I guess.
I would like more exploration on the women too since they've gotten rid of two interesting females in the show (Awesome Lt. Davis and Constance). I would really be interested to see how Rachel and Dani would take to each other, in a way, Rachel is a kind of daughter to Jack Reese. The one where he's trying to make amends.
ReplyDeleteThe thing about this show for me though is that the core relationship is the Crews and Reese partnership and not entirely in a romantic sense. It's what I enjoyed last season, how they built the partnership from distrust to trust and while I do like the way the partners have been pretty tight but I wish there's more y'know? The moment in 'Crushed' when Charlie was about to ask Dani about Jack Reese was rife with tension and I missed seeing that tension. I missed seeing the partnership tested.