Girls, It Was A Night Of Family Dysfunction On 'Criminal Intent'!!!!!!!!!

Girls, it was like last night, everyone hated the American family unit. The first 'Criminal Intent' episode, "Baggage," was based on a real life case in Massachusetts that remains unsolved, (the sexual harassment and murder of ramp supervisor at Logan Airport, Susan Tarakiewicz!!!!!). Things get solved here, but, if you believe what is seen here, girls, what pieces of scum work for the airline industry, and live in Queens. This episode does not do much to endorse either!!!!!!

But before I go on, I MUST apologize for double posting that BARBRA blog a few days ago!!!! You see, I work so hard to make everything perfect for my girls, so when I was editing the original text, I tried to delete it, and then rewrite it, thinking the better copy would appear--which it did. But, then, so did the inferior copy!!!! Though, as my lovely and loving Monsieur, trying to cheer me up, said, "You can never have too much BARBRA."

I just had to say it, loves!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now, to return to "Baggage." The stand-in for Susan is Sarah Sullivan, a frumpy spinster, who lives with her parents in Queens. (She already has problems right there!!!!) And her parents are so damn dumb, they belong on Judge Judy!!!!! This poor woman is being harassed by her flunkies at work--they even pour urine into her locker!!!!! Gross!!!!--and her mother looks the other way, and her father tells her to just take it!!!!! Really bright parents!!!!! Eventually, Sarah's body is found in the trunk of her car, and Goren and Eames have to figure out what happened.

Each of the coworkers is disgusting in his own right, but the prize is this big, dumb, lumpy Irish guy, Desmond McCarthy, played by E.J.Carroll as a low class heavy, which I have seen him do elsewhere; he just has "that look." While he admits to the harassment, he and the others become eliminated from the mix when credit card
fraud and identify theft by some ring is added to Jenny's knowledge, indicating she was blown away by bigger fish than these low class guys!!!!!

Things got so intense, I started suspecting the parents, especially her father, thinking he might have been in on it. But it turns out to be Keith Ramsey, the airline's Vice President of Operations, which is just another name for White Collar Lackey, which he refuses to admit. You see, Ramsey grew up on the wrong side of the tracks, and while he never looked back, he could never fool anyone--all his posturing and fancy dressing, his saying he lived in the Dakota when really a Queens walk up--never convinced anyone, including all the high powered career type women he would go after, that he was anything more than what he was. It comes out that Jenny knew about the credit scam, and was going to blow the whistle. She also had romantic feelings for Keith, who thought he could not be seen with some classless broad from Queens, unwilling to admit he was as classless as she!!!! Ramsey was just a mule in horse's harness. So he lured Jenny into his car, and killed her!!!! REAL scum.

But he gets his comeuppance, being humiliated by all the women in the interrogation room, and going off his bird!!!!! This scene was done by an actor named Lee Tergesen, and he nailed this narcissistic self-loather superbly!!!! Off to the psych ward for this one!!!! Permanently!!!!!!!! Put him in a women's prison, and have those babes tear him apart!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Then, there was the high camp of "Suite Sorrow!" In an all-too brief appearance, Judith Roberts, who brilliantly portrayed ventriloquist Mary Shaw in "Dead Silence," plays a Leona Helmsley-type matriarch of a hotel, who is found murdered and botoxed in her bathtub. The heat falls on her daughter, Julie Turner, played wonderfully by Amy Ryan, an heiress with an ambivalent relationship to just about everyone, except her recently met fiance Kenneth. Now, Kenneth is played by Michael Hayden, so take note; he may have been semi-iconic as Billy Bigelow, in Lincoln Center's "Carousel" back in 1994, but since he has made it his business playing creeps. And he does a fine job here. And guess who turns up here, as Daddy???? Oh, my God, it's Hal Linden!!!!!!!!

No one can seem to figure out what happened, until a compromising photo turns up--of Kenneth (whom Julie has protected up till now) in a restaurant on a "date", but kissing another man--who turns out to be her father!!!!!

It seems Hayden and Linden had been gay lovers for awhile, and cooked up this scheme to get the hotel for themselves. Preying on her vulnerability, Daddy makes sure Julie meets Kenneth, and she falls for him. Mother, of course, disapproves, and there are words. Knowing about the photograph, but loving her daughter too much to destroy her, Ann Turner tries to buy Kenneth off, with a $100K check. It had always worked in the past, for Julie's undesirable suitors. He takes the check, but in front of Julie, rips it up to try and show how "noble" he is, and get her rage going enough, so that she goes back over to the hotel/apartment and kills her mother!!!!!

Goren, with Vincent D'Onoffrio's usual brilliance, makes Julie see the truth, which is sad when she comes to realize that, for all their friction, her mother really did love her, while those she thought did actually did not. She is hurt and bitter, but agrees to be wired and filmed in order to incriminate her father. But things go awry. Julie starts calmly, gets the incrimination, then starts screaming hatred about the lie of a marriage he forced her and her mother to live under, when she was a child!!!! She steps out of the camera view, and by the time Goren and Eames get there, Daddy is bloody, dead on the floor, a knife in his chest!!!!! Julie stabbed him!!!!!!

Good for Julie!!!!! Even though she will do time, she took care of Daddy, and avenged her mother!!!!! Too bad we did not get to see her stab or castrate Kenneth!!!!! But not to worry; he was arrested, and I am sure we will see Michael Hayden again soon, playing another creep!!!!!!!

So many kinds of dysfunction, girls!!!!!! But Julie stabbing Daddy was the best!!!!! What a performance by Amy Ryan!!!! Warms the cockles of my heart!!!!!!

And much more exciting than "The Waltons!"