For those of you who remember the extremely short run of this show on NBC and followed the show every week (like I did) you might be surprised to learn that all eight episodes of Outlaw are available on DVD. This was something I wasn't ever expecting to happen and didn't know had happened until I stumbled across the listing on amazon.com a few minutes ago.
You won't be able to find Outlaw at any brick and mortar stores, however. The only place you can get it on DVD is via amazon.com's Manufacture on Demand service. You place your order and all 8 episodes will be burned to DVD-R for you. The price of the series is $19.99 and amazon.com currently lists it as being "in stock" so it is available now.
This was an extremely quiet and unexpected release. While I would prefer the show to have been released through a more formal method I'll take what I can get.
Outlaw (2010)
Amazon.com Manufacture on Demand DVD-R Release
Showing posts with label Jimmy Smits. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jimmy Smits. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Saturday, November 13, 2010
US Television: Outlaw, Episode 1.8, "In Re: Tony Mejia"
Outlaw
Season One, Episode Eight, In Re: Tony Mejia
Original Air Date: November 12, 2010 (Canada), November 13, 2010 (US)
Cyrus is unhappy with a candidate for the Supreme Court seat he vacated. The team must go to Mexico to ask for the extradition of a man who murdered a young woman in Los Angeles. The extradition is denied but the man is found guilty and ordered to prison in Mexico. However, when he is released unexpectedly, the father of the young woman shoots and kills his daughters killer and must stand trial in Mexico for his crime. Mereta is in some legal trouble of her own and it is up to Al to get her out of it.
Cyrus feels the candidate for his replacement, Sean Ryan, isn't the right candidate. Cyrus was a prosecutor in Cook County when Ryan was a judge and everyone knew Ryan was on the take. Cyrus can't give his friend Sherry Lemko proof that Ryan's decisions were for sale but he gives her the name of Fred Shervin who does. She will check it out in exchange for a favor. Mexico is refusing to extradite a man who murdered a kindergarten teacher, Lisa Mejia, in Los Angeles. He needs to go to Mexico and convince them to send the man back to the United States.
Cyrus asks Eddie to get him all motions filed by the U.S. Government to extradite the murderer back to California as well as the Mexican response. Mereta gets a call from someone named "Tim" at work and there is apparently a problem she doesn't want to talk about. Lucinda and Eddie place bets if "Tim" is really her brother as she claims or her lover.
Al and Cyrus speak with Lisa's father, Tony Mejia, and he tells them about the new boyfriend in her life, Julio Trujilo. She had wanted to break up but he didn't. Her father tells them the LAPD found DNA evidence that he was responsible for her death but he was gone when they went to arrest him. He is in custody in Mexico but, without pressure from the U.S. government, he will be let go. He begs them to bring him back.
Trujilo's uncle runs a drug cartel but it is unknown whether he is involved or not. Lisa was choked into unconsciousness then raped and when she woke up, her neck was broken. According to the Mexican briefs, they will extradite only if the death penalty is taken off the table. While they are discussing the case, Tim Reid shows up to talk to Mereta. Someone gave him a subpoena from an insurance company outside his apartment. When Cyrus asks who he is and says that he should leave, Tim speaks up that he is Mereta's husband which surprises everyone.
Al and Eddie speak with Mereta and Tim. Tim tells them that he was diagnosed four years ago with a stage three brain tumor and was given four to six months to live without surgery. He didn't have health insurance at the time and couldn't get it with the pre-existing condition. Since he and Mereta were such good friends in college, they got married so he could get on her insurance policy, thus, saving his life. Lucinda, who came into the room while they were talking, thinks what Mereta did was awesome. The insurance company is claiming Mereta and Tim committed fraud because they got married only to get him on the insurance policy. Al assures her he can help and since she is being sued for a half million dollars she needs his help. Al tells Cyrus that he and Mereta are going to have to sit the trip to Mexico out. Eddie doesn't want to go either because of the danger of drug violence but he must go anyway.
In Monterrey, Mexico, Cyrus speaks with a judge on behalf of the President of the United States for the extradition of Trujilo. He gives the judge his word that he will not face the death penalty. The judge informs them that they are too late as Julio has already been tried for the murder, a "paper trial", as Cyrus calls it. The judge read written accounts from the prosecution and defense and made a decision based on those. The judge tells them they will have his decision by the end of the day.
Tony Mejia is angry at this fact and Cyrus tells him no matter what happens it isn't over. Cyrus translates the ruling of the judge for Tony. The judge found Julio guilty of Lisa's murder and sentences him to prison for no less than 25 years. Tony feels better knowing that the man who killed his daughter will be going to jail and Cyrus believes Julia will be transferred to prison as early as later that day.
While waiting in Mexico to return to the States, Cyrus calls Sherry to tell her he held up the end of the deal and to find out if she held hers. Cyrus knows Donald Crane is in the mix for his old Court seat and he feels he wouldn't be "a horrible choice". Cyrus calls Tony to tell him the plane is about to board and Tony tells him he's watching the man who murdered his daughter enjoy happy hour. Tony grabs a gun from the holster of a nearby policeman and we see Cyrus calling to him over the phone.
Cyrus, Eddie and Lucinda arrive at the scene. Cyrus heard four shots over the phone and the reports say Julio took two bullets. A policeman tells Cyrus that Tony fled the country and not ten seconds later he gets a call from Sherry telling him the Mexican government is insisting they arrest Tony the second he lands in Los Angeles. Cyrus leaves Eddie and Lucinda in Mexico to handle things there while he goes to Los Angeles.
In Los Angeles, Cyrus speaks with Tony who is in custody at the airport. Tony insists that he saw the police in Mexico let Julio go. Cyrus tells him Mexico wants to try him for murder and that while extradition can be delayed a few months, in the end, the American government will send him back to Mexico. Cyrus vows to go back to Mexico with him and do everything they can to get him back to the States again.
Al has filed a motion to dismiss Mereta's case with prejudice on the grounds that it fails to state a legitimate cause of action under the law. The opposing attorney cites fraud and that it is a very legitimate reason. Al notes there is no legal restriction against marrying for insurance. The judge holds the case over to prove whether Mereta and Tim "pulled a fast one" or not but he also warns that the court will not walk head-on into what is or isn't a loving marriage and notes the high burden is on the insurance company.
Back in Mexico, Cyrus tells Tony that he will now surrender at the district attorney's office and he will go before the judge and ask for bail. As soon as they step inside the airport terminal, they are met by members of the press. Policemen rush in and take hold of Tony and usher him away and Cyrus tells them he wants Tony put in protective custody and nobody is to question him.
Cyrus wants Sherry to have the State Department lodge a complaint because of how Tony was taken into custody. She did find Shervin but he will not talk to her. She promises him he will like how everything ends. Lucinda is having trouble getting witness statements from the shooting scene. Some won't talk and others she is still trying to hunt down. At the very least, all they have is an insanity defense which means they must rely on the testimony of a court appointed psychiatrist they know nothing about. He orders Lucinda and Eddie to find out everything they can about the shrink. Cyrus asks Lucinda to reach out to someone back home to see if they know anything about Sean Ryan.
Al gives Mereta some last minute tips on her deposition. He assures her that she doesn't need to lie about why she and Tim got married. Trials are about what can be proven not what is suggested. As long as she doesn't admit flat out that they got married for insurance they do not have enough. She doesn't need to lie, just answer in ways that won't cost her half a million dollars. Mereta tells about how the marriage was a small affair that was a happy occasion during a difficult time and how they spent every day of the last four years of college together. He admits they never lived together after the marriage. The insurance company lawyer pushes hard wanting Mereta to admit they married only for the insurance policy but Al comes back just as hard in defense of her. Al wants to end the deposition but Mereta doesn't want to go. She wants the lawyer to ask his last question again ("isn't it true your sole purpose for marrying Tim Reid was to get him insurance he couldn't get on his own"). When he does, she answers "yes".
At the psychiatrists office, Tony is understandably nervous. While he is talking with the doctor, Lucinda comes in and lets Cyrus know she found a witness who will say that Julio taunted Tony before the shooting. She also gives him a statement she got from Shervin. The psychiatrist describes Tony to Cyrus as a deeply wounded man who, even with prolonged therapy, might never be the same. He also cannot support the insanity defense because, according to him, he is unstable yes, but insane, no. Cyrus believes Dr. Fernandez is wrong and they need to make the court see that.
The judge asks Cyrus about his intentions to use an insanity defense even though the court psychiatrist has rejected that theory. Cyrus wants to call in his own expert which the prosecution objects to. He wants to challenge the doctors findings because they are flawed and he can prove that but the judge refuses. Cyrus accuses the doctor of having an opinion that was paid for. The judge agrees to let Cyrus question the doctor.
He asks if it is his opinion that Tony was legally sane at the time of the shooting and the doctor responds that he was. He then asks if it is his professional or medical opinion to which the doctor replies he doesn't understand the question. When Cyrus clarifies his question, it is to state that Fernandez is not only a doctor but also a professional witness. He makes a living evaluating defendants for the court. Dr. Fernandez admits that is true but has no bearing on his medical opinion. Cyrus presents him with statistics of how many defendants he's evaluated (14). Fernandez corrects the figure to 24 and testifies he's worked for the courts for twelve years. With a total of 288 defendants and twelve years of working for the court, almost 200 of them in a row were in favor of the court. Cyrus wants an impartial doctor from the University of Monterrey to review Tony and will accept whatever she finds. The judge grants that because even he wants to hear a second opinion.
The insurance company lawyer rejects Al's settlement of $350,000. They want everything. He produces papers that Mereta and Tim were defrauding them from the very first application. Al rescinds his offer because the statute of limitations on the fraud case stands at three years and the first application was made four years ago. The insurance company should have filed four years ago when they reasonably knew they were being defrauded.
Doctor Lourdes Leon comes into court to testify that she believed Tony Mejia was emotionally unstable at the time of the shooting because of everything he had endured from his daughters murder up to the day of the shooting. Finding Trujilo on the street was enough to cause him to snap and that he quite possibly had the inability to reason or function rationally when he shot Julio.
Lucinda is bringing in the witness who is to testify that Tony was taunted by Julio before the shooting when the woman is abducted. They can't prove the kidnapping and cannot identify who took the witness. Tony is going to have to testify about the taunting since the witness cannot. He testifies that Lisa wanted to break up with Julio but he refused to let her go, about the day he found her body and about what he could remember from the day of the shooting. The prosecutor asks the judges to render a guilty verdict because they cannot allow vigilante justice. Cyrus points out how Tony was able to keep himself together throughout everything up until the moment Julio was taunting him and makes a plea to the judges to find him not guilty so he can go home to get help for his feelings.
Mereta and Tim end up having to pay $60,000 to the insurance company. The Mexican court finds that Tony was not legally insane at the time of the crime and finds him guilty of involuntary manslaughter. They sentence him to 15 years in prison. However, they stay the sentence and order him to be immediately deported from the Mexican borders. The President appoints Donald Crane to Cyrus' old Supreme Court seat over Ryan.
Well, this episode finds us at the end of the road for Outlaw. I will admit, I was a bit unsure about Outlaw for the first couple of episodes. But the series got stronger every week. There were good characters here that I could get behind and care about and some of the story lines were fantastic. It's sad that NBC didn't get behind this show more and seemed so quick to cancel it instead of trying a different time slot or different night, preferably. Just trying anything to help it. I guess the networks want every show to be top raters from the get-go and they need to realize that that can't always happen. Some shows hit the ground running and others start at a slower pace and work up to that awesome momentum that the networks love so much. I think Outlaw could have been one of the latter had it been given a fighting chance. A slow start doesn't mean a bad show just as a quick start doesn't mean a good show. I'll miss Outlaw and I sincerely hope that at some point in the very near future, the awesome Jimmy Smits returns to network television and is given the chance he truly deserves.
For more information:
NBC Official Site: www.nbc.com/outlaw/
Internet Movie Database: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1592226/combined
TV Rage: http://www.tvrage.com/Outlaw
Season One, Episode Eight, In Re: Tony Mejia
Original Air Date: November 12, 2010 (Canada), November 13, 2010 (US)
Cyrus is unhappy with a candidate for the Supreme Court seat he vacated. The team must go to Mexico to ask for the extradition of a man who murdered a young woman in Los Angeles. The extradition is denied but the man is found guilty and ordered to prison in Mexico. However, when he is released unexpectedly, the father of the young woman shoots and kills his daughters killer and must stand trial in Mexico for his crime. Mereta is in some legal trouble of her own and it is up to Al to get her out of it.
Cyrus feels the candidate for his replacement, Sean Ryan, isn't the right candidate. Cyrus was a prosecutor in Cook County when Ryan was a judge and everyone knew Ryan was on the take. Cyrus can't give his friend Sherry Lemko proof that Ryan's decisions were for sale but he gives her the name of Fred Shervin who does. She will check it out in exchange for a favor. Mexico is refusing to extradite a man who murdered a kindergarten teacher, Lisa Mejia, in Los Angeles. He needs to go to Mexico and convince them to send the man back to the United States.
Cyrus asks Eddie to get him all motions filed by the U.S. Government to extradite the murderer back to California as well as the Mexican response. Mereta gets a call from someone named "Tim" at work and there is apparently a problem she doesn't want to talk about. Lucinda and Eddie place bets if "Tim" is really her brother as she claims or her lover.
Al and Cyrus speak with Lisa's father, Tony Mejia, and he tells them about the new boyfriend in her life, Julio Trujilo. She had wanted to break up but he didn't. Her father tells them the LAPD found DNA evidence that he was responsible for her death but he was gone when they went to arrest him. He is in custody in Mexico but, without pressure from the U.S. government, he will be let go. He begs them to bring him back.
Trujilo's uncle runs a drug cartel but it is unknown whether he is involved or not. Lisa was choked into unconsciousness then raped and when she woke up, her neck was broken. According to the Mexican briefs, they will extradite only if the death penalty is taken off the table. While they are discussing the case, Tim Reid shows up to talk to Mereta. Someone gave him a subpoena from an insurance company outside his apartment. When Cyrus asks who he is and says that he should leave, Tim speaks up that he is Mereta's husband which surprises everyone.
Al and Eddie speak with Mereta and Tim. Tim tells them that he was diagnosed four years ago with a stage three brain tumor and was given four to six months to live without surgery. He didn't have health insurance at the time and couldn't get it with the pre-existing condition. Since he and Mereta were such good friends in college, they got married so he could get on her insurance policy, thus, saving his life. Lucinda, who came into the room while they were talking, thinks what Mereta did was awesome. The insurance company is claiming Mereta and Tim committed fraud because they got married only to get him on the insurance policy. Al assures her he can help and since she is being sued for a half million dollars she needs his help. Al tells Cyrus that he and Mereta are going to have to sit the trip to Mexico out. Eddie doesn't want to go either because of the danger of drug violence but he must go anyway.
In Monterrey, Mexico, Cyrus speaks with a judge on behalf of the President of the United States for the extradition of Trujilo. He gives the judge his word that he will not face the death penalty. The judge informs them that they are too late as Julio has already been tried for the murder, a "paper trial", as Cyrus calls it. The judge read written accounts from the prosecution and defense and made a decision based on those. The judge tells them they will have his decision by the end of the day.
Tony Mejia is angry at this fact and Cyrus tells him no matter what happens it isn't over. Cyrus translates the ruling of the judge for Tony. The judge found Julio guilty of Lisa's murder and sentences him to prison for no less than 25 years. Tony feels better knowing that the man who killed his daughter will be going to jail and Cyrus believes Julia will be transferred to prison as early as later that day.
While waiting in Mexico to return to the States, Cyrus calls Sherry to tell her he held up the end of the deal and to find out if she held hers. Cyrus knows Donald Crane is in the mix for his old Court seat and he feels he wouldn't be "a horrible choice". Cyrus calls Tony to tell him the plane is about to board and Tony tells him he's watching the man who murdered his daughter enjoy happy hour. Tony grabs a gun from the holster of a nearby policeman and we see Cyrus calling to him over the phone.
Cyrus, Eddie and Lucinda arrive at the scene. Cyrus heard four shots over the phone and the reports say Julio took two bullets. A policeman tells Cyrus that Tony fled the country and not ten seconds later he gets a call from Sherry telling him the Mexican government is insisting they arrest Tony the second he lands in Los Angeles. Cyrus leaves Eddie and Lucinda in Mexico to handle things there while he goes to Los Angeles.
In Los Angeles, Cyrus speaks with Tony who is in custody at the airport. Tony insists that he saw the police in Mexico let Julio go. Cyrus tells him Mexico wants to try him for murder and that while extradition can be delayed a few months, in the end, the American government will send him back to Mexico. Cyrus vows to go back to Mexico with him and do everything they can to get him back to the States again.
Al has filed a motion to dismiss Mereta's case with prejudice on the grounds that it fails to state a legitimate cause of action under the law. The opposing attorney cites fraud and that it is a very legitimate reason. Al notes there is no legal restriction against marrying for insurance. The judge holds the case over to prove whether Mereta and Tim "pulled a fast one" or not but he also warns that the court will not walk head-on into what is or isn't a loving marriage and notes the high burden is on the insurance company.
Back in Mexico, Cyrus tells Tony that he will now surrender at the district attorney's office and he will go before the judge and ask for bail. As soon as they step inside the airport terminal, they are met by members of the press. Policemen rush in and take hold of Tony and usher him away and Cyrus tells them he wants Tony put in protective custody and nobody is to question him.
