Two Other "Cold Cases" I Would Like To See Updated--"Wishing," and "Offender!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

 

                       "Wishing," to refresh you, was the heartbreaking redo of Steinbeck's "Of Mice And Men," with an Emmy calibre performance by Damien Midkiff as Colin Miller, and a no win situation that only spiraled downward.  Colin was a special needs adolescent, whose father abandoned he and his mother once the handicap was discovered.  He is eventually befriended by Nathan Hicks, played by Charlie Bodin in 1993, and Bryce Lenon, in 2005.  His mother, Sarah Miller, played by Jackie Swanson, is in the final stages of breast cancer.  In fact, it is Leah, a classmate who first accused Colin of harassment, but later retracted, who finds Sarah's body.  Nathan, meanwhile, wants to adopt Colin and care for him--but he is not old enough.  Sarah knows the world will eat Colin alive, and incarceration in a mental institution, as shown, would permanently render him into a vegetative state.  So--now, while I have seen this episode several times, I am unsure about this, as this is so ambiguous--a tacit understanding is made between Nathan and Sarah that he will kill Colin, and save him from this world, where there is no one to care for him.  This he does by having Colin "wish" his mother back to health, while standing on a train track, where he is eventually struck down.  The scene, where Lily sees Colin's ghost, smiling down on her, holding his beloved pet stuffed rabbit, Mr. Wilson, had me sobbing.

                              So, I would like to know what became of Nathan--he is arrested for murder--but how much time did he get--and if released, what he did with his life afterward, and how he lived with what he did to Colin?  And I would like to know the same about Leah, whom, it turned out was genuinely nice, and whether Richard Miller, Colin's father, played by James Macdonald, who must have been notified of his ex-wife and son's death, felt any grief or remorse for their loss.

                               For those having never seen this episode, it is a MUST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                                                           

The other is "Offender."  In this one a young boy named  Clayton Hathaway goes missing in his suburban neighborhood, back in 1987.  Things point to his father Mitch, because the child's body was found at a construction site where Mitch works.  

Two decades later, Mitch is released on the grounds of tainted evidence.  He vows to kill every known sex  offender in Philadelphia, thinking he will eventually eliminate his son's killer, if the police don't catch him first.  Once he makes good on his threat, with a couple of murders, Lily and Company go into action.

The killer turns out to be their then suburban neighbor, Cliff Burrell.  The distraught father is apprehended atop a building, just as he is about to kill Burrell--which I wish he had.  His wife, Tara, played in the present by Jordan Baker,  offers profuse apologies, and they hold hands and see Clay's ghost smiling at them.

But--

Do Tara and Mitch actually get back together?  How long a sentence did he get?  And will they now stay together?

What of the Burrells?  Will he be killed in prison, because inmates notoriously hate child killers?  Shows even these folk have a degree of humanity!!!!!!!!!!!!   And what about Cliff's wife, Linda?  I always said, in the funeral scene, I had the impression Linda was covering, that she knew what her husband was, and that, when Clay turned up killed, she knew her husband was responsible.  He framed Mitch by planting evidence in the Hathaway household, which Tara eventually found.  But I think Linda knew more than she told, and I would like to see this revealed, with her maybe getting some time for complicity.

It's just a thought, darlings!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

There is one more episode to ponder, but it is time to move on to other things.

Cheers, girls!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!