October 10, 2006: Maltese Cross
Having missed the second episode of this season which apparently introduced new detective Wheeler (Julianne Nicholson) and
Law & Order vet as her partner, Logan last night was time for me to play a little catch up.
My first impressions of the new team? Big success. Though Goren (Vincent D'Onofrio) was usually the most interesting part of
CI, after a couple seasons of his nervous ticks and crime-solving-through-encyclopedia-memorization technique, I was ready for a little break from all those idiosyncrasies.
And, from what I saw last night, Logan and Wheeler are the perfect Yin to the old pair's Yang. You see, Logan is what they apparently call "old school" on the mean streets of NYC. So whereas Goren indulged his predilection (some might say fetish) for playing twisted mind games with suspects and perps, Logan doesn't hesitate to hammer out a back-alley deal or just take a couple swings.
And he took a bunch of them last night. My jaw was on the floor throughout that opening brawl that pitted him against a whole squad of beefy firefighters. I couldn't believe how it just kept escalating and getting more brutal until they broke out that fancy new dissolve (nice) and cut to the credits.
Then, I loved the way they mixed up the formula and, instead of following the case straight through, jumped back a few days to show us how things got to this (boiling) point. Sometimes that approach can get a little boring if you see every twist and turn coming a mile away, but I'll admit I didn't predict any of these.
A married firefighter who valiantly rescues a drag queen from a brutal beating? Nope, wouldn't have guessed it. Said firefighter having an affair with a 9/11 Forgotten Heroes group member, who stabs his ex-boyfriend to death when jilted? As the tagline at the end of the episode made clear, you can make this stuff up, and probably have to.
And while all of this zaniness was going down, I sensed some good chemistry between Logan and Wheeler probably better than the sometimes-awkward Goren and Eames (Kathryn Erbe). New captain Ross (Eric Bogosian) also provided a nice spark. When he told Logan to go "old school" and Wheeler to "play young" when interviewing a former detective, I knew there was a new sheriff in town, who's not as by-the-book as the relatively cuddly former captain, Deakins (Jamey Sheridan).
The only disappointment for me was that they resorted back to the old manipulate-him-until-he-screams-his-confession technique on Mr. Jealous. That was kind of a crutch for
CI in the past, and hopefully the new team won't always lean on it.
Still, this episode reminded me why I love all things
L&O and despise all things
CSI. It was topical without being sensationalistic, emotional (Mrs. Murdered Fireman was a real heartbreaker) without being exploitative, and violent without being gory. Yeah, I think this is gonna be a great season.