Cyrus wants Sherry to have the State Department lodge a complaint because of how Tony was taken into custody. She did find Shervin but he will not talk to her. She promises him he will like how everything ends. Lucinda is having trouble getting witness statements from the shooting scene. Some won't talk and others she is still trying to hunt down. At the very least, all they have is an insanity defense which means they must rely on the testimony of a court appointed psychiatrist they know nothing about. He orders Lucinda and Eddie to find out everything they can about the shrink. Cyrus asks Lucinda to reach out to someone back home to see if they know anything about Sean Ryan.
Al gives Mereta some last minute tips on her deposition. He assures her that she doesn't need to lie about why she and Tim got married. Trials are about what can be proven not what is suggested. As long as she doesn't admit flat out that they got married for insurance they do not have enough. She doesn't need to lie, just answer in ways that won't cost her half a million dollars. Mereta tells about how the marriage was a small affair that was a happy occasion during a difficult time and how they spent every day of the last four years of college together. He admits they never lived together after the marriage. The insurance company lawyer pushes hard wanting Mereta to admit they married only for the insurance policy but Al comes back just as hard in defense of her. Al wants to end the deposition but Mereta doesn't want to go. She wants the lawyer to ask his last question again ("isn't it true your sole purpose for marrying Tim Reid was to get him insurance he couldn't get on his own"). When he does, she answers "yes".
At the psychiatrists office, Tony is understandably nervous. While he is talking with the doctor, Lucinda comes in and lets Cyrus know she found a witness who will say that Julio taunted Tony before the shooting. She also gives him a statement she got from Shervin. The psychiatrist describes Tony to Cyrus as a deeply wounded man who, even with prolonged therapy, might never be the same. He also cannot support the insanity defense because, according to him, he is unstable yes, but insane, no. Cyrus believes Dr. Fernandez is wrong and they need to make the court see that.
The judge asks Cyrus about his intentions to use an insanity defense even though the court psychiatrist has rejected that theory. Cyrus wants to call in his own expert which the prosecution objects to. He wants to challenge the doctors findings because they are flawed and he can prove that but the judge refuses. Cyrus accuses the doctor of having an opinion that was paid for. The judge agrees to let Cyrus question the doctor.
He asks if it is his opinion that Tony was legally sane at the time of the shooting and the doctor responds that he was. He then asks if it is his professional or medical opinion to which the doctor replies he doesn't understand the question. When Cyrus clarifies his question, it is to state that Fernandez is not only a doctor but also a professional witness. He makes a living evaluating defendants for the court. Dr. Fernandez admits that is true but has no bearing on his medical opinion. Cyrus presents him with statistics of how many defendants he's evaluated (14). Fernandez corrects the figure to 24 and testifies he's worked for the courts for twelve years. With a total of 288 defendants and twelve years of working for the court, almost 200 of them in a row were in favor of the court. Cyrus wants an impartial doctor from the University of Monterrey to review Tony and will accept whatever she finds. The judge grants that because even he wants to hear a second opinion.
The insurance company lawyer rejects Al's settlement of $350,000. They want everything. He produces papers that Mereta and Tim were defrauding them from the very first application. Al rescinds his offer because the statute of limitations on the fraud case stands at three years and the first application was made four years ago. The insurance company should have filed four years ago when they reasonably knew they were being defrauded.
Doctor Lourdes Leon comes into court to testify that she believed Tony Mejia was emotionally unstable at the time of the shooting because of everything he had endured from his daughters murder up to the day of the shooting. Finding Trujilo on the street was enough to cause him to snap and that he quite possibly had the inability to reason or function rationally when he shot Julio.
Lucinda is bringing in the witness who is to testify that Tony was taunted by Julio before the shooting when the woman is abducted. They can't prove the kidnapping and cannot identify who took the witness. Tony is going to have to testify about the taunting since the witness cannot. He testifies that Lisa wanted to break up with Julio but he refused to let her go, about the day he found her body and about what he could remember from the day of the shooting. The prosecutor asks the judges to render a guilty verdict because they cannot allow vigilante justice. Cyrus points out how Tony was able to keep himself together throughout everything up until the moment Julio was taunting him and makes a plea to the judges to find him not guilty so he can go home to get help for his feelings.
Mereta and Tim end up having to pay $60,000 to the insurance company. The Mexican court finds that Tony was not legally insane at the time of the crime and finds him guilty of involuntary manslaughter. They sentence him to 15 years in prison. However, they stay the sentence and order him to be immediately deported from the Mexican borders. The President appoints Donald Crane to Cyrus' old Supreme Court seat over Ryan.
Well, this episode finds us at the end of the road for Outlaw. I will admit, I was a bit unsure about Outlaw for the first couple of episodes. But the series got stronger every week. There were good characters here that I could get behind and care about and some of the story lines were fantastic. It's sad that NBC didn't get behind this show more and seemed so quick to cancel it instead of trying a different time slot or different night, preferably. Just trying anything to help it. I guess the networks want every show to be top raters from the get-go and they need to realize that that can't always happen. Some shows hit the ground running and others start at a slower pace and work up to that awesome momentum that the networks love so much. I think Outlaw could have been one of the latter had it been given a fighting chance. A slow start doesn't mean a bad show just as a quick start doesn't mean a good show. I'll miss Outlaw and I sincerely hope that at some point in the very near future, the awesome Jimmy Smits returns to network television and is given the chance he truly deserves.
For more information:
NBC Official Site: www.nbc.com/outlaw/
Internet Movie Database: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1592226/combined
TV Rage: http://www.tvrage.com/Outlaw
Saturday, November 6, 2010
US Television: Outlaw, Episode 1.7, "In RE: Kelvin Jones"
Outlaw
Season One, Episode Seven, In RE: Kelvin Jones
Original Air Date: November 5, 2010 (Canada), November 6, 2010 (U.S.)
A young, black honor student is killed by a gunman at the Cyrus Garza School in Alabama. The school is located in a district where predominately black schools do not receive the funding that white schools do. Cyrus, wanting the school that bears his name, to protect each and every student attending it, files a wrongful death suit against the district and the school. When that fails to achieve what he wants, Cyrus amends the action to include a class-action suit against the county. Meanwhile, the police ask Cyrus and his team what they might know about the death of Ben Kershaw while Eddie questions Lucinda about any involvement she might have had in Kershaw's death. Lucinda becomes a suspect when the death is changed from suicide to homicide.
An armed man enters the Alabama campus of Cyrus Garza School and fires upon three young men standing in front of a drink machine. Two of them young men run but the third, an honor student, Kelvin Jones, is killed. Eddie gets into work after having tried to call Lucinda all night. He wants to know if she killed Kershaw. Al and Cyrus interrupt their conversation as they enter the kitchen talking about the shooting at the school.
A police detective calls at the house showing a photograph of Ben Kershaw. Mereta can't make a positive identification of Kershaw as the man who attacked her in the car. When the detective leaves, Cyrus asks everyone to give him a minute. Everyone, that is, except Lucinda. Cyrus questions her about Kershaw but Lucinda wants to "plead the fifth". He lets her off the hook only because he needs to leave for Alabama but assures her they will talk about it once he gets home.
In Alabama, Cyrus learns more about Kelvin Jones. He was a special young man according to his principal. The school doesn't have metal detectors or security guards because they can't afford them. They can barely afford teachers. The only insulation they have is "duct tape on windows". The school took Garza's name in 1999.
Cyrus goes to the Jones home to pay his respects. Kelvin's father asks him to leave. For two years they had requested a transfer for their son to another school, Centennial, a better school that would have been safer for their son and helped him achieve his scholastic ambitions. The district hasn't responded to any of their requests. The same holds true for their daughter.
Cyrus calls Al about the situation at Garza School. He is outraged that segregation still appears to be alive and well in school systems. He wants Al and Mereta to get to Alabama ASAP as he will be speaking at a memorial and he wants them there for that.
At the memorial for Kelvin, Cyrus questions the school board as to how many of their children attend Cyrus Garza School. None do. He announces that, on behalf of Kelvin's family, he is filing a wrongful death case against the school district and the school. "If it's gonna bear my name, it's gonna do right by these kids."
Kelvin's parents present Cyrus with a tassel bearing "'12". Two-thousand-twelve is the year Kelvin would have graduated. However, the tassel didn't belong to Kelvin. It was his grandfather's. He graduated in 1912 from the same school. Cyrus tells them he will hold the tassel for good luck and, if they win, he will give it back to them. He doesn't sugar coat the fact that they are fighting an uphill battle and very well may not win.
Kelvin's younger sister, Kara, testifies in court that everyone at the school knows about the gangs because the gangs put themselves right out in the open. She testifies that the "sets" pretty much control the school. She tells about how the gangs disrupt schools and, when she starts to testify about how the teachers will not stop them, the defense attorney, Victor Harmon (Jason Gray-Stanford), objects. He claims that the school cannot be held responsible for Kelvin's death but Cyrus disagrees. Judge William Stanley asks Cyrus if he is saying the school had knowledge that the murder of Kelvin Jones was going to happen. Cyrus cannot the school did.
Eddie and Lucinda are back in Washington gathering statistics to send to Garza, Al and Mereta. The doorbell rings and it is the police detective. He is there with an envelope of photographs that were found in the trunk of Kershaw's car. They are all of Lucinda. The investigation has moved from suicide to homicide when GSR comes back that Kershaw's hands were clean.
The judge rules against Garza. Before the judge can dismiss court, Cyrus, who is upset over the ruling, amends his action. He files a class-action suit against the county and entire school system for the willful and deliberate segregation of the public schools in direct violation of the 14th Amendment. The judge calls Cyrus and the defense attorney up before him. He applauds Cyrus' determination and, off the record, he admits he might very well be on to something, but, before he will certify the class-action suit he needs to earn it: he must have 300 plaintiffs. He gives him 48 hours.
It's an uphill struggle to get enough names to give to the judge. One man signs but tells Al that 20 years ago his father signed a petition to improve the schools and he suspects that in 20 years, his son will be signing another one. One woman declines when she asks what the lawyers cut of the $7 million asked for in the suit will be and finds it is 33%. They get a lot of doors closed in their faces and people that walk on by without even listening to what they have to say.
In Washington, Eddie is serving as counsel for Lucinda who is being questioned by the detective investigating the death of Ben Kershaw. He wants a DNA sample to match or rule against Lucinda for skin samples they found beneath Kershaw's fingernails. When the detective leaves the room, Lucinda tells Eddie she can't consent to give her DNA as they will find something even though she is adamant she didn't kill him.
After a day of trying to get enough signatures to hand the judge, Cyrus, Al and Mereta are left with a meager 41. Cyrus feels they need to find someone with a following that will join the suit. He goes to the mayor, at Kelvin's funeral, and presents the situation to him and that he can run on a platform of educational reform when he comes up for re-election the following year. The mayor agrees to go along with Cyrus but he wants a press release the following morning calling him a 'great humanitarian'.
The first part of the problem is proving the county is intentionally dividing the students between the two schools it has, one that is predominately black and the other that is predominately white. They need a great first witness and Mereta has just the man: Archibald Breech (John Cothran, Jr.). Breech was the only member of the school board that came out to support them.
On the witness stand, Breech is familiar with the demographics of the county. He states how the two districts in the county are supposed to work: you go to school in the district where you live. But things do not go that way. Each school should be approximately 70% black and 30% white but the statistics are the opposite. Centennial Academy is 70% white and 30% black. He testifies that is because over 300 white students each year have been allowed to transfer from Cyrus Garza to Centennial. Breech testifies that the county willingly transfers the students from Cyrus Garza to Centennial. The defense attorney questions Breech about why he approved each transfer. Breech testifies that he didn't speak up and that is something he will have to live with but the politics of the school board prevented him from causing trouble.
Lucinda is released when the police get a hit off the DNA found under Kershaw's nails. They know she didn't kill him. Kershaw's wife was the one who killed him. As Lucinda and Eddie are leaving, Kershaw's wife stops Lucinda and asks her if Valerie is alright. Lucinda assures her that she is.
Marvin Jackson, the man in charge of routing all the school buses in the county is next to testify. He testifies about how the bus routes have been affected by the transfers. He claims he could cut at least 6 buses from his fleet if he didn't have to deal with all the cross-town transfers. He testifies that the white children are bussed directly past Garza school to get to Centennial.
Several people in the court get up and leave and Kelvin's father speaks to Al. The court must take a recess as something is happening at the Cyrus Garza school. The county is shutting down all bus routes temporarily to both schools. The superintendent holds a press conference on the steps of Garza School that the county "cannot afford" bus service as well as defending themselves against Garza's class-action suit and that getting the kids to and from school is now the responsibility of the parents. The superintendent claims the decision wasn't "his call" and that the decision was made for him by Cyrus. Sports and all extracurricular activities have also been called off until the case has been resolved. The superintendent leaves Cyrus to answer all the questions from the parents and press.
The superintendent testifies in court that he takes any charge of racism in schools to be a personal attack. Cyrus objects when the defense attorney presents information to the witness almost in the manner of testifying. The superintendent implies that the segregation problem isn't with the school board and the county but with the public, the families themselves. He testifies, when questioned by Cyrus that he was aware the transferring of white students was causing segregation in the schools. Cyrus then asks if he is familiar with the term "clustering". Cyrus presents him with the data that the white students left at Cyrus Garza are clustered into classes by themselves to which the superintendent replies that students learn better when they are comfortable.
They need to prove that Kelvin's application for transfer was denied because he was black, something the superintendent claims never happens, despite that Kelvin was the only application denied out of 300. They go to the superintendents former assistant who was "promoted" out of her old job into the position of teaching 6th grade in another county. Al goes to speak with Penny Rogovin (Desiree Hall) about Kelvin's application. She corrects them that she was not promoted. She was fired because she knew the hundreds of granted transfers every year was wrong. She told the superintendent but was ordered to grant the transfers anyway. She tells them they all loved Kelvin and that they did receive the requests for his transfer but the school never had a chance to respond.
Penny testifies that Kelvin had come to see her personally in the office because he knew his father had made the transfer requests. He had requested that she withdraw the applications and, even though he was a minor and the decision wasn't his, she gave him the forms back. Kelvin's reason for not wanting the transfer was that he didn't want to go to a white school. He wanted to stay at his school and help make it better because he was proud of it. She also testifies that she knew of the segregation and that she showed Superintendent Garver the numbers but he told her to grant the transfers because "he didn't want to get involved".
Eddie arrives at work to find a present waiting on him from Lucinda. He apologizes to her for doubting her and acknowledges that she helped rescue Valerie. She confesses that she doesn't just help rescue abused kids, she was an abused kid. Her DNA is on file with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children which is why she refused to give her DNA to the police. The present is a pocket protector.
Cyrus delivers his closing arguments stating the situation in Hastings County, Alabama is unacceptable to him and it should be to every member of the jury. Instead of going backwards after fifty-six years, they should take a step forward today. The defense maintains in his closing that every transfer was handled in a manner that wasn't promoting racism and that they should be able to get back to the business of teaching. In his rebuttal, Cyrus states that Kelvin Jones didn't see things that way. The jury finds in favor of Cyrus and his team and awards an amount of $11 million.
Cyrus asks to approach to say something before the judge adjourns. The judge isn't about to adjourn as he wants to issue an order of his own. He is instructing the county to stop all transfers and take all necessary steps to integrate both schools. Cyrus suggests instead that the judge orders the schools to merge since Garza school will take years to get up to code. The new name for the school will be the Kelvin Jones School.
Cyrus takes the tassel from his briefcase and tells the Jones family he would like to keep it and will pay $3.6 million for it. They want to start a scholarship in Kelvin's name using their proceeds from the lawsuit.
Another excellent episode. I thought this one gave us another good look into Cyrus' personality. He was genuinely concerned about the well-being of the students at the school bearing his name. When one method didn't work, he jumped right into another. He was determined to do what was right to move forward rather than backward. I think this was probably the first case where Cyrus wasn't the only one who agreed with his actions. Al, nor any other member of the team, wasn't fighting against him. Everyone was on board. I liked that.
We got a bit more insight into Lucinda and her past this episode as well. I think Eddie has come to respect her much more than he did at the start of this all-too short series. I've liked Lucinda since the get-go and she is still one of my favorite characters on Outlaw. She's colorful, outspoken and takes nothing from no one. Boy, am I really going to hate to see this series end next week.
The final episode of Outlaw airs on Saturday, November 13, 2010 at 10:00 p.m. (9:00 p.m. Central) on NBC.
For more information:
NBC Official Site: www.nbc.com/outlaw/
Internet Movie Database: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1592226/combined
TV Rage: http://www.tvrage.com/Outlaw
Season One, Episode Seven, In RE: Kelvin Jones
Original Air Date: November 5, 2010 (Canada), November 6, 2010 (U.S.)
A young, black honor student is killed by a gunman at the Cyrus Garza School in Alabama. The school is located in a district where predominately black schools do not receive the funding that white schools do. Cyrus, wanting the school that bears his name, to protect each and every student attending it, files a wrongful death suit against the district and the school. When that fails to achieve what he wants, Cyrus amends the action to include a class-action suit against the county. Meanwhile, the police ask Cyrus and his team what they might know about the death of Ben Kershaw while Eddie questions Lucinda about any involvement she might have had in Kershaw's death. Lucinda becomes a suspect when the death is changed from suicide to homicide.
An armed man enters the Alabama campus of Cyrus Garza School and fires upon three young men standing in front of a drink machine. Two of them young men run but the third, an honor student, Kelvin Jones, is killed. Eddie gets into work after having tried to call Lucinda all night. He wants to know if she killed Kershaw. Al and Cyrus interrupt their conversation as they enter the kitchen talking about the shooting at the school.
A police detective calls at the house showing a photograph of Ben Kershaw. Mereta can't make a positive identification of Kershaw as the man who attacked her in the car. When the detective leaves, Cyrus asks everyone to give him a minute. Everyone, that is, except Lucinda. Cyrus questions her about Kershaw but Lucinda wants to "plead the fifth". He lets her off the hook only because he needs to leave for Alabama but assures her they will talk about it once he gets home.
In Alabama, Cyrus learns more about Kelvin Jones. He was a special young man according to his principal. The school doesn't have metal detectors or security guards because they can't afford them. They can barely afford teachers. The only insulation they have is "duct tape on windows". The school took Garza's name in 1999.
Cyrus goes to the Jones home to pay his respects. Kelvin's father asks him to leave. For two years they had requested a transfer for their son to another school, Centennial, a better school that would have been safer for their son and helped him achieve his scholastic ambitions. The district hasn't responded to any of their requests. The same holds true for their daughter.
Cyrus calls Al about the situation at Garza School. He is outraged that segregation still appears to be alive and well in school systems. He wants Al and Mereta to get to Alabama ASAP as he will be speaking at a memorial and he wants them there for that.
At the memorial for Kelvin, Cyrus questions the school board as to how many of their children attend Cyrus Garza School. None do. He announces that, on behalf of Kelvin's family, he is filing a wrongful death case against the school district and the school. "If it's gonna bear my name, it's gonna do right by these kids."
Kelvin's parents present Cyrus with a tassel bearing "'12". Two-thousand-twelve is the year Kelvin would have graduated. However, the tassel didn't belong to Kelvin. It was his grandfather's. He graduated in 1912 from the same school. Cyrus tells them he will hold the tassel for good luck and, if they win, he will give it back to them. He doesn't sugar coat the fact that they are fighting an uphill battle and very well may not win.
Kelvin's younger sister, Kara, testifies in court that everyone at the school knows about the gangs because the gangs put themselves right out in the open. She testifies that the "sets" pretty much control the school. She tells about how the gangs disrupt schools and, when she starts to testify about how the teachers will not stop them, the defense attorney, Victor Harmon (Jason Gray-Stanford), objects. He claims that the school cannot be held responsible for Kelvin's death but Cyrus disagrees. Judge William Stanley asks Cyrus if he is saying the school had knowledge that the murder of Kelvin Jones was going to happen. Cyrus cannot the school did.
Eddie and Lucinda are back in Washington gathering statistics to send to Garza, Al and Mereta. The doorbell rings and it is the police detective. He is there with an envelope of photographs that were found in the trunk of Kershaw's car. They are all of Lucinda. The investigation has moved from suicide to homicide when GSR comes back that Kershaw's hands were clean.
The judge rules against Garza. Before the judge can dismiss court, Cyrus, who is upset over the ruling, amends his action. He files a class-action suit against the county and entire school system for the willful and deliberate segregation of the public schools in direct violation of the 14th Amendment. The judge calls Cyrus and the defense attorney up before him. He applauds Cyrus' determination and, off the record, he admits he might very well be on to something, but, before he will certify the class-action suit he needs to earn it: he must have 300 plaintiffs. He gives him 48 hours.
It's an uphill struggle to get enough names to give to the judge. One man signs but tells Al that 20 years ago his father signed a petition to improve the schools and he suspects that in 20 years, his son will be signing another one. One woman declines when she asks what the lawyers cut of the $7 million asked for in the suit will be and finds it is 33%. They get a lot of doors closed in their faces and people that walk on by without even listening to what they have to say.
In Washington, Eddie is serving as counsel for Lucinda who is being questioned by the detective investigating the death of Ben Kershaw. He wants a DNA sample to match or rule against Lucinda for skin samples they found beneath Kershaw's fingernails. When the detective leaves the room, Lucinda tells Eddie she can't consent to give her DNA as they will find something even though she is adamant she didn't kill him.
After a day of trying to get enough signatures to hand the judge, Cyrus, Al and Mereta are left with a meager 41. Cyrus feels they need to find someone with a following that will join the suit. He goes to the mayor, at Kelvin's funeral, and presents the situation to him and that he can run on a platform of educational reform when he comes up for re-election the following year. The mayor agrees to go along with Cyrus but he wants a press release the following morning calling him a 'great humanitarian'.
The first part of the problem is proving the county is intentionally dividing the students between the two schools it has, one that is predominately black and the other that is predominately white. They need a great first witness and Mereta has just the man: Archibald Breech (John Cothran, Jr.). Breech was the only member of the school board that came out to support them.
On the witness stand, Breech is familiar with the demographics of the county. He states how the two districts in the county are supposed to work: you go to school in the district where you live. But things do not go that way. Each school should be approximately 70% black and 30% white but the statistics are the opposite. Centennial Academy is 70% white and 30% black. He testifies that is because over 300 white students each year have been allowed to transfer from Cyrus Garza to Centennial. Breech testifies that the county willingly transfers the students from Cyrus Garza to Centennial. The defense attorney questions Breech about why he approved each transfer. Breech testifies that he didn't speak up and that is something he will have to live with but the politics of the school board prevented him from causing trouble.
Lucinda is released when the police get a hit off the DNA found under Kershaw's nails. They know she didn't kill him. Kershaw's wife was the one who killed him. As Lucinda and Eddie are leaving, Kershaw's wife stops Lucinda and asks her if Valerie is alright. Lucinda assures her that she is.
Marvin Jackson, the man in charge of routing all the school buses in the county is next to testify. He testifies about how the bus routes have been affected by the transfers. He claims he could cut at least 6 buses from his fleet if he didn't have to deal with all the cross-town transfers. He testifies that the white children are bussed directly past Garza school to get to Centennial.
Several people in the court get up and leave and Kelvin's father speaks to Al. The court must take a recess as something is happening at the Cyrus Garza school. The county is shutting down all bus routes temporarily to both schools. The superintendent holds a press conference on the steps of Garza School that the county "cannot afford" bus service as well as defending themselves against Garza's class-action suit and that getting the kids to and from school is now the responsibility of the parents. The superintendent claims the decision wasn't "his call" and that the decision was made for him by Cyrus. Sports and all extracurricular activities have also been called off until the case has been resolved. The superintendent leaves Cyrus to answer all the questions from the parents and press.
The superintendent testifies in court that he takes any charge of racism in schools to be a personal attack. Cyrus objects when the defense attorney presents information to the witness almost in the manner of testifying. The superintendent implies that the segregation problem isn't with the school board and the county but with the public, the families themselves. He testifies, when questioned by Cyrus that he was aware the transferring of white students was causing segregation in the schools. Cyrus then asks if he is familiar with the term "clustering". Cyrus presents him with the data that the white students left at Cyrus Garza are clustered into classes by themselves to which the superintendent replies that students learn better when they are comfortable.
They need to prove that Kelvin's application for transfer was denied because he was black, something the superintendent claims never happens, despite that Kelvin was the only application denied out of 300. They go to the superintendents former assistant who was "promoted" out of her old job into the position of teaching 6th grade in another county. Al goes to speak with Penny Rogovin (Desiree Hall) about Kelvin's application. She corrects them that she was not promoted. She was fired because she knew the hundreds of granted transfers every year was wrong. She told the superintendent but was ordered to grant the transfers anyway. She tells them they all loved Kelvin and that they did receive the requests for his transfer but the school never had a chance to respond.
Penny testifies that Kelvin had come to see her personally in the office because he knew his father had made the transfer requests. He had requested that she withdraw the applications and, even though he was a minor and the decision wasn't his, she gave him the forms back. Kelvin's reason for not wanting the transfer was that he didn't want to go to a white school. He wanted to stay at his school and help make it better because he was proud of it. She also testifies that she knew of the segregation and that she showed Superintendent Garver the numbers but he told her to grant the transfers because "he didn't want to get involved".
Eddie arrives at work to find a present waiting on him from Lucinda. He apologizes to her for doubting her and acknowledges that she helped rescue Valerie. She confesses that she doesn't just help rescue abused kids, she was an abused kid. Her DNA is on file with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children which is why she refused to give her DNA to the police. The present is a pocket protector.
Cyrus delivers his closing arguments stating the situation in Hastings County, Alabama is unacceptable to him and it should be to every member of the jury. Instead of going backwards after fifty-six years, they should take a step forward today. The defense maintains in his closing that every transfer was handled in a manner that wasn't promoting racism and that they should be able to get back to the business of teaching. In his rebuttal, Cyrus states that Kelvin Jones didn't see things that way. The jury finds in favor of Cyrus and his team and awards an amount of $11 million.
Cyrus asks to approach to say something before the judge adjourns. The judge isn't about to adjourn as he wants to issue an order of his own. He is instructing the county to stop all transfers and take all necessary steps to integrate both schools. Cyrus suggests instead that the judge orders the schools to merge since Garza school will take years to get up to code. The new name for the school will be the Kelvin Jones School.
Cyrus takes the tassel from his briefcase and tells the Jones family he would like to keep it and will pay $3.6 million for it. They want to start a scholarship in Kelvin's name using their proceeds from the lawsuit.
Another excellent episode. I thought this one gave us another good look into Cyrus' personality. He was genuinely concerned about the well-being of the students at the school bearing his name. When one method didn't work, he jumped right into another. He was determined to do what was right to move forward rather than backward. I think this was probably the first case where Cyrus wasn't the only one who agreed with his actions. Al, nor any other member of the team, wasn't fighting against him. Everyone was on board. I liked that.
We got a bit more insight into Lucinda and her past this episode as well. I think Eddie has come to respect her much more than he did at the start of this all-too short series. I've liked Lucinda since the get-go and she is still one of my favorite characters on Outlaw. She's colorful, outspoken and takes nothing from no one. Boy, am I really going to hate to see this series end next week.
The final episode of Outlaw airs on Saturday, November 13, 2010 at 10:00 p.m. (9:00 p.m. Central) on NBC.
For more information:
NBC Official Site: www.nbc.com/outlaw/
Internet Movie Database: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1592226/combined
TV Rage: http://www.tvrage.com/Outlaw
Monday, October 25, 2010
US Television: Outlaw, Episode 1.6, "In RE: Tyler Banks"
Outlaw
Season One, Episode Six, In RE: Tyler Banks
Original Air Date: October 22, 2010 (Canada) & October 23, 2010 (United States)
Garza and his team head to Miami to champion the cause of a fourteen year-old boy who will die in two weeks if he doesn't get a liver transplant. Because he is in foster care, the hospital is removing the boy from the top of the transplant list. Things get even more complicated when someone steps up to adopt Tyler but the adoption is denied because the candidate is gay. Someone from Lucinda's past returns raising even more questions about her.
Garza and Claire arrive at an event as a massive protest is happening. He is approached by Theresa Cain from Children's Light and informed the protest is against hospitals for removing sick children off organ transplant lists simply because they are in foster care. Garza gives Theresa the ride up fifteen floors in the elevator to make her case to him. Theresa shows Garza and Claire a video of a young man, Tyler Banks, who is number one on Greater Miami's waiting list for a new liver. Tyler will not receive it because he is also in foster care. Fourteen year-old Tyler will die in two weeks time without the liver.
Eddie gives his girlfriend Bethany (Bitsie Tulloch) a tour of Garza's house where he works and she is none too impressed. She is certain he can't be happy there and wants to help him. Her firm is throwing a party that weekend for the head of the litigation team who is retiring.
Garza wants to know why he is just hearing about children being removed from transplant lists for being in foster care. Mereta confirms that national statistics are tough to pin down because of the nature of foster care but that agencies across the country have admitted that foster kids are removed from lists. A friend of Al's in Los Angeles knows of four kids that died in the past 5 years because they were unable to get transplants. Garza says they are headed to Miami leading Al to want to set up a class action suit on behalf of the foster kids. Garza shoots that down because there isn't that much time left for Tyler and he wants to save him before mounting a crusade. Eddie gets out of going to Miami by saying he and Bethany are having their 3 year anniversary that weekend. Since they are just in talks, Garza leaves him home to hold down the fort with Lucinda.
Lucinda has her own problems. She is talking with someone who shows her a picture of the man that attacked Mereta when she was driving Lucinda's car. He knows Lucinda's name and her involvement with his daughter. The woman she is talking with tells her they have to "move the girl". Lucinda disagrees because for the first time in her life, "the girl" has a good home and is happy. She won't let the man change that.
Garza and his team go to see Tyler. He is very aware of the situation surrounding him. Cyrus and Al speak with Dr. Damon, the doctor who is removing Tyler from the list. The doctor is adamant that Tyler is a bad choice because of the statistics regarding foster children. He feels that if Tyler gets the liver two people will die: Tyler, when he rejects the liver (and the doctor is certain he will) and the person the doctor should have given it to in the first place. Cyrus wants an injunction filed to keep Tyler on the list.
The judge they have for the case is being supported by contributions from hospitals. To make matters worse, after checking into Tyler's background, they find he really isn't a kid that will find a home easily. He has been in five foster homes since his mother committed suicide. In four of the homes, the police were called. He was thrown out of his fifth foster home when he got sick. Mereta arrives with news that there is a possible liver for Tyler and Garza sends her to track the liver and make sure it isn't assigned to someone else.
Dr. Damon testifies before the judge that foster children do not have the stability necessary to maintain the strict post-operative care required for an organ transplant to be successful. He cites the instance of a 10-year-old girl who went to 3 foster homes and, because of missed follow-up appointments, rejected the organ and died. Cyrus questions how Dr. Damon came to the decision to base hospital policy against allowing foster children to receive organ transplants. He used his medical knowledge rather than consulting the Department of Children and Family Services. Cyrus produces a report from the AMA that speaks against removing a potential patient from the transplant list because of surmountable difficulties in the cases.
Mereta goes in to see Tyler and he coughs. He asks her to raise the IV bag on the pole in case the bag isn't dripping right. While she's raising the IV, Tyler takes the chance to get a look at her bum. Dean, Tyler's primary nurse enters with his lunch and calls Tyler down for checking Mereta out. Theresa arrives and takes Mereta aside. The family of the girl who is the potential match for Tyler is struggling with the decision to remove the girl from life support. Theresa explains that Dean has grown close to Tyler in the year he's been taking care of him and that it will be hard on him if something happens to Tyler.
Lucinda is accosted by the man in the photo. He wants to know where his daughter is. As they are struggling, they bump into a car and the alarm goes off. Eddie and Bethany come out to check and Eddie rushes to Lucinda's aid. The man begins yelling that Lucinda kidnapped his daughter. The situation comes to an end when Lucinda pulls a knife. The man leaves but swears he will find his daughter.
The judge denies Gaza's request for injunctive relief for Tyler which doesn't really surprise him. He wants to know what judge is most open to hearing an appeal. Mereta, who thinks she has found a solution, wants Garza to accompany her. They meet with Dean who wants to adopt Tyler. The next on the transplant list is Doug Pullman. Dean has also attended him and says he is nowhere near as sick as Tyler. They agree that an adoption is their best chance because the judge will have to put Tyler back on the list, if the adoption can be rushed through in time. First, Garza wants to run the adoption past Tyler.
At the hospital, Tyler agrees to Dean adopting him. Garza calls Eddie wanting him to pull an old shoe box from the top of his closet and send it down to him. The donor family is terminating life support that night. Garza wants Mereta to go with Dean to get the adoption approved as quick as possible.
Eddie wants to talk to Lucinda about what happened that day and she feels they don't need to. The man who attacked Lucinda is Ben Kershaw. Two years ago, he filed a missing persons report on his daughter Valerie after she had falsely accused him of molesting her. A group that helps abused teens helped her run away. She admits that she helped Valerie escape an abusive home. They argue about Valerie. He tells her she has to tell the police just in case there is a chance Valerie is lying about the allegations she made against her father. If she doesn't, he will.
Garza goes back in front of the same judge to try and get Tyler back on the list. The judge asks Dr. Damon who needs the liver more, Tyler or Doug Pullman. When Damon answers that it is Tyler, the judge re-instates him to the top spot on the transplant list conditioned upon the final approval of his adoption.
Tyler tells Garza that he Googled him and found out he was a "real important guy" and wants to know why he is helping him. Cyrus tells him it is because he is important. The liver is on its way and the application for adoption was filed on an emergency basis. Dr. Damon informs Garza that Tyler will still not be receiving the liver as Dean is gay and the state of Florida prohibits homosexuals from adopting a child. Damon delivers the bad news to Tyler and Dean.
The next morning, Cyrus gives the team the news that Judge Petino agreed to prevent the hospital from giving the liver to someone else pending the outcome of an emergency hearing regarding the adoption. The liver is good for maybe another 14 hours. Garza isn't planning to overturn the law, he just wants an exception made to it for Tyler. Again, before the same judge, Garza argues against the state that he doesn't want to overturn the law but to allow a narrow exception to save Tyler's life. Before making a decision, the judge wants to hear from Dean Hughes.
Lucinda takes Eddie to talk to Valerie. She wants him to hear what she has to say before deciding to call the police. Valerie tells about getting gonorrhea at the age of four. It was reported by her aunt but her father got a doctor friend to convince the judge it was just a virus. She was left in his care for another ten years. She says she will kill herself before she goes back to her father.
Dean testifies about how he has cared for Tyler for over a year and how he can help with his recovery period. He tells how he chooses to spend the money he has saved raising Tyler. His mother visits more than he'd like and she can't wait to have a grandson. His family hasn't turned against him because of his homosexuality. As the judge is getting ready to give her ruling, the State interrupts saying Dr. Damon has a solution that will save Tyler and the judge will not have to issue an exception to the state law. Dr. Damon has found a hetereosexual couple, the Walthams, who are in pre-adoption and will take Tyler. The Walthams are members of Damon's church who he says have agreed to take Tyler even though they haven't met him. The judge orders that the Walthams meet Tyler to see if they will work as a family.
Cyrus wants to accept the deal so Tyler can have the surgery immediately. Al and Mereta don't agree, however, because they feel Dean would be the best home. Al accuses Cyrus of not wanting to stand up for gay rights. After Al leaves in anger, Mereta reminds Garza of a case with the same subject matter two years ago where he refused to take a stand just like he is refusing to take a stand now.
At the party held by Bethany's firm, Eddie finds that things aren't as he thought they would be. Bethany and her colleagues have nothing but negative things to say about Garza, the house they work from and the people Eddie works with. When Eddie is told that his life would be so much better without "those people" in his life, he comes back that what is interesting about Garza's firm is that the lawyers actually care about thier clients instead of the money or prestige. They love the law and they want to do what is right. Any self-respecting lawyer would be honored to work with Cyrus Garza. He tells them he wouldn't take an offer from the firm if they begged him. He leaves and, instead of leaving with him, Bethany says she will take a cab.
While Dean is talking with Tyler before giving up all chances to adopt him, Tyler crashes. The next few hours are spent tensely waiting for news about Tyler. The liver went to the next person in line. The shoebox Cyrus wanted Eddie to send him contains a baseball card collection. Tyler's biological father was from St. Louis and was the only thing he knew about him which is why Tyler is a Cardinals fan.
Tyler didn't make it through surgery. Cyrus, angry about his death, heads to Dr. Damon and accuses him of murdering Tyler in cold blood. The men argue about their motives. Cyrus accuses Damon of being a bigot and Damon accuses Cyrus of everything being about him. When Damon accuses Cyrus of being a hypocrite, Cyrus punches him. He spends a night in jail and is bailed out by Claire. Damon has agreed not to press charges. Cyrus knows he could have prevented what happened when he had the chance in court. He agrees Dean and Tyler would have made a good family.
Eddie tells Lucinda that he and Bethany have broken up. He tells her about following the coordinates on her arm and finding the cemetery with the gravestone that had Lucinda Pearl's name on it. He wants to know what happened to the real Lucinda Pearl. He passes a parked car wth a police car behind it. Ben Kershaw is dead in his car, apparently having shot himself.
This was another great episode, I thought. Apparently, this is a series that improves the longer it is on. The main story concerning Tyler was good and even more of Lucinda's back story was given. We got to see deeper into Garza this week. Learned more about him and what he believes in and what he will and won't stand up for. There are two more episodes left to get as many details as we can about Lucinda and why she has mysteriously taken the name of someone who has died.
Outlaw airs on Saturday nights at 10:00 p.m. (9:00 p.m. Central) on NBC.
For more information:
NBC Official Site: www.nbc.com/outlaw/
Internet Movie Database: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1592226/combined
TV Rage: http://www.tvrage.com/Outlaw
Season One, Episode Six, In RE: Tyler Banks
Original Air Date: October 22, 2010 (Canada) & October 23, 2010 (United States)
Garza and his team head to Miami to champion the cause of a fourteen year-old boy who will die in two weeks if he doesn't get a liver transplant. Because he is in foster care, the hospital is removing the boy from the top of the transplant list. Things get even more complicated when someone steps up to adopt Tyler but the adoption is denied because the candidate is gay. Someone from Lucinda's past returns raising even more questions about her.
Garza and Claire arrive at an event as a massive protest is happening. He is approached by Theresa Cain from Children's Light and informed the protest is against hospitals for removing sick children off organ transplant lists simply because they are in foster care. Garza gives Theresa the ride up fifteen floors in the elevator to make her case to him. Theresa shows Garza and Claire a video of a young man, Tyler Banks, who is number one on Greater Miami's waiting list for a new liver. Tyler will not receive it because he is also in foster care. Fourteen year-old Tyler will die in two weeks time without the liver.
Eddie gives his girlfriend Bethany (Bitsie Tulloch) a tour of Garza's house where he works and she is none too impressed. She is certain he can't be happy there and wants to help him. Her firm is throwing a party that weekend for the head of the litigation team who is retiring.
Garza wants to know why he is just hearing about children being removed from transplant lists for being in foster care. Mereta confirms that national statistics are tough to pin down because of the nature of foster care but that agencies across the country have admitted that foster kids are removed from lists. A friend of Al's in Los Angeles knows of four kids that died in the past 5 years because they were unable to get transplants. Garza says they are headed to Miami leading Al to want to set up a class action suit on behalf of the foster kids. Garza shoots that down because there isn't that much time left for Tyler and he wants to save him before mounting a crusade. Eddie gets out of going to Miami by saying he and Bethany are having their 3 year anniversary that weekend. Since they are just in talks, Garza leaves him home to hold down the fort with Lucinda.
Lucinda has her own problems. She is talking with someone who shows her a picture of the man that attacked Mereta when she was driving Lucinda's car. He knows Lucinda's name and her involvement with his daughter. The woman she is talking with tells her they have to "move the girl". Lucinda disagrees because for the first time in her life, "the girl" has a good home and is happy. She won't let the man change that.
Garza and his team go to see Tyler. He is very aware of the situation surrounding him. Cyrus and Al speak with Dr. Damon, the doctor who is removing Tyler from the list. The doctor is adamant that Tyler is a bad choice because of the statistics regarding foster children. He feels that if Tyler gets the liver two people will die: Tyler, when he rejects the liver (and the doctor is certain he will) and the person the doctor should have given it to in the first place. Cyrus wants an injunction filed to keep Tyler on the list.
The judge they have for the case is being supported by contributions from hospitals. To make matters worse, after checking into Tyler's background, they find he really isn't a kid that will find a home easily. He has been in five foster homes since his mother committed suicide. In four of the homes, the police were called. He was thrown out of his fifth foster home when he got sick. Mereta arrives with news that there is a possible liver for Tyler and Garza sends her to track the liver and make sure it isn't assigned to someone else.
Dr. Damon testifies before the judge that foster children do not have the stability necessary to maintain the strict post-operative care required for an organ transplant to be successful. He cites the instance of a 10-year-old girl who went to 3 foster homes and, because of missed follow-up appointments, rejected the organ and died. Cyrus questions how Dr. Damon came to the decision to base hospital policy against allowing foster children to receive organ transplants. He used his medical knowledge rather than consulting the Department of Children and Family Services. Cyrus produces a report from the AMA that speaks against removing a potential patient from the transplant list because of surmountable difficulties in the cases.
Mereta goes in to see Tyler and he coughs. He asks her to raise the IV bag on the pole in case the bag isn't dripping right. While she's raising the IV, Tyler takes the chance to get a look at her bum. Dean, Tyler's primary nurse enters with his lunch and calls Tyler down for checking Mereta out. Theresa arrives and takes Mereta aside. The family of the girl who is the potential match for Tyler is struggling with the decision to remove the girl from life support. Theresa explains that Dean has grown close to Tyler in the year he's been taking care of him and that it will be hard on him if something happens to Tyler.
Lucinda is accosted by the man in the photo. He wants to know where his daughter is. As they are struggling, they bump into a car and the alarm goes off. Eddie and Bethany come out to check and Eddie rushes to Lucinda's aid. The man begins yelling that Lucinda kidnapped his daughter. The situation comes to an end when Lucinda pulls a knife. The man leaves but swears he will find his daughter.
The judge denies Gaza's request for injunctive relief for Tyler which doesn't really surprise him. He wants to know what judge is most open to hearing an appeal. Mereta, who thinks she has found a solution, wants Garza to accompany her. They meet with Dean who wants to adopt Tyler. The next on the transplant list is Doug Pullman. Dean has also attended him and says he is nowhere near as sick as Tyler. They agree that an adoption is their best chance because the judge will have to put Tyler back on the list, if the adoption can be rushed through in time. First, Garza wants to run the adoption past Tyler.
At the hospital, Tyler agrees to Dean adopting him. Garza calls Eddie wanting him to pull an old shoe box from the top of his closet and send it down to him. The donor family is terminating life support that night. Garza wants Mereta to go with Dean to get the adoption approved as quick as possible.
Eddie wants to talk to Lucinda about what happened that day and she feels they don't need to. The man who attacked Lucinda is Ben Kershaw. Two years ago, he filed a missing persons report on his daughter Valerie after she had falsely accused him of molesting her. A group that helps abused teens helped her run away. She admits that she helped Valerie escape an abusive home. They argue about Valerie. He tells her she has to tell the police just in case there is a chance Valerie is lying about the allegations she made against her father. If she doesn't, he will.
Garza goes back in front of the same judge to try and get Tyler back on the list. The judge asks Dr. Damon who needs the liver more, Tyler or Doug Pullman. When Damon answers that it is Tyler, the judge re-instates him to the top spot on the transplant list conditioned upon the final approval of his adoption.
Tyler tells Garza that he Googled him and found out he was a "real important guy" and wants to know why he is helping him. Cyrus tells him it is because he is important. The liver is on its way and the application for adoption was filed on an emergency basis. Dr. Damon informs Garza that Tyler will still not be receiving the liver as Dean is gay and the state of Florida prohibits homosexuals from adopting a child. Damon delivers the bad news to Tyler and Dean.
The next morning, Cyrus gives the team the news that Judge Petino agreed to prevent the hospital from giving the liver to someone else pending the outcome of an emergency hearing regarding the adoption. The liver is good for maybe another 14 hours. Garza isn't planning to overturn the law, he just wants an exception made to it for Tyler. Again, before the same judge, Garza argues against the state that he doesn't want to overturn the law but to allow a narrow exception to save Tyler's life. Before making a decision, the judge wants to hear from Dean Hughes.
Lucinda takes Eddie to talk to Valerie. She wants him to hear what she has to say before deciding to call the police. Valerie tells about getting gonorrhea at the age of four. It was reported by her aunt but her father got a doctor friend to convince the judge it was just a virus. She was left in his care for another ten years. She says she will kill herself before she goes back to her father.
Dean testifies about how he has cared for Tyler for over a year and how he can help with his recovery period. He tells how he chooses to spend the money he has saved raising Tyler. His mother visits more than he'd like and she can't wait to have a grandson. His family hasn't turned against him because of his homosexuality. As the judge is getting ready to give her ruling, the State interrupts saying Dr. Damon has a solution that will save Tyler and the judge will not have to issue an exception to the state law. Dr. Damon has found a hetereosexual couple, the Walthams, who are in pre-adoption and will take Tyler. The Walthams are members of Damon's church who he says have agreed to take Tyler even though they haven't met him. The judge orders that the Walthams meet Tyler to see if they will work as a family.
Cyrus wants to accept the deal so Tyler can have the surgery immediately. Al and Mereta don't agree, however, because they feel Dean would be the best home. Al accuses Cyrus of not wanting to stand up for gay rights. After Al leaves in anger, Mereta reminds Garza of a case with the same subject matter two years ago where he refused to take a stand just like he is refusing to take a stand now.
At the party held by Bethany's firm, Eddie finds that things aren't as he thought they would be. Bethany and her colleagues have nothing but negative things to say about Garza, the house they work from and the people Eddie works with. When Eddie is told that his life would be so much better without "those people" in his life, he comes back that what is interesting about Garza's firm is that the lawyers actually care about thier clients instead of the money or prestige. They love the law and they want to do what is right. Any self-respecting lawyer would be honored to work with Cyrus Garza. He tells them he wouldn't take an offer from the firm if they begged him. He leaves and, instead of leaving with him, Bethany says she will take a cab.
While Dean is talking with Tyler before giving up all chances to adopt him, Tyler crashes. The next few hours are spent tensely waiting for news about Tyler. The liver went to the next person in line. The shoebox Cyrus wanted Eddie to send him contains a baseball card collection. Tyler's biological father was from St. Louis and was the only thing he knew about him which is why Tyler is a Cardinals fan.
Tyler didn't make it through surgery. Cyrus, angry about his death, heads to Dr. Damon and accuses him of murdering Tyler in cold blood. The men argue about their motives. Cyrus accuses Damon of being a bigot and Damon accuses Cyrus of everything being about him. When Damon accuses Cyrus of being a hypocrite, Cyrus punches him. He spends a night in jail and is bailed out by Claire. Damon has agreed not to press charges. Cyrus knows he could have prevented what happened when he had the chance in court. He agrees Dean and Tyler would have made a good family.
Eddie tells Lucinda that he and Bethany have broken up. He tells her about following the coordinates on her arm and finding the cemetery with the gravestone that had Lucinda Pearl's name on it. He wants to know what happened to the real Lucinda Pearl. He passes a parked car wth a police car behind it. Ben Kershaw is dead in his car, apparently having shot himself.
This was another great episode, I thought. Apparently, this is a series that improves the longer it is on. The main story concerning Tyler was good and even more of Lucinda's back story was given. We got to see deeper into Garza this week. Learned more about him and what he believes in and what he will and won't stand up for. There are two more episodes left to get as many details as we can about Lucinda and why she has mysteriously taken the name of someone who has died.
Outlaw airs on Saturday nights at 10:00 p.m. (9:00 p.m. Central) on NBC.
For more information:
NBC Official Site: www.nbc.com/outlaw/
Internet Movie Database: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1592226/combined
TV Rage: http://www.tvrage.com/Outlaw
Sunday, October 17, 2010
US Television: Outlaw, Episode 1.5, "In RE: Tracy Vidalin"
Outlaw
Season One, Episode Five, In RE: Tracy Vidalin
Original Air Date: October 16, 2010
In the aftermath of a robbery, a policeman is murdered and the daughter of Senator Vidalin is being held as an accomplice to the murder. Vidalin wants Cyrus and his team to help his daughter prove her innocence. Is the young girl Cyrus Garza has always known to be sweet and innocent just that or could she really be involved in the murder? Eddie and Mereta start uncovering details from Lucinda's past.
While Al, Mereta and Eddie are watching Cyrus throw the ceremonial first pitch at a baseball game on television, a call comes in for Garza. Senator Vidalin's daughter is in trouble and needs his help. Once he's home from the game, Cyrus and Al go to see Tracy Vidalin (Ashley Rickards) in jail. Cyrus has known Vidalin for nearly 30 years and, for most of it, considered him a good friend. Whatever bad points the Senator has, Cyrus thinks his daughter, Tracy, is a good girl.
Tracy tells them about her boyfriend, Lonnie Daws (Michael Stahler), and that he had a gun the night of the incident. She recounts the evening for them saying the couple was parked figuring out where to get dinner when Lonnie said he had a surprise for her. He gets out of the car and waits in the car for 10-20 minutes before hearing an alarm go off in an apartment building. Lonnie runs out yelling for her to drive and he now has a gun. She panicked and crashed the car after which Lonnie ran from the car and killed a policeman.
Al and Cyrus inform Senator Vidalin and his wife about the trouble their daughter is in. If she knew about the robbery, she is guilty of the policeman's murder as an accomplice. Cyrus takes the Senator aside and tells him he doesn't really feel he should handle Tracy's case considering the tension between the two men. However, Vidalin wants Cyrus because of his skill as an attorney. The two men agree that the most important thing is Tracy Vidalin.
Eddie finds nothing of interest criminally on Lonnie Daws. Lucinda doesn't want to go to the hospital to help a Senator that hates her boss. The police will not let Eddie and Mereta see Lonnie Daws when they go to interview him. To give Al some time to get past the police and obtain a statement from Daws, Cyrus tries stalling in court during the arraignment. The People charge Tracy Vidalin with felony burglary and felony murder to which Tracy pleads not guilty. Mereta and Eddie take a court order to the hospital allowing them to speak with Lonnie but find that he has died. The judge denies bail for Tracy and remands her to the county jail for trial.
Wanting to learn more about Daws, Cyrus speaks with Tracy's parents. They felt he was a bad influence on her as her grades began to suffer and her behavior changed when she started seeing him. Two months prior, Lonnie had been caught breaking into his uncle's liquor store but, at the request of his daughter, the Senator helped make the charges disappear. The prosecutor (Timothy Busfield) drops a bomb on Cyrus when he hands him a DVD that contains Tracy Vidalin's confession to the crime even though Tracy told Al and Cyrus she said nothing to the police. Cyrus spends the night watching the video but still doesn't get to the confession because of the length of time the police had been holding her.
The team goes over a list of Tracy's personal items found in the vehicle and writing, including her journal. An affair by Senator Vidalin becomes an issue and before the team can combat it, they have to know all the details. Cyrus speaks with Vidalin who doesn't want to speak of his affair. He blames Lonnie solely and feels Tracy's anger toward him for the affair was acted out by her dating Lonnie, not by the burglary. Vidalin doesn't want the details of his affair to come out at trial because he wife doesn't know. Despite saying he had called off the affair six months ago, his mistress was in town two weeks ago.
After watching several more hours of the video, Al finally gets to the confession. The confession consist solely of Tracy answering "yes" when asked by the police if she felt she needed to pray for forgiveness for what had happened. Cyrus feels her statement was coerced as does the rest of the team even though Tracy was asking for forgiveness for something.
In court, the prosecutor plays Tracy's "confession" while the detective who was talking to her in the video is on the stand. Cyrus questions the detective about the almost 22 hours of interrogation and 2,012 questions he asked her during those hours. He argues that Tracy, who didn't say anything except "yes" after almost twenty-two hours of interrogation was invoking her right to remain silent by remaining silent. The judge refuses Cyrus' argument and allows Tracy's statement to be entered into evidence. Vidalin feels Cyrus is allowing his personal feelings toward him to interfere with how he is handling the case.
Al notes an oddity in something Tracy says to Cyrus about how the robbery was committed. It brings up questions as to whether she knew anything about the building. Cyrus still believes Tracy couldn't have been involved in the crime but Al wants to look at it objectively. No one at the building knew Tracy and they cannot connect her to it in any way until they find information that Vidalin's mistress was subletting an apartment in the building. Tracy denies knowing anything about the woman living there and wants to testify that she had nothing to do with the robbery.
In court, the prosecutor has both Tracy's journal and the tenant list from the building. Cyrus calls Tracy to the stand and she denies knowing that Lonnie intended to break into the building or that they had planned the burglary together. She explains that she wanted forgiveness for being in the car and with Lonnie. Under questioning from the prosecution, Tracy claims Lonnie hit and raped her when she tried to stop him from rifling through her father's belongings for money. He then threatened her and her family with harm if she tried to get away from him.
Lucinda talked to the man who knew of the threatening messages for the Senators mistress. The man happens to be Tracy's ex-boyfriend. When confronted with what he said regarding her and her feelings for her father's mistress, she claims he is lying. Cyrus and Al know she is lying and she makes no attempt to hide the fact. She is confident that her story of being raped and abused by Lonnie won over the jury.
The prosecution makes a compelling closing argument to the jury about Tracy's guilt and Cyrus counters with an argument of her innocence. The jury finds her not guilty and she is released.
Earlier, Mereta had written down a series of numbers she sees on Lucinda's arm and even asks her about them but Lucinda doesn't answer. Mereta later believes the numbers to be map coordinates and is shocked when the numbers point to Delaware where Lucinda refuses to go. Eddie and Mereta travel to Delaware to find out the truth about Lucinda and arrive at a cemetery where Mereta stumbles (literally) into a tombstone bearing some sort of information about Lucinda's past.
I find it sad that this is the first of the four final episodes of Outlaw that we will ever be seeing. Not only is there a story line involving Lucinda opening up (and we'll probably never be able to finish it in just 3 more episodes) but this episode was excellent. Truly excellent. Some shows need a few episodes to really gather momentum to find their audience and for all we know, Outlaw could have been one of those shows.
Cyrus was given a wake-up call. He believed in Tracy Vidalin because he thought he knew her. He'd always known her to be a good girl and never thought her capable of doing anything wrong. When he learns that she isn't what he thought she was, it causes him to question more than just his judgment of her. This could have been a turning point for the Cyrus Garza character but, since there is such little time left in the series, we'll never know if that was going to be the case or not.
As for the story line involving Lucinda, I do hope we get more information about that in the next three episodes. I'm expecting the tombstone to be for a child she lost or perhaps to link her to another character in some way. I'm sure whatever it is, Lucinda isn't going to be happy that Eddie and Mereta snooped into her private life and she will make that unhappiness known. I like Lucinda and Carly Pope does an awesome job with the character. When the final seconds of episode eight tick off, I think it will be Lucinda Pearl that I will miss the most.
Outlaw airs on Saturday nights at 8:00 p.m. (7:00 p.m. Central) on NBC.
For more information:
NBC Official Site: www.nbc.com/outlaw/
Internet Movie Database: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1592226/combined
TV Rage: http://www.tvrage.com/Outlaw
Season One, Episode Five, In RE: Tracy Vidalin
Original Air Date: October 16, 2010
In the aftermath of a robbery, a policeman is murdered and the daughter of Senator Vidalin is being held as an accomplice to the murder. Vidalin wants Cyrus and his team to help his daughter prove her innocence. Is the young girl Cyrus Garza has always known to be sweet and innocent just that or could she really be involved in the murder? Eddie and Mereta start uncovering details from Lucinda's past.
While Al, Mereta and Eddie are watching Cyrus throw the ceremonial first pitch at a baseball game on television, a call comes in for Garza. Senator Vidalin's daughter is in trouble and needs his help. Once he's home from the game, Cyrus and Al go to see Tracy Vidalin (Ashley Rickards) in jail. Cyrus has known Vidalin for nearly 30 years and, for most of it, considered him a good friend. Whatever bad points the Senator has, Cyrus thinks his daughter, Tracy, is a good girl.
Tracy tells them about her boyfriend, Lonnie Daws (Michael Stahler), and that he had a gun the night of the incident. She recounts the evening for them saying the couple was parked figuring out where to get dinner when Lonnie said he had a surprise for her. He gets out of the car and waits in the car for 10-20 minutes before hearing an alarm go off in an apartment building. Lonnie runs out yelling for her to drive and he now has a gun. She panicked and crashed the car after which Lonnie ran from the car and killed a policeman.
Al and Cyrus inform Senator Vidalin and his wife about the trouble their daughter is in. If she knew about the robbery, she is guilty of the policeman's murder as an accomplice. Cyrus takes the Senator aside and tells him he doesn't really feel he should handle Tracy's case considering the tension between the two men. However, Vidalin wants Cyrus because of his skill as an attorney. The two men agree that the most important thing is Tracy Vidalin.
Eddie finds nothing of interest criminally on Lonnie Daws. Lucinda doesn't want to go to the hospital to help a Senator that hates her boss. The police will not let Eddie and Mereta see Lonnie Daws when they go to interview him. To give Al some time to get past the police and obtain a statement from Daws, Cyrus tries stalling in court during the arraignment. The People charge Tracy Vidalin with felony burglary and felony murder to which Tracy pleads not guilty. Mereta and Eddie take a court order to the hospital allowing them to speak with Lonnie but find that he has died. The judge denies bail for Tracy and remands her to the county jail for trial.
Wanting to learn more about Daws, Cyrus speaks with Tracy's parents. They felt he was a bad influence on her as her grades began to suffer and her behavior changed when she started seeing him. Two months prior, Lonnie had been caught breaking into his uncle's liquor store but, at the request of his daughter, the Senator helped make the charges disappear. The prosecutor (Timothy Busfield) drops a bomb on Cyrus when he hands him a DVD that contains Tracy Vidalin's confession to the crime even though Tracy told Al and Cyrus she said nothing to the police. Cyrus spends the night watching the video but still doesn't get to the confession because of the length of time the police had been holding her.
The team goes over a list of Tracy's personal items found in the vehicle and writing, including her journal. An affair by Senator Vidalin becomes an issue and before the team can combat it, they have to know all the details. Cyrus speaks with Vidalin who doesn't want to speak of his affair. He blames Lonnie solely and feels Tracy's anger toward him for the affair was acted out by her dating Lonnie, not by the burglary. Vidalin doesn't want the details of his affair to come out at trial because he wife doesn't know. Despite saying he had called off the affair six months ago, his mistress was in town two weeks ago.
After watching several more hours of the video, Al finally gets to the confession. The confession consist solely of Tracy answering "yes" when asked by the police if she felt she needed to pray for forgiveness for what had happened. Cyrus feels her statement was coerced as does the rest of the team even though Tracy was asking for forgiveness for something.
In court, the prosecutor plays Tracy's "confession" while the detective who was talking to her in the video is on the stand. Cyrus questions the detective about the almost 22 hours of interrogation and 2,012 questions he asked her during those hours. He argues that Tracy, who didn't say anything except "yes" after almost twenty-two hours of interrogation was invoking her right to remain silent by remaining silent. The judge refuses Cyrus' argument and allows Tracy's statement to be entered into evidence. Vidalin feels Cyrus is allowing his personal feelings toward him to interfere with how he is handling the case.
Al notes an oddity in something Tracy says to Cyrus about how the robbery was committed. It brings up questions as to whether she knew anything about the building. Cyrus still believes Tracy couldn't have been involved in the crime but Al wants to look at it objectively. No one at the building knew Tracy and they cannot connect her to it in any way until they find information that Vidalin's mistress was subletting an apartment in the building. Tracy denies knowing anything about the woman living there and wants to testify that she had nothing to do with the robbery.
In court, the prosecutor has both Tracy's journal and the tenant list from the building. Cyrus calls Tracy to the stand and she denies knowing that Lonnie intended to break into the building or that they had planned the burglary together. She explains that she wanted forgiveness for being in the car and with Lonnie. Under questioning from the prosecution, Tracy claims Lonnie hit and raped her when she tried to stop him from rifling through her father's belongings for money. He then threatened her and her family with harm if she tried to get away from him.
Lucinda talked to the man who knew of the threatening messages for the Senators mistress. The man happens to be Tracy's ex-boyfriend. When confronted with what he said regarding her and her feelings for her father's mistress, she claims he is lying. Cyrus and Al know she is lying and she makes no attempt to hide the fact. She is confident that her story of being raped and abused by Lonnie won over the jury.
The prosecution makes a compelling closing argument to the jury about Tracy's guilt and Cyrus counters with an argument of her innocence. The jury finds her not guilty and she is released.
Earlier, Mereta had written down a series of numbers she sees on Lucinda's arm and even asks her about them but Lucinda doesn't answer. Mereta later believes the numbers to be map coordinates and is shocked when the numbers point to Delaware where Lucinda refuses to go. Eddie and Mereta travel to Delaware to find out the truth about Lucinda and arrive at a cemetery where Mereta stumbles (literally) into a tombstone bearing some sort of information about Lucinda's past.
I find it sad that this is the first of the four final episodes of Outlaw that we will ever be seeing. Not only is there a story line involving Lucinda opening up (and we'll probably never be able to finish it in just 3 more episodes) but this episode was excellent. Truly excellent. Some shows need a few episodes to really gather momentum to find their audience and for all we know, Outlaw could have been one of those shows.
Cyrus was given a wake-up call. He believed in Tracy Vidalin because he thought he knew her. He'd always known her to be a good girl and never thought her capable of doing anything wrong. When he learns that she isn't what he thought she was, it causes him to question more than just his judgment of her. This could have been a turning point for the Cyrus Garza character but, since there is such little time left in the series, we'll never know if that was going to be the case or not.
As for the story line involving Lucinda, I do hope we get more information about that in the next three episodes. I'm expecting the tombstone to be for a child she lost or perhaps to link her to another character in some way. I'm sure whatever it is, Lucinda isn't going to be happy that Eddie and Mereta snooped into her private life and she will make that unhappiness known. I like Lucinda and Carly Pope does an awesome job with the character. When the final seconds of episode eight tick off, I think it will be Lucinda Pearl that I will miss the most.
Outlaw airs on Saturday nights at 8:00 p.m. (7:00 p.m. Central) on NBC.
For more information:
NBC Official Site: www.nbc.com/outlaw/
Internet Movie Database: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1592226/combined
TV Rage: http://www.tvrage.com/Outlaw
Friday, October 15, 2010
US Television: More News on the Fate of NBC's Outlaw
Last week, NBC announced they had suspended production of any further episodes for the new Jimmy Smits legal drama Outlaw. Currently, eight episodes have been filmed. NBC said they were going to air all of the remaining episodes in the regular Friday night time slot they had allotted to the show.
Now, NBC has stated they are going to move Outlaw to Saturday nights to air the remaining four episodes and air an expanded Dateline in the Friday night time slot vacated by Outlaw.
I guess the cancellation process for Outlaw is going to be a long, drawn out painful one for fans of the show. At least we're getting to see the remaining four episodes before finally saying 'goodbye' to the show for good.
Source: http://livefeed.hollywoodreporter.com/2010/10/nbc-pulls-outlaw-from-fridays.html
Now, NBC has stated they are going to move Outlaw to Saturday nights to air the remaining four episodes and air an expanded Dateline in the Friday night time slot vacated by Outlaw.
I guess the cancellation process for Outlaw is going to be a long, drawn out painful one for fans of the show. At least we're getting to see the remaining four episodes before finally saying 'goodbye' to the show for good.
Source: http://livefeed.hollywoodreporter.com/2010/10/nbc-pulls-outlaw-from-fridays.html
Monday, October 11, 2010
US Television: Outlaw, Episode 1.4, "In RE: Curtis Farwell"
Outlaw
Season One, Episode Four, In RE: Curtis Farwell
Original Air Date: October 8, 2010
Cyrus and his team take the case of Curtis Farwell, a man who was seriously injured when the car he was driving malfunctioned. The accident was one of eight similar accidents involving the same make and model of car. Four of the accidents were fatal. Claire wants Cyrus to help her raise money for Senator Vidalin's favorite charity to prevent him from voting against the interests of her biggest clients. The mysterious man Cyrus noticed watching him in the first episode returns.
Cyrus appears on an episode of Larry King Live (yes, Larry King made a cameo) opposed by Patty Friedman, a reporter from a political web site. The subject of the show is why Garza quit the Supreme Court. Cyrus treats the appearance as a chance to not only make it known he isn't a turncoat (except for turning his back on a justice system that doesn't always do justice) but to inject a bit of his sense of humor into the interview.
Just as Cyrus is getting ready to enjoy a pleasant night with Miss Friedman, Claire calls. Senator Vidalin is threatening to vote against the interests of her biggest clients unless she dumps Cyrus from her firm. Her solution: raise a boatload of money for Vidalin's favorite charity. By time Cyrus is finished talking to Claire, Patty has fallen asleep putting a damper on the festivities. He turns on the television and watches a news story about a series of accidents involving the Jupiter coupe.
Al asks the rest of the team if they noticed a man out front of Cyrus' home that morning. The man looked like a bodyguard and appeared to be watching the house but none of them saw him. Al finds a case he feels will be perfect for the team but Cyrus overrules it wanting to take the case of Curtis Farwell instead. Farwell was badly injured in one of the Jupiter coupe accidents. Cyrus wants to take the case because he feels Jupiter has been buying off not only the survivors but Congress as well. There have been 8 accidents, four of which were fatal.
While Al organizes a meeting to speak with Warner Quinn of Jupiter and to speak with other accident victims, Cyrus heads to play some poker. Al sends Mereta and Eddie to the impound lot where Farwell's car was taken so they can be walked through the accident. Eddie finds a recall notice for Jupiter coupes from the previous year in the files sent over from Ralph Nader's office. Farwell's car isn't in the batch in the recall notice.
Lucinda leaves for a job interview in Detroit and Cyrus and Al meet with Warner Quinn (Kyle Secor) in the study. Quinn jumps right from praising Cyrus to handing him an envelope with information about his client. Farwell had 3 DUI's and two stints in rehab and he feels that is probably what contributed to the accident. He feels it most certainly puts his character in question.
At the impound lot, the officer shows Eddie and Mereta that the tie rod was broken on the car and explains how skid marks can show the tie rod was the cause of the accident. The officer pulled the report but the photos from the scene were missing. As they are leaving the impound lot to go to the beltway to check for skid marks, Eddie reveals to Mereta that he has set up a job interview with the same law firm his girlfriend works for but he hasn't mentioned it to Cyrus yet.
None of the other Jupiter accident victims want to talk to Al and Cyrus or they have selective memory problems of the accident. All of the victims have one thing in common: money they didn't have before the accident. In Detroit, Lucinda, now posing as "Jill" is interviewing for a tech support job listed on the Jupiter web site.
When Al and Cyrus return to Cyrus' home that night, they find it has been trashed. Al mentions the man he saw in front of the house the other day. Once the detective has gone, Cyrus admits to Al that the mystery man might be from Vidalin who threatened him when he left the Supreme Court. Lucinda calls while they are talking. She has set up a secure web site for Cyrus that contains the contents of Warner Quinn's e-mail account. She has found a video where a woman can be overheard talking about the defective tie rods on the Jupiter cars. However, the woman never appears on camera and isn't identified by name.
Cyrus and Al go to Detroit to confront Warner Quinn and his corporation counsel with the video. Cyrus wants a settlement of $3 for Curtis Farwell and an immediate recall of all Jupiter coupes.
Cyrus visits Curtis Farwell and his daughter in the hospital to present them with the results of his meeting with Jupiter. The company is offering $10 for Farwell but they refuse to the recall and the Farwells must keep all details of the accident secret. While the Farwell's are dismayed that Jupiter will not be recalling the cars, Curtis instructs Cyrus to take the deal.
With the exception of Eddie, the team isn't pleased about the outcome. Cyrus calls his reporter friend, Patty Friedman. She arrives at his home after he carefully placed the file folder with the settlement information in it on his coffee table. He casually talks about the settlement of the case without revealing any of the particulars. She sees the file folder and, when she thinks he has gone outside, she goes through the files and takes pictures of them with her phone. Just as he hoped she would.
The next morning, Al arrives and is angry at having been called by Jupiter's counsel because the settlement was retracted thanks to Patty Friedman's investigating it.
Things go downhill when Cyrus learns that Curtis Farwell has died from a blood clot in his lung. He then has to tell Farwell's daughter that Jupiter had pulled the settlement and that they must now go to court. He assures her that they will win in court. To prove the case, they must call Laurie Farwell in court. The judge allows her to be called in court despite objections from Jupiter's lawyer.
At the charity fundraiser Claire is holding for Vidalin, Cyrus meets Patty Friedman and her husband. Cyrus strikes a deal with Vidalin that he will raise $200,000.00 for his charity if he lays off Claire.
Eddie, Lucinda and Mereta go through the list of names of everyone present when the video she found at Jupiter was made. They have 65 names to work with. Using a side conversation the woman had they are able to track down her son's sports team, get his name and find her name among the 65 they have. Mereta and Eddie go to see her and are met by her husband and young son. Athena Phillips died a few months ago. According to her husband, "Jupiter killed her". All of her paperwork was given to her lawyer and sealed until her son turned 18. They need a court order to unseal the documents which means Mereta must get the order as Eddie has a job interview.
In court, Laurie Farwell testifies about what her father had told her after his accident. When asked by his daughter why the accident happened, he wrote down "steering wheel". Jupiter's lawyer points out that Curtis Farwell was diabetic and had eaten cake at his grandson's birthday party prior to driving. She paints a picture to the jury that the accident could have been Farwell's fault rather than a fault of the car.
Mereta wins the court order and gets the box of documents. She is attacked in Lucinda's car in front of Cyrus' home. They go through the box of documents and find what they are looking for. The next day in court, Cyrus calls Warren Quinn to the stand. When questioned about Athena Phillips and her report of defective tie rods, Quinn denies she ever submitted any such report. Presented with e-mails from Phillips about the defects, Quinn "cannot recall". He claims the e-mails are the work of a disgruntled former employee. Cyrus wants to read Athena Phillips' suicide note but Jupiter's lawyer objects. The judge allows it. Cyrus wins the case and Laurie Farwell is awarded $20 million and Jupiter is expected to recall all the defective coupes immediately.
I, personally, really liked this episode. Several things about it appealed to me. I found the case itself interesting. Cyrus did take the case for personal reasons but also taking, and winning, the case was the right thing to do. Jupiter certainly wasn't going to recall the cars on their own. Something had to make them do it. Seeing the awesome Kyle Secor as Warren Quinn was great. I've been a fan of Secor since he was Detective Tim Bayless on Homicide: Life on the Streets (one of the best shows ever!). He is one of the finest actors out there, in my very humble opinion, and it's always a pleasure to see him. The interaction of the Outlaw characters was also a plus, this week. I think that if this show has nothing, it has good characters and great actors bringing those characters to life. With proper writing, these characters (and actors) could take this show very far.
It was announced on 6th October that NBC has put Outlaw on "hiatus" due to dismal ratings. Four more episodes are scheduled to air as a total of eight have been produced. NBC has said they will be evaluating the Outlaw's performance over the coming weeks. If the ratings improve, it might save the show. If not, we will be saying 'farewell' to it for good.
Outlaw airs on Friday nights at 10:00 p.m. (9:00 p.m. Central) on NBC.
For more information:
NBC Official Site: www.nbc.com/outlaw/
Internet Movie Database: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1592226/combined
TV Rage: http://www.tvrage.com/Outlaw
Season One, Episode Four, In RE: Curtis Farwell
Original Air Date: October 8, 2010
Cyrus and his team take the case of Curtis Farwell, a man who was seriously injured when the car he was driving malfunctioned. The accident was one of eight similar accidents involving the same make and model of car. Four of the accidents were fatal. Claire wants Cyrus to help her raise money for Senator Vidalin's favorite charity to prevent him from voting against the interests of her biggest clients. The mysterious man Cyrus noticed watching him in the first episode returns.
Cyrus appears on an episode of Larry King Live (yes, Larry King made a cameo) opposed by Patty Friedman, a reporter from a political web site. The subject of the show is why Garza quit the Supreme Court. Cyrus treats the appearance as a chance to not only make it known he isn't a turncoat (except for turning his back on a justice system that doesn't always do justice) but to inject a bit of his sense of humor into the interview.
Just as Cyrus is getting ready to enjoy a pleasant night with Miss Friedman, Claire calls. Senator Vidalin is threatening to vote against the interests of her biggest clients unless she dumps Cyrus from her firm. Her solution: raise a boatload of money for Vidalin's favorite charity. By time Cyrus is finished talking to Claire, Patty has fallen asleep putting a damper on the festivities. He turns on the television and watches a news story about a series of accidents involving the Jupiter coupe.
Al asks the rest of the team if they noticed a man out front of Cyrus' home that morning. The man looked like a bodyguard and appeared to be watching the house but none of them saw him. Al finds a case he feels will be perfect for the team but Cyrus overrules it wanting to take the case of Curtis Farwell instead. Farwell was badly injured in one of the Jupiter coupe accidents. Cyrus wants to take the case because he feels Jupiter has been buying off not only the survivors but Congress as well. There have been 8 accidents, four of which were fatal.
While Al organizes a meeting to speak with Warner Quinn of Jupiter and to speak with other accident victims, Cyrus heads to play some poker. Al sends Mereta and Eddie to the impound lot where Farwell's car was taken so they can be walked through the accident. Eddie finds a recall notice for Jupiter coupes from the previous year in the files sent over from Ralph Nader's office. Farwell's car isn't in the batch in the recall notice.
Lucinda leaves for a job interview in Detroit and Cyrus and Al meet with Warner Quinn (Kyle Secor) in the study. Quinn jumps right from praising Cyrus to handing him an envelope with information about his client. Farwell had 3 DUI's and two stints in rehab and he feels that is probably what contributed to the accident. He feels it most certainly puts his character in question.
At the impound lot, the officer shows Eddie and Mereta that the tie rod was broken on the car and explains how skid marks can show the tie rod was the cause of the accident. The officer pulled the report but the photos from the scene were missing. As they are leaving the impound lot to go to the beltway to check for skid marks, Eddie reveals to Mereta that he has set up a job interview with the same law firm his girlfriend works for but he hasn't mentioned it to Cyrus yet.
None of the other Jupiter accident victims want to talk to Al and Cyrus or they have selective memory problems of the accident. All of the victims have one thing in common: money they didn't have before the accident. In Detroit, Lucinda, now posing as "Jill" is interviewing for a tech support job listed on the Jupiter web site.
When Al and Cyrus return to Cyrus' home that night, they find it has been trashed. Al mentions the man he saw in front of the house the other day. Once the detective has gone, Cyrus admits to Al that the mystery man might be from Vidalin who threatened him when he left the Supreme Court. Lucinda calls while they are talking. She has set up a secure web site for Cyrus that contains the contents of Warner Quinn's e-mail account. She has found a video where a woman can be overheard talking about the defective tie rods on the Jupiter cars. However, the woman never appears on camera and isn't identified by name.
Cyrus and Al go to Detroit to confront Warner Quinn and his corporation counsel with the video. Cyrus wants a settlement of $3 for Curtis Farwell and an immediate recall of all Jupiter coupes.
Cyrus visits Curtis Farwell and his daughter in the hospital to present them with the results of his meeting with Jupiter. The company is offering $10 for Farwell but they refuse to the recall and the Farwells must keep all details of the accident secret. While the Farwell's are dismayed that Jupiter will not be recalling the cars, Curtis instructs Cyrus to take the deal.
With the exception of Eddie, the team isn't pleased about the outcome. Cyrus calls his reporter friend, Patty Friedman. She arrives at his home after he carefully placed the file folder with the settlement information in it on his coffee table. He casually talks about the settlement of the case without revealing any of the particulars. She sees the file folder and, when she thinks he has gone outside, she goes through the files and takes pictures of them with her phone. Just as he hoped she would.
The next morning, Al arrives and is angry at having been called by Jupiter's counsel because the settlement was retracted thanks to Patty Friedman's investigating it.
Things go downhill when Cyrus learns that Curtis Farwell has died from a blood clot in his lung. He then has to tell Farwell's daughter that Jupiter had pulled the settlement and that they must now go to court. He assures her that they will win in court. To prove the case, they must call Laurie Farwell in court. The judge allows her to be called in court despite objections from Jupiter's lawyer.
At the charity fundraiser Claire is holding for Vidalin, Cyrus meets Patty Friedman and her husband. Cyrus strikes a deal with Vidalin that he will raise $200,000.00 for his charity if he lays off Claire.
Eddie, Lucinda and Mereta go through the list of names of everyone present when the video she found at Jupiter was made. They have 65 names to work with. Using a side conversation the woman had they are able to track down her son's sports team, get his name and find her name among the 65 they have. Mereta and Eddie go to see her and are met by her husband and young son. Athena Phillips died a few months ago. According to her husband, "Jupiter killed her". All of her paperwork was given to her lawyer and sealed until her son turned 18. They need a court order to unseal the documents which means Mereta must get the order as Eddie has a job interview.
In court, Laurie Farwell testifies about what her father had told her after his accident. When asked by his daughter why the accident happened, he wrote down "steering wheel". Jupiter's lawyer points out that Curtis Farwell was diabetic and had eaten cake at his grandson's birthday party prior to driving. She paints a picture to the jury that the accident could have been Farwell's fault rather than a fault of the car.
Mereta wins the court order and gets the box of documents. She is attacked in Lucinda's car in front of Cyrus' home. They go through the box of documents and find what they are looking for. The next day in court, Cyrus calls Warren Quinn to the stand. When questioned about Athena Phillips and her report of defective tie rods, Quinn denies she ever submitted any such report. Presented with e-mails from Phillips about the defects, Quinn "cannot recall". He claims the e-mails are the work of a disgruntled former employee. Cyrus wants to read Athena Phillips' suicide note but Jupiter's lawyer objects. The judge allows it. Cyrus wins the case and Laurie Farwell is awarded $20 million and Jupiter is expected to recall all the defective coupes immediately.
I, personally, really liked this episode. Several things about it appealed to me. I found the case itself interesting. Cyrus did take the case for personal reasons but also taking, and winning, the case was the right thing to do. Jupiter certainly wasn't going to recall the cars on their own. Something had to make them do it. Seeing the awesome Kyle Secor as Warren Quinn was great. I've been a fan of Secor since he was Detective Tim Bayless on Homicide: Life on the Streets (one of the best shows ever!). He is one of the finest actors out there, in my very humble opinion, and it's always a pleasure to see him. The interaction of the Outlaw characters was also a plus, this week. I think that if this show has nothing, it has good characters and great actors bringing those characters to life. With proper writing, these characters (and actors) could take this show very far.
It was announced on 6th October that NBC has put Outlaw on "hiatus" due to dismal ratings. Four more episodes are scheduled to air as a total of eight have been produced. NBC has said they will be evaluating the Outlaw's performance over the coming weeks. If the ratings improve, it might save the show. If not, we will be saying 'farewell' to it for good.
Outlaw airs on Friday nights at 10:00 p.m. (9:00 p.m. Central) on NBC.
For more information:
NBC Official Site: www.nbc.com/outlaw/
Internet Movie Database: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1592226/combined
TV Rage: http://www.tvrage.com/Outlaw
Saturday, October 2, 2010
US Television: Outlaw, Episode 1.3, "In RE: Jessica Davis"
Outlaw
Season One, Episode Three, In RE: Jessica Davis
Original Air Date: October 1, 2010
Garza's bookie, Doc, surprises him with a nighttime visit. Cyrus and his team take the case of a Baltimore mother who left her child in her car resulting in the child's death. Meanwhile, Eddie and Lucinda work the case of one of Al's former clients, Desdemona.
Doc and an extremely large and intimidating man, Tiny, awaken Cyrus in the middle of the night. Doc wants his money and gives Cyrus twenty-four hours. The next morning, Cyrus asks his boss for an advance of $200,000. She ends up agreeing to give him the money after letting him know that her boyfriend asked her to marry him and she obviously said 'yes'.
Mereta presents Cyrus with a newspaper about the case of a woman in Baltimore who forgot her child in her car resulting in the child's death. Cyrus, Al and Eddie all notice a story about a sports player, Ray Lewis, injured in his bathtub over the baby story shocking Mereta and Lucinda. The case is interesting to Cyrus and the team because of similar cases in other cities and states that do not get prosecuted. Some parents are prosecuted for the deaths, others not. Cyrus' team is drafting a motion to dismiss the Davis case.
In Baltimore, Cyrus and Al speak with the district attorney prosecuting the case. They want the case dismissed on equal protection. The D.A. insists the case will not be thrown out on a "technicality". When Cyrus asks him if he really wants to go after a mom who is stricken with grief, the D.A. sort of laughs it off asking if they have even met their client, which they haven't.
Cyrus and Al have a meeting with the parents of the deceased little girl. The mother is strangely cold about the death of her daughter. She states the facts of the case in a matter-of-fact way like she would be stating what items she has on her shopping list. She even mentions the bagels in the kitchen at work. Later, her husband speaks with Al and Cyrus alone and tells them his wife isn't as cold as she seems.
Cyrus uses the money he got from his boss to place a bet with Doc that he feels will cover what he owes him. With Ray Lewis out, the team is sure to lose and Cyrus is guaranteed a win. Doc agrees to the bet.
Eddie used to be in a boy band, "In Heat" that had actually opened for Boy George in Waukegan, was almost on the Today Show and even Soul Train. Lucinda is having a great time teasing him over it and finds photos of the band on the Internet. The teasing continues even as Eddie and Lucinda work the case of one of Al's old clients, Desdemona, who is in jail for drug charges. Eddie is clearly uncomfortable with the case and his client. She wants him to post bail for her because Al always did but Eddie doesn't want to.
Desdemona arrives in court and she has been beaten while in jail. Eddie tries to broker a deal for her but the only offer on the table is 90 days. He knows she won't be able to survive that long in prison. He asks Lucinda to find Bob, the guy in the car with Desdemona at the time she was arrested. When they find him, he is a straight-laced professional with a family who claims to not even know Desdemona. Eddie takes Bob's name and info to the prosecutor and tells her to contact him to confirm Desdemona's story. If he doesn't he will put Bob on the stand to blow his cover in front of his wife. He gives her the choice to take the deal he offers or he will destroy the lives of Bob and his wife. The case against her is dropped.
Al manages to get the Howard County D.A. to give a sworn statement that she would not have filed charges against Jessica Davis. The judge in Cyrus' case isn't impressed with the equal protection briefs prepared by the defense. When Cyrus brings up the issue of the Howard County D.A.'s statement, the Baltimore D.A. objects and the judge refuses to dismiss the charges.
Now having to work on a case to keep Jessica Davis out of prison, Cyrus wants experts that can tell him and the jury why a good mother would have forgotten her child. He wants to know if anyone saw her when she discovered the girl and whether or not she showed any emotion and, if she didn't, why she didn't. Cyrus' boss drops off his advance and the contents of Jessica Davis' SUV.
A psychiatrist brought in to evaluate Jessica believes she is dissociating. She's using anger to mask her pain. She also offers to testify in court that she believes the death of the little girl was an accident.
The evidence in court is damning to Davis. The officer on scene describes her as being so cool and collected that he didn't know she was the child's mother at first. She didn't even call 911. He found her behavior "unnatural". Cyrus turns the testimony in his favor a bit when he states she didn't call 911 because she was administering CPR and he is able to get the officer to admit there is no evidence that Jessica Davis is an unfit mother.
Naomi Bachman, Jessica Davis' closest friend, is the next witness the prosecution calls to the stand. She paints a picture of Jessica as being stressed and resentful of the fact her husband was laid off work and that she didn't really want the baby; she was an accident. She said that two days before the baby died, Jessica called her and told her the child was driving her crazy and she wished she'd never been born.
Not only is the case not going well for Cyrus, Ray Lewis is cleared to play in the game and his bet is in jeopardy. The M.E.'s testimony will be devastating to the case. When the witness is called in court, Cyrus presents a motion asking if his client can be excused from the courtroom because hearing the details of her daughters death would be too emotionally devastating for her. The prosecutor objects vehemently and the judge refuses to grant the motion. She must stay in the courtroom and listen to the testimony. While doing so, Davis digs her fingernails so deeply into her hand that she breaks the skin.
Cyrus calls Doc about his bet but it has already been placed. A witness Cyrus calls to the stand gives the jury a scientific explanation of how a parent could forget their child is in the car. She describes several factors that could have led Davis' brain to forget her daughter.
The team disagree over whether or not Davis should take the stand in her own defense. When Cyrus drops the box of items from her SUV onto the floor they hear strange noises coming from it. He picks the box up and drops it again and they hear the sounds again. A child's toy that allows a parent to record their voice for their child has recorded Davis' emotion when she discovered her daughter in her car. She is clearly distressed and highly emotional and performing CPR on her daughter. Cyrus takes the toy to the judge's chambers for him and the prosecutor to hear. Because Cyrus cannot establish a timeline as to when the recording was made, the judge excludes the tape from evidence.
Knowing they are backed into a corner, Cyrus agrees to put Davis on the stand. She is cold on the stand. Cyrus pushes her harder and harder to try and bring out the emotion he knows she feels over her daughters death. Eventually, she breaks into tears. Both Cyrus and the prosecutor deliver excellent closing speeches. The jury returns a 'not guilty' verdict. Cyrus also gets lucky when his bet wins and he is closed out with Doc.
I loved the storyline with Eddie, Lucinda and Desdemona. Eddie and Lucinda play very well off one another. I admit I'm curious to know how long it will be before they finally hook up (if the series lasts). You know it will happen eventually! I also like that Doc was back briefly. While the writers aren't focusing on Garza's bad habits, they are still introducing them here and there. I still want to know who the guy following Cyrus in the pilot was, and why he was tailing him.
One thing I do like about this show is the cases Garza and his team take aren't the sort of cases you'd see on your typical legal drama. They are emotionally and politically charged cases. The ratings don't seem to be that great at the moment though, do they? Perhaps another time slot might help things some. I don't know. I really want this show to succeed because I want Jimmy Smits to have another success on his hands and I want to be able to see him on television for a long time to come. With cancellations of the new season already starting to come in, I guess fans of Outlaw will just have to wait and see if the show will be able to weather the storm and finish the 13 episode run that has been ordered and go beyond that.
