3 hours ago, Dowel Jones said:
What always puzzles me about this, and every other cop show, for that matter, is that convicted inmates, having been through the system and are theoretically completely aware of their rights, never, ever say "I want to speak with my attorney." I get that it's a plot roadblock to do that, but, please.
It's a pet peeve of mine too but is one that is, sadly, not unrealistic. The vast majority of interrogation subjects don't call a lawyer for their interrogation, thinking they can "outsmart" the police or erroneously believing that "nothing can go wrong because I have nothing to hide".
So, in most TV interrogations, I can accept the suspect doing that.
In this case, Bode knows the system and how it works. He even invoked his right to counsel- and yet, for some reason, he caved to the interrogator's wishes even though he didn't have to (and the counsel would likely tell the investigator to take a hike).
I have a low bar for idiocy in interrogations, but Bode's here has to take the cake. By far.
6 hours ago, ProjectInfinity said:
(Mostly) tuned out once Rebecca died... Doesn't seem like I missed much.
Rebecca is one of those examples of this show's faulty writing. She was a useful character beyond being a potential love interest for Bode, because, as a former lawyer, she would be a valuable asset for the inmates at the fire camp. It would have been far more believable that Rebecca worked to get Freddy out than Eve did, because Rebecca knows the laws.
...but, Bode and his gang need angst and heartache so "let's waste Rebecca" and thus waste a character who could have been useful as the series progresses.
5 hours ago, psychfan said:
It's really just insulting to the viewers to toss in such stupid stuff. Stuff that not only comes from nowhere but also bears no resemblance to the way the world works. Her allegation is that Bode's running a drug ring with Freddy as his right-hand man, and that's why Freddy's case is tied up. But somehow if Bode confesses, Freddy gets off scot-free? Bode says yes indeed I have been running a drug ring here, everyone knows Freddy's his bud so much so that they're able to stop his actual innocence case, but all of a sudden Freddy's fine? And the public defender outside has nothing to say about any of this? And Manny who two minutes earlier heard Bode say he won't say he did something he didn't do, he won't lie to his friends and family like that, isn't going to speak up right then about how somehow in the intervening minutes where Bode was alone with this investigator boom, he totally changes his story? And also somehow that's exactly at the same time Freddy gets out? Nope, no red flags there at all.
I agree. It's downright infuriating that the show thinks I would buy this stuff.
I do believe that the show wanted to frame Bode's admission as some kind of "noble sacrifice" where he sacrifices himself for arguably his best friend at the fire camp (if not overall). Which is fine, but there are other ways to go about it.
In my alternate narrative for Fire Country, I envisioned a storyline where Bode got into so much trouble in Edgewater that he went to jail for it and the town has largely shunned him. In S1, Bode comes back to Edgewater via Three Rock and claims he's a new man and wants to atone for what he has done. We would spend quite a bit of S1 with Bode genuinely trying to be better, leading to a thawing between him and the town.
However, lurking in the background is the "old" Bode, the one who got into all that trouble. Sleeper, here, could have made sense within that story, perhaps as Bode's former friend who led him down the path to destruction in the first place. Bode tries to resist the urge to go back but ultimately he can't. He is still successful for a time in hiding his relapse, but then it blows up in his face when the drug tests come back. Maybe the investigator here makes sense, because now it's a case of confronting Bode about admitting the truth, with perhaps the added stipulation that, in admitting the truth, Bode saves Freddy as well.
Yeah, the audience might still be disappointed that Bode is going back to jail, but at least there's a rational and relatable reason why that is happening. We've all been faced with an issue where lying would be more beneficial to us- but is it really worth the risk?
Ultimately, what dooms this show is all the corners the writers cut. There's a principle in writing to explain in the narrative only what you need to explain, and to not worry about too much about things you've overlooked. No writer is perfect, so even the best will leave stuff out of their narrative because they just simply didn't realize they were doing so. However, such a concept only goes so far- the writer's task is to still craft a story that, despite its inevitable holes, still will make sense to the vast majority of people. You don't want your audience to be confused about how you reached your conclusion because if they have to think about it too much, they'll just check out and move to a story that makes more sense.
In short, we can accept, say, the detective finding the perfect parking spot in New York City as soon as he arrives on the scene even though we know that's practically impossible, since parking is not important to the plot. The writer leaving out all the evidence that detective collects to put away the perpetrator is a bigger mistake to make, since the evidence would be important to the plot.
Far too often shows believe they're doing the former when they're really doing the latter, and Fire Country is a prime example of that.
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