So, at the
beginning of this episode, Grace hands invitations to her wedding and
gives one to Rigsby. Awkwardness ensues while Cho watches stoically. This
leaves me wondering what the writers actually want to do with Rigsby and Van
Pelt. It kind of feels like they don’t know. That’s okay, because
it’s more realistic, because in real life you don’t get to know, either. Still, in terms of
the story, I just feel kind of not-invested-enough with Rigsby and
Van Pelt. Certainly not as invested as I’d like to be, you know?
Moving on to the
rest episode, I do believe that the focus was mostly on Rigsby and his horrible
relationship with his horrible father. This storyline made me incredibly sad.
The entire second encounter with Rigsby and his dad just made me want to slap
the man. The way he talks is just abrasive and ugly, but the things he actually
says are incredible. Almost a bit too much, actually, but we’ll get to that
later*. At one point, he actually says that he tried to beat the goodness out
of his son.
It kind of made me
wonder about the reasoning people have for beating their children. As in, how
do they rationalize it and make it okay in their heads? Or do they even try?
With Rigsby’s Dad (can’t remember his name), it’s that Rigsby was weak—he was
too nice, too cop-like. So really, by beating him his dad was helping him out.
It’s like his dad knows he has awful, screwed up reasons, but he needs some
kind of reason for doing things, right? And by golly, “awful and screwed up” is
good enough for him.
Also, the scene at the bar after Rigsby simultaneously saves
his father’s life and embarrasses him, it was a small, nice combination of
acting and writing when his father says, “Weakness lives in the eyes.” And
Rigsby looks away.
Eventually, though, Rigsby was able to sort-of-not-really
work his crap out with his dad and confess his doomed feelings to Grace. So I
guess he can feel good about that. In a “being the bigger man even though it
sucks” way.
Is it sad that I
liked Grace and Rigsby’s relationship in that last scene the most I ever have?
I have never been less annoyed by them.
One “nice” moment in this whole awful situation is when
Rigsby talks to Lisbon about his father. It’s a time like that when you can see
that she’s a good boss. Like it’s not just her ability to shoot a gun and kick
butt, it’s the fact that she cares about her team and trusts them. She listens
to Rigsby, understands him, tells him what he needs to know (“I trust you”),
but then makes sure that he won’t do anything stupid by ordering him never to
interview his father alone again. In some ways it’s like she’s a mother.
…Mother Teresa.
…
Anyway. The case of the week wasn’t incredibly interesting
since it was mostly just used as a platform for Rigsby’s father issues. I liked
the girl at the salon, though. Shelley. It was interesting that there
was a Jane-comment about her childhood mistreatment in the midst of an episode
about Rigsby and what must have been a lot of mistreatment in his childhood.
In fact, there are a lot of people in this show with
terrible childhoods. *This is what I said I’d come back to.* Why have all the
main characters been so mistreated or so messed up in their youth? As far as I
can tell, Grace is the only one with a semi-normal background, unless I’m
forgetting something.
Jane had a carnie father who made him con people. Lisbon’s
father beat her and her brothers. Cho was in a gang so his influences probably
weren’t that great. And then there’s Rigsby, whose father may just win in the
“worst dad” contest.
So is this a
conscious decision on the part of the writers or is this just a fairly common television writing device, to give your characters a little more interest? I haven’t paid
attention to this before, so I guess I’ll have to keep an eye out now.
Other than that, the case was fine; interesting enough. I
have to say, though, I called it completely wrong. First I thought Nicky was going to
die; then I thought he wasn’t going to have a very major part; then I thought he
was going to die again and that the head guard was going to kill him because
the head guard had killed the first victim.
But I was super wrong, so hopefully my life never depends on
my ability to pick out a murderer.
Extraneous notes:
- Cho was barely in the episode, and I am the sadder for it.
- I find it ironic that Shelley met the best guy she’s ever dated while spying on him for her convict brother.
- The look Nicky gave Jane when he found out that it was his nails that had given him away. “Seriously?”
- Nicky was cold! He was more concerned about having messed up his track record of no kills. Ew. Just because you haven’t killed doesn’t mean you don’t have a murderer’s heart.
- No Red John developments
- Also, does anyone else think that Simon Baker is sexy in a Robert Redford/Peter O’Toole way? (Not asking if anyone thinks he’s sexy, period. Pretty sure a lot of women agree with me there.) Robert Redford in this picture: http://www.ouchpress.com/robert-redford/images/26840.html, and Peter O’Toole in this one: http://handson.provocateuse.com/show/peter_o_toole/02 , which is so mind-numbingly attractive it’s ridiculous
Credit:
Director: Eric Laneuville
Writers: Bruno Heller, Jordan Harper
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