Outlaw airs on Friday nights at 10:00 p.m. (9:00 p.m. Central) on NBC.
For more information:
NBC Official Site: www.nbc.com/outlaw/
Internet Movie Database: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1592226/combined
TV Rage: http://www.tvrage.com/Outlaw
Season One, Episode Three, In RE: Jessica Davis
Original Air Date: October 1, 2010
Garza's bookie, Doc, surprises him with a nighttime visit. Cyrus and his team take the case of a Baltimore mother who left her child in her car resulting in the child's death. Meanwhile, Eddie and Lucinda work the case of one of Al's former clients, Desdemona.
Doc and an extremely large and intimidating man, Tiny, awaken Cyrus in the middle of the night. Doc wants his money and gives Cyrus twenty-four hours. The next morning, Cyrus asks his boss for an advance of $200,000. She ends up agreeing to give him the money after letting him know that her boyfriend asked her to marry him and she obviously said 'yes'.
Mereta presents Cyrus with a newspaper about the case of a woman in Baltimore who forgot her child in her car resulting in the child's death. Cyrus, Al and Eddie all notice a story about a sports player, Ray Lewis, injured in his bathtub over the baby story shocking Mereta and Lucinda. The case is interesting to Cyrus and the team because of similar cases in other cities and states that do not get prosecuted. Some parents are prosecuted for the deaths, others not. Cyrus' team is drafting a motion to dismiss the Davis case.
In Baltimore, Cyrus and Al speak with the district attorney prosecuting the case. They want the case dismissed on equal protection. The D.A. insists the case will not be thrown out on a "technicality". When Cyrus asks him if he really wants to go after a mom who is stricken with grief, the D.A. sort of laughs it off asking if they have even met their client, which they haven't.
Cyrus and Al have a meeting with the parents of the deceased little girl. The mother is strangely cold about the death of her daughter. She states the facts of the case in a matter-of-fact way like she would be stating what items she has on her shopping list. She even mentions the bagels in the kitchen at work. Later, her husband speaks with Al and Cyrus alone and tells them his wife isn't as cold as she seems.
Cyrus uses the money he got from his boss to place a bet with Doc that he feels will cover what he owes him. With Ray Lewis out, the team is sure to lose and Cyrus is guaranteed a win. Doc agrees to the bet.
Eddie used to be in a boy band, "In Heat" that had actually opened for Boy George in Waukegan, was almost on the Today Show and even Soul Train. Lucinda is having a great time teasing him over it and finds photos of the band on the Internet. The teasing continues even as Eddie and Lucinda work the case of one of Al's old clients, Desdemona, who is in jail for drug charges. Eddie is clearly uncomfortable with the case and his client. She wants him to post bail for her because Al always did but Eddie doesn't want to.
Desdemona arrives in court and she has been beaten while in jail. Eddie tries to broker a deal for her but the only offer on the table is 90 days. He knows she won't be able to survive that long in prison. He asks Lucinda to find Bob, the guy in the car with Desdemona at the time she was arrested. When they find him, he is a straight-laced professional with a family who claims to not even know Desdemona. Eddie takes Bob's name and info to the prosecutor and tells her to contact him to confirm Desdemona's story. If he doesn't he will put Bob on the stand to blow his cover in front of his wife. He gives her the choice to take the deal he offers or he will destroy the lives of Bob and his wife. The case against her is dropped.
Al manages to get the Howard County D.A. to give a sworn statement that she would not have filed charges against Jessica Davis. The judge in Cyrus' case isn't impressed with the equal protection briefs prepared by the defense. When Cyrus brings up the issue of the Howard County D.A.'s statement, the Baltimore D.A. objects and the judge refuses to dismiss the charges.
Now having to work on a case to keep Jessica Davis out of prison, Cyrus wants experts that can tell him and the jury why a good mother would have forgotten her child. He wants to know if anyone saw her when she discovered the girl and whether or not she showed any emotion and, if she didn't, why she didn't. Cyrus' boss drops off his advance and the contents of Jessica Davis' SUV.
A psychiatrist brought in to evaluate Jessica believes she is dissociating. She's using anger to mask her pain. She also offers to testify in court that she believes the death of the little girl was an accident.
The evidence in court is damning to Davis. The officer on scene describes her as being so cool and collected that he didn't know she was the child's mother at first. She didn't even call 911. He found her behavior "unnatural". Cyrus turns the testimony in his favor a bit when he states she didn't call 911 because she was administering CPR and he is able to get the officer to admit there is no evidence that Jessica Davis is an unfit mother.
Naomi Bachman, Jessica Davis' closest friend, is the next witness the prosecution calls to the stand. She paints a picture of Jessica as being stressed and resentful of the fact her husband was laid off work and that she didn't really want the baby; she was an accident. She said that two days before the baby died, Jessica called her and told her the child was driving her crazy and she wished she'd never been born.
Not only is the case not going well for Cyrus, Ray Lewis is cleared to play in the game and his bet is in jeopardy. The M.E.'s testimony will be devastating to the case. When the witness is called in court, Cyrus presents a motion asking if his client can be excused from the courtroom because hearing the details of her daughters death would be too emotionally devastating for her. The prosecutor objects vehemently and the judge refuses to grant the motion. She must stay in the courtroom and listen to the testimony. While doing so, Davis digs her fingernails so deeply into her hand that she breaks the skin.
Cyrus calls Doc about his bet but it has already been placed. A witness Cyrus calls to the stand gives the jury a scientific explanation of how a parent could forget their child is in the car. She describes several factors that could have led Davis' brain to forget her daughter.
The team disagree over whether or not Davis should take the stand in her own defense. When Cyrus drops the box of items from her SUV onto the floor they hear strange noises coming from it. He picks the box up and drops it again and they hear the sounds again. A child's toy that allows a parent to record their voice for their child has recorded Davis' emotion when she discovered her daughter in her car. She is clearly distressed and highly emotional and performing CPR on her daughter. Cyrus takes the toy to the judge's chambers for him and the prosecutor to hear. Because Cyrus cannot establish a timeline as to when the recording was made, the judge excludes the tape from evidence.
Knowing they are backed into a corner, Cyrus agrees to put Davis on the stand. She is cold on the stand. Cyrus pushes her harder and harder to try and bring out the emotion he knows she feels over her daughters death. Eventually, she breaks into tears. Both Cyrus and the prosecutor deliver excellent closing speeches. The jury returns a 'not guilty' verdict. Cyrus also gets lucky when his bet wins and he is closed out with Doc.
I loved the storyline with Eddie, Lucinda and Desdemona. Eddie and Lucinda play very well off one another. I admit I'm curious to know how long it will be before they finally hook up (if the series lasts). You know it will happen eventually! I also like that Doc was back briefly. While the writers aren't focusing on Garza's bad habits, they are still introducing them here and there. I still want to know who the guy following Cyrus in the pilot was, and why he was tailing him.
One thing I do like about this show is the cases Garza and his team take aren't the sort of cases you'd see on your typical legal drama. They are emotionally and politically charged cases. The ratings don't seem to be that great at the moment though, do they? Perhaps another time slot might help things some. I don't know. I really want this show to succeed because I want Jimmy Smits to have another success on his hands and I want to be able to see him on television for a long time to come. With cancellations of the new season already starting to come in, I guess fans of Outlaw will just have to wait and see if the show will be able to weather the storm and finish the 13 episode run that has been ordered and go beyond that.
Outlaw airs on Friday nights at 10:00 p.m. (9:00 p.m. Central) on NBC.
For more information:
NBC Official Site: www.nbc.com/outlaw/
Internet Movie Database: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1592226/combined
TV Rage: http://www.tvrage.com/Outlaw
US Television: Outlaw, Episode 1.3, "In RE: Jessica Davis"
Outlaw
Season One, Episode Three, In RE: Jessica Davis
Original Air Date: October 1, 2010
Garza's bookie, Doc, surprises him with a nighttime visit. Cyrus and his team take the case of a Baltimore mother who left her child in her car resulting in the child's death. Meanwhile, Eddie and Lucinda work the case of one of Al's former clients, Desdemona.
Doc and an extremely large and intimidating man, Tiny, awaken Cyrus in the middle of the night. Doc wants his money and gives Cyrus twenty-four hours. The next morning, Cyrus asks his boss for an advance of $200,000. She ends up agreeing to give him the money after letting him know that her boyfriend asked her to marry him and she obviously said 'yes'.
Mereta presents Cyrus with a newspaper about the case of a woman in Baltimore who forgot her child in her car resulting in the child's death. Cyrus, Al and Eddie all notice a story about a sports player, Ray Lewis, injured in his bathtub over the baby story shocking Mereta and Lucinda. The case is interesting to Cyrus and the team because of similar cases in other cities and states that do not get prosecuted. Some parents are prosecuted for the deaths, others not. Cyrus' team is drafting a motion to dismiss the Davis case.
In Baltimore, Cyrus and Al speak with the district attorney prosecuting the case. They want the case dismissed on equal protection. The D.A. insists the case will not be thrown out on a "technicality". When Cyrus asks him if he really wants to go after a mom who is stricken with grief, the D.A. sort of laughs it off asking if they have even met their client, which they haven't.
Season One, Episode Three, In RE: Jessica Davis
Original Air Date: October 1, 2010
Garza's bookie, Doc, surprises him with a nighttime visit. Cyrus and his team take the case of a Baltimore mother who left her child in her car resulting in the child's death. Meanwhile, Eddie and Lucinda work the case of one of Al's former clients, Desdemona.
Doc and an extremely large and intimidating man, Tiny, awaken Cyrus in the middle of the night. Doc wants his money and gives Cyrus twenty-four hours. The next morning, Cyrus asks his boss for an advance of $200,000. She ends up agreeing to give him the money after letting him know that her boyfriend asked her to marry him and she obviously said 'yes'.
Mereta presents Cyrus with a newspaper about the case of a woman in Baltimore who forgot her child in her car resulting in the child's death. Cyrus, Al and Eddie all notice a story about a sports player, Ray Lewis, injured in his bathtub over the baby story shocking Mereta and Lucinda. The case is interesting to Cyrus and the team because of similar cases in other cities and states that do not get prosecuted. Some parents are prosecuted for the deaths, others not. Cyrus' team is drafting a motion to dismiss the Davis case.
In Baltimore, Cyrus and Al speak with the district attorney prosecuting the case. They want the case dismissed on equal protection. The D.A. insists the case will not be thrown out on a "technicality". When Cyrus asks him if he really wants to go after a mom who is stricken with grief, the D.A. sort of laughs it off asking if they have even met their client, which they haven't.
Saturday, September 25, 2010
US Television: Outlaw, Episode 1.2, "In RE: Officer Daniel Hale"
Outlaw
Season One, Episode Two, In RE: Officer Daniel Hale
Original Air Date: September 24, 2010
Garza and his team go to Tuscon, Arizona when a uniformed police officer shoots a Latino man three times putting him in the hospital. The side of the issue Cyrus chooses to take surprises everyone, even his own team.
Cyrus, who is partying in Las Vegas flies into Tuscon to meet his team. They are all aware of the case as it has been a major headline on the national news. The team are shocked to learn they aren't there to support the man who was shot, James Reyes, but to instead defend the police officer who shot him, Daniel Hale. Al is strongly against taking the case. He doesn't feel they need to support racial profiling. Garza takes it despite Al's objections. Eddie is probably the only member of the team to agree with Cyrus in taking the case.
Eddie is told by the doctor who has been researching Reyes' injuries for the prosecution that one of the shots hit him in the back. While at the hospital, Lucinda sees his wife Melissa. She sits down with her and casually talks with her to gain her confidence. Melissa Reyes comments that her husband loved to fight and was almost arrested a year ago for a fight he had gotten into.
The prosecution plays a tape that was made from a bug placed in Hale's police car that has Hale saying "they're calling me a racist" and "I hate these people". It doesn't sound good until Garza points out in open court that the conversation was taken out of context. Hale was reading a paper at the time and was referring to the reporters who had written the article, not to individuals of another race. After making a point to the judge that Hale did have a reasonable expectation of privacy in his patrol car, the tape is stricken from evidence.
Cyrus and Al have something to eat and are accosted by a policeman who wants to see their ID. Al protests but Cyrus hands his over. When the officer sees who Cyrus is he apologizes to them and thanks him for being there to protect one of their own. When the policeman is gone, Al cannot understand why Cyrus wasn't angrier over what had just happened to them. Cyrus feels it isn't worth getting arrested over.
When the time to select the jury arrives, Cyrus is advised to pick white conservative males. Instead, he chooses a predominantly Latino jury. For James Reyes to testify, the lawyers, judge (a great appearance by Ed Begley, Jr.) and jury go to his hospital room. His testimony is fine until Cyrus begins to examine him. Cyrus is able to show that Reyes has a definite temper. Garza manages to make the doctors testimony about Reyes' injuries less damaging to his client by providing a valid alternative as to how the injuries could have occurred. Hale didn't have to shoot Reyes in the back for the injury to appear that way. Later, Cyrus is able to obtain a surveillance tape of what happened between Reyes and Hale from a local "businessman" who runs an illegal gaming casino in the back of an automotive repair shop. The tape shows that Reyes was, in fact, an aggressor in the incident as Hale maintains.
Garza wins the case and Officer Hale is found not guilty. Al doesn't believe he can continue working with the team but Cyrus tells him he needs his help. I don't foresee Al leaving the Garza team anytime soon.
Cyrus seems to do the exact opposite of everything his team advises and his actions often lead them to wonder if he really has thought things through or if he's not simply barking mad. He sees things differently than his team and what appears as a mistake (or insanity) to his team, is a carefully planned move to Cyrus.
Throughout the show, Lucinda is dropping hints to Mereta about the little ways she can get some "quiet time" with Cyrus. Lucinda, no doubt, means it as a bit of the same sort of teasing she aims at Eddie. Mereta, as we learned in the first episode, "loves" Cyrus. At one point, she is shopping for something to wear to "surprise someone she works with". Mereta might not mind the idea of getting Cyrus alone in his room in the least bit.
Arizona's new law requiring police officers to stop and request identification from anyone that might be an illegal immigrant has been a subject of debate at both the state and national levels in the United States since its enactment. I wasn't surprised to see that a dramatic series used this law as the basis for an episode. I was impressed at the handling of it. This is an issue that people feel very strongly about. Either they strongly support the law or they are strongly against it. There's very little middle ground. I didn't feel like the writers were preaching to me that "this law is bad" or "this law is good".
The issue of the muscle that was following Cyrus in the first episode wasn't addressed in this one at all. There are a lot of things the writers could do with that particular storyline. I honestly can see where Outlaw has some promise. With Jimmy Smits heading the show, I want it to do well. I want it to become a show that I can't wait to see every week. I enjoyed In RE: Officer Daniel Hale more than I did the pilot and am hoping this is a show that grows even more comfortable as everyone settles in and we progress through the season. I'll be there with Outlaw on Friday nights for a while longer, at the very least, to see if that happens.
Outlaw airs on Friday nights at 10:00 p.m. (9:00 p.m. Central) on NBC.
For more information:
NBC Official Site: www.nbc.com/outlaw/
Internet Movie Database: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1592226/combined
TV Rage: http://www.tvrage.com/Outlaw
Season One, Episode Two, In RE: Officer Daniel Hale
Original Air Date: September 24, 2010
Garza and his team go to Tuscon, Arizona when a uniformed police officer shoots a Latino man three times putting him in the hospital. The side of the issue Cyrus chooses to take surprises everyone, even his own team.
Cyrus, who is partying in Las Vegas flies into Tuscon to meet his team. They are all aware of the case as it has been a major headline on the national news. The team are shocked to learn they aren't there to support the man who was shot, James Reyes, but to instead defend the police officer who shot him, Daniel Hale. Al is strongly against taking the case. He doesn't feel they need to support racial profiling. Garza takes it despite Al's objections. Eddie is probably the only member of the team to agree with Cyrus in taking the case.
Eddie is told by the doctor who has been researching Reyes' injuries for the prosecution that one of the shots hit him in the back. While at the hospital, Lucinda sees his wife Melissa. She sits down with her and casually talks with her to gain her confidence. Melissa Reyes comments that her husband loved to fight and was almost arrested a year ago for a fight he had gotten into.
The prosecution plays a tape that was made from a bug placed in Hale's police car that has Hale saying "they're calling me a racist" and "I hate these people". It doesn't sound good until Garza points out in open court that the conversation was taken out of context. Hale was reading a paper at the time and was referring to the reporters who had written the article, not to individuals of another race. After making a point to the judge that Hale did have a reasonable expectation of privacy in his patrol car, the tape is stricken from evidence.
Cyrus and Al have something to eat and are accosted by a policeman who wants to see their ID. Al protests but Cyrus hands his over. When the officer sees who Cyrus is he apologizes to them and thanks him for being there to protect one of their own. When the policeman is gone, Al cannot understand why Cyrus wasn't angrier over what had just happened to them. Cyrus feels it isn't worth getting arrested over.
When the time to select the jury arrives, Cyrus is advised to pick white conservative males. Instead, he chooses a predominantly Latino jury. For James Reyes to testify, the lawyers, judge (a great appearance by Ed Begley, Jr.) and jury go to his hospital room. His testimony is fine until Cyrus begins to examine him. Cyrus is able to show that Reyes has a definite temper. Garza manages to make the doctors testimony about Reyes' injuries less damaging to his client by providing a valid alternative as to how the injuries could have occurred. Hale didn't have to shoot Reyes in the back for the injury to appear that way. Later, Cyrus is able to obtain a surveillance tape of what happened between Reyes and Hale from a local "businessman" who runs an illegal gaming casino in the back of an automotive repair shop. The tape shows that Reyes was, in fact, an aggressor in the incident as Hale maintains.
Garza wins the case and Officer Hale is found not guilty. Al doesn't believe he can continue working with the team but Cyrus tells him he needs his help. I don't foresee Al leaving the Garza team anytime soon.
Cyrus seems to do the exact opposite of everything his team advises and his actions often lead them to wonder if he really has thought things through or if he's not simply barking mad. He sees things differently than his team and what appears as a mistake (or insanity) to his team, is a carefully planned move to Cyrus.
Throughout the show, Lucinda is dropping hints to Mereta about the little ways she can get some "quiet time" with Cyrus. Lucinda, no doubt, means it as a bit of the same sort of teasing she aims at Eddie. Mereta, as we learned in the first episode, "loves" Cyrus. At one point, she is shopping for something to wear to "surprise someone she works with". Mereta might not mind the idea of getting Cyrus alone in his room in the least bit.
Arizona's new law requiring police officers to stop and request identification from anyone that might be an illegal immigrant has been a subject of debate at both the state and national levels in the United States since its enactment. I wasn't surprised to see that a dramatic series used this law as the basis for an episode. I was impressed at the handling of it. This is an issue that people feel very strongly about. Either they strongly support the law or they are strongly against it. There's very little middle ground. I didn't feel like the writers were preaching to me that "this law is bad" or "this law is good".
The issue of the muscle that was following Cyrus in the first episode wasn't addressed in this one at all. There are a lot of things the writers could do with that particular storyline. I honestly can see where Outlaw has some promise. With Jimmy Smits heading the show, I want it to do well. I want it to become a show that I can't wait to see every week. I enjoyed In RE: Officer Daniel Hale more than I did the pilot and am hoping this is a show that grows even more comfortable as everyone settles in and we progress through the season. I'll be there with Outlaw on Friday nights for a while longer, at the very least, to see if that happens.
Outlaw airs on Friday nights at 10:00 p.m. (9:00 p.m. Central) on NBC.
For more information:
NBC Official Site: www.nbc.com/outlaw/
Internet Movie Database: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1592226/combined
TV Rage: http://www.tvrage.com/Outlaw
US Television: Outlaw, Episode 1.2, "In RE: Officer Daniel Hale"
Outlaw
Season One, Episode Two, In RE: Officer Daniel Hale
Original Air Date: September 24, 2010
Garza and his team go to Tuscon, Arizona when a uniformed police officer shoots a Latino man three times putting him in the hospital. The side of the issue Cyrus chooses to take surprises everyone, even his own team.
Cyrus, who is partying in Las Vegas flies into Tuscon to meet his team. They are all aware of the case as it has been a major headline on the national news. The team are shocked to learn they aren't there to support the man who was shot, James Reyes, but to instead defend the police officer who shot him, Daniel Hale. Al is strongly against taking the case. He doesn't feel they need to support racial profiling. Garza takes it despite Al's objections. Eddie is probably the only member of the team to agree with Cyrus in taking the case.
Eddie is told by the doctor who has been researching Reyes' injuries for the prosecution that one of the shots hit him in the back. While at the hospital, Lucinda sees his wife Melissa. She sits down with her and casually talks with her to gain her confidence. Melissa Reyes comments that her husband loved to fight and was almost arrested a year ago for a fight he had gotten into.
Season One, Episode Two, In RE: Officer Daniel Hale
Original Air Date: September 24, 2010
Garza and his team go to Tuscon, Arizona when a uniformed police officer shoots a Latino man three times putting him in the hospital. The side of the issue Cyrus chooses to take surprises everyone, even his own team.
Cyrus, who is partying in Las Vegas flies into Tuscon to meet his team. They are all aware of the case as it has been a major headline on the national news. The team are shocked to learn they aren't there to support the man who was shot, James Reyes, but to instead defend the police officer who shot him, Daniel Hale. Al is strongly against taking the case. He doesn't feel they need to support racial profiling. Garza takes it despite Al's objections. Eddie is probably the only member of the team to agree with Cyrus in taking the case.
Eddie is told by the doctor who has been researching Reyes' injuries for the prosecution that one of the shots hit him in the back. While at the hospital, Lucinda sees his wife Melissa. She sits down with her and casually talks with her to gain her confidence. Melissa Reyes comments that her husband loved to fight and was almost arrested a year ago for a fight he had gotten into.
Thursday, September 16, 2010
US Television: Outlaw, Episode 1.1, Pilot
Outlaw
Season One, Episode One, Pilot
Original Air Date: September 15, 2010
Gregory Beales, a man on death row has one last hope of saving his life for a murder he claims he didn't commit. His attorney makes a case for a stay of execution to the Supreme Court and Justice Cyrus Garza grants the stay despite warnings not to. At the same time he grants the stay, Garza resigns from the Supreme Court shocking everyone, including his staff. Garza gathers his team to work the Beales case so that the justice he believes Beale was originally denied will finally prevail.
Supreme Court Justice Cyrus Garza (Jimmy Smits) is the most conservative justice on the Supreme Court who has a penchant for gambling and the ladies. Garza's father, Francisco Garza, was also a judge but the complete opposite of his son. Cyrus is in trouble with his bookie to the tune of a half million dollars and we all know that isn't a good thing.
Garza's staff is made up of young, bright and driven individuals. Lucinda Pearl (Carly Pope) is the private investigator working for him. She's pretty cool. She's young, intelligent, outspoken and has a wild streak. Eddie Franks (Jesse Bradford) is Garza's clerk. He's Yale-educated and straight-laced and seems to be Lucinda Pearl's favorite person to tease. Mereta Stockman (Ellen Woglom) is sort of the female equivalent of Franks and the exact opposite of Pearl. Rounding out Garza's staff is Al Druzinsky (David Ramsey), Beales attorney.
Mereta Stockman delivers one of this episodes more humorous moments. After overhearing part of the conversation between Cyrus and his bookie, she believes Cyrus to be dying. She blurts this information out in front of the rest of his staff and Beales family then proceeds to confess, in front of everyone, that she loves Cyrus. The moment is funny and awkward at the same time.
Based on information from Lucinda Pearl, Garza grants Beales his stay of execution because he believes the man is truly innocent. Garza does so despite being warned by Senator Vidalin (Richard Portnow) that if he doesn't vote the right way he will be impeached. Cyrus and his team dig into the Beales case and learn that Beales truly is innocent of the murder because he was in jail on an unrelated crime at the time the victim was murdered. After tracking down a hard-to-find witness, Rita Schmidt (Judith Lightfoot Clark), they get the piece of the puzzle they need to free their client and get the real murderer into custody.
But the celebration doesn't start there. While the rest of his team is enjoying a cookout to celebrate their win, Garza notices that someone is following him. His bookie has given him three months to pay the money he owes. He knows he's made many political enemies. Just who has sent the muscle after Garza remains to be seen.
As with Law & Order: UK, Outlaw is a show I didn't have any intentions of blogging about. I was going to watch it and be done with it. As I tried in vain to get to sleep last night, I kept thinking about the show (I guess it says something good about a show when you think about it instead of sleeping?) and decided to blog it. For a little while, at least. NBC aired a sneak peak of the first episode of Outlaw on Wednesday, September 15, 2010. Conan O'Brien is one of the executive producers of Outlaw.
I've been a fan of Jimmy Smits for a while now. I loved him in L.A. Law (where are the season sets of that show on DVD, 20th Century Fox??) and various films. When I read that he was returning to television in a new show I jotted it down and counted the days until it premiered.
I've read some reviews and viewer comments around the Internet today for Outlaw and they appear to be mixed. Some really, really hated it while others really, really loved it. Some comments have said Outlaw is basically L.A. Law: 2010. I, personally, think that's wrong. Smits' Outlaw character, Cyrus Garza and his L.A. Law character, Victor Sifuentes aren't the same man and I don't think it's fair to look at this show and see Sifuentes instead of Garza.
As for my personal opinion of the show: was it everything I was expecting it to be? Not really. Was I disappointed with it? I can't say that I was. Personally, I'm on the fence right now. I didn't love it and I didn't hate it. I hate to judge a show on a single episode (unless it's really, really bad or really, really good) so I'll be sticking with Outlaw for a few more weeks, at the very least. I felt that Smits was in top form (as he always is in my most humble opinion) in Outlaw and it was such a pleasure to see him back on television that I'm looking forward to watching more of the show for him alone.
Outlaw airs on Friday nights at 10:00 p.m. (9:00 p.m. Central) on NBC.
For more information:
NBC Official Site: http://www.nbc.com/outlaw/
Internet Movie Database: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1592226/combined
TV Rage: http://www.tvrage.com/Outlaw
Season One, Episode One, Pilot
Original Air Date: September 15, 2010
Gregory Beales, a man on death row has one last hope of saving his life for a murder he claims he didn't commit. His attorney makes a case for a stay of execution to the Supreme Court and Justice Cyrus Garza grants the stay despite warnings not to. At the same time he grants the stay, Garza resigns from the Supreme Court shocking everyone, including his staff. Garza gathers his team to work the Beales case so that the justice he believes Beale was originally denied will finally prevail.
Supreme Court Justice Cyrus Garza (Jimmy Smits) is the most conservative justice on the Supreme Court who has a penchant for gambling and the ladies. Garza's father, Francisco Garza, was also a judge but the complete opposite of his son. Cyrus is in trouble with his bookie to the tune of a half million dollars and we all know that isn't a good thing.
Garza's staff is made up of young, bright and driven individuals. Lucinda Pearl (Carly Pope) is the private investigator working for him. She's pretty cool. She's young, intelligent, outspoken and has a wild streak. Eddie Franks (Jesse Bradford) is Garza's clerk. He's Yale-educated and straight-laced and seems to be Lucinda Pearl's favorite person to tease. Mereta Stockman (Ellen Woglom) is sort of the female equivalent of Franks and the exact opposite of Pearl. Rounding out Garza's staff is Al Druzinsky (David Ramsey), Beales attorney.
Mereta Stockman delivers one of this episodes more humorous moments. After overhearing part of the conversation between Cyrus and his bookie, she believes Cyrus to be dying. She blurts this information out in front of the rest of his staff and Beales family then proceeds to confess, in front of everyone, that she loves Cyrus. The moment is funny and awkward at the same time.
Based on information from Lucinda Pearl, Garza grants Beales his stay of execution because he believes the man is truly innocent. Garza does so despite being warned by Senator Vidalin (Richard Portnow) that if he doesn't vote the right way he will be impeached. Cyrus and his team dig into the Beales case and learn that Beales truly is innocent of the murder because he was in jail on an unrelated crime at the time the victim was murdered. After tracking down a hard-to-find witness, Rita Schmidt (Judith Lightfoot Clark), they get the piece of the puzzle they need to free their client and get the real murderer into custody.
But the celebration doesn't start there. While the rest of his team is enjoying a cookout to celebrate their win, Garza notices that someone is following him. His bookie has given him three months to pay the money he owes. He knows he's made many political enemies. Just who has sent the muscle after Garza remains to be seen.
As with Law & Order: UK, Outlaw is a show I didn't have any intentions of blogging about. I was going to watch it and be done with it. As I tried in vain to get to sleep last night, I kept thinking about the show (I guess it says something good about a show when you think about it instead of sleeping?) and decided to blog it. For a little while, at least. NBC aired a sneak peak of the first episode of Outlaw on Wednesday, September 15, 2010. Conan O'Brien is one of the executive producers of Outlaw.
I've been a fan of Jimmy Smits for a while now. I loved him in L.A. Law (where are the season sets of that show on DVD, 20th Century Fox??) and various films. When I read that he was returning to television in a new show I jotted it down and counted the days until it premiered.
I've read some reviews and viewer comments around the Internet today for Outlaw and they appear to be mixed. Some really, really hated it while others really, really loved it. Some comments have said Outlaw is basically L.A. Law: 2010. I, personally, think that's wrong. Smits' Outlaw character, Cyrus Garza and his L.A. Law character, Victor Sifuentes aren't the same man and I don't think it's fair to look at this show and see Sifuentes instead of Garza.
As for my personal opinion of the show: was it everything I was expecting it to be? Not really. Was I disappointed with it? I can't say that I was. Personally, I'm on the fence right now. I didn't love it and I didn't hate it. I hate to judge a show on a single episode (unless it's really, really bad or really, really good) so I'll be sticking with Outlaw for a few more weeks, at the very least. I felt that Smits was in top form (as he always is in my most humble opinion) in Outlaw and it was such a pleasure to see him back on television that I'm looking forward to watching more of the show for him alone.
Outlaw airs on Friday nights at 10:00 p.m. (9:00 p.m. Central) on NBC.
For more information:
NBC Official Site: http://www.nbc.com/outlaw/
Internet Movie Database: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1592226/combined
TV Rage: http://www.tvrage.com/Outlaw
US Television: Outlaw, Episode 1.1, Pilot
Outlaw
Season One, Episode One, Pilot
Original Air Date: September 15, 2010
Gregory Beales, a man on death row has one last hope of saving his life for a murder he claims he didn't commit. His attorney makes a case for a stay of execution to the Supreme Court and Justice Cyrus Garza grants the stay despite warnings not to. At the same time he grants the stay, Garza resigns from the Supreme Court shocking everyone, including his staff. Garza gathers his team to work the Beales case so that the justice he believes Beale was originally denied will finally prevail.
Supreme Court Justice Cyrus Garza (Jimmy Smits) is the most conservative justice on the Supreme Court who has a penchant for gambling and the ladies. Garza's father, Francisco Garza, was also a judge but the complete opposite of his son. Cyrus is in trouble with his bookie to the tune of a half million dollars and we all know that isn't a good thing.
Garza's staff is made up of young, bright and driven individuals. Lucinda Pearl (Carly Pope) is the private investigator working for him. She's pretty cool. She's young, intelligent, outspoken and has a wild streak. Eddie Franks (Jesse Bradford) is Garza's clerk. He's Yale-educated and straight-laced and seems to be Lucinda Pearl's favorite person to tease. Mereta Stockman (Ellen Woglom) is sort of the female equivalent of Franks and the exact opposite of Pearl. Rounding out Garza's staff is Al Druzinsky (David Ramsey), Beales attorney.
Mereta Stockman delivers one of this episodes more humorous moments. After overhearing part of the conversation between Cyrus and his bookie, she believes Cyrus to be dying. She blurts this information out in front of the rest of his staff and Beales family then proceeds to confess, in front of everyone, that she loves Cyrus. The moment is funny and awkward at the same time.
Based on information from Lucinda Pearl, Garza grants Beales his stay of execution because he believes the man is truly innocent. Garza does so despite being warned by Senator Vidalin (Richard Portnow) that if he doesn't vote the right way he will be impeached. Cyrus and his team dig into the Beales case and learn that Beales truly is innocent of the murder because he was in jail on an unrelated crime at the time the victim was murdered. After tracking down a hard-to-find witness, Rita Schmidt (Judith Lightfoot Clark), they get the piece of the puzzle they need to free their client and get the real murderer into custody.
But the celebration doesn't start there. While the rest of his team is enjoying a cookout to celebrate their win, Garza notices that someone is following him. His bookie has given him three months to pay the money he owes. He knows he's made many political enemies. Just who has sent the muscle after Garza remains to be seen.
As with Law & Order: UK, Outlaw is a show I didn't have any intentions of blogging about. I was going to watch it and be done with it. As I tried in vain to get to sleep last night, I kept thinking about the show (I guess it says something good about a show when you think about it instead of sleeping?) and decided to blog it. For a little while, at least. NBC aired a sneak peak of the first episode of Outlaw on Wednesday, September 15, 2010. Conan O'Brien is one of the executive producers of Outlaw.
I've been a fan of Jimmy Smits for a while now. I loved him in L.A. Law (where are the season sets of that show on DVD, 20th Century Fox??) and various films. When I read that he was returning to television in a new show I jotted it down and counted the days until it premiered.
I've read some reviews and viewer comments around the Internet today for Outlaw and they appear to be mixed. Some really, really hated it while others really, really loved it. Some comments have said Outlaw is basically L.A. Law: 2010. I, personally, think that's wrong. Smits' Outlaw character, Cyrus Garza and his L.A. Law character, Victor Sifuentes aren't the same man and I don't think it's fair to look at this show and see Sifuentes instead of Garza.
As for my personal opinion of the show: was it everything I was expecting it to be? Not really. Was I disappointed with it? I can't say that I was. Personally, I'm on the fence right now. I didn't love it and I didn't hate it. I hate to judge a show on a single episode (unless it's really, really bad or really, really good) so I'll be sticking with Outlaw for a few more weeks, at the very least. I felt that Smits was in top form (as he always is in my most humble opinion) in Outlaw and it was such a pleasure to see him back on television that I'm looking forward to watching more of the show for him alone.
Outlaw airs on Friday nights at 10:00 p.m. (9:00 p.m. Central) on NBC.
For more information:
NBC Official Site: http://www.nbc.com/outlaw/
Internet Movie Database: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1592226/combined
TV Rage: http://www.tvrage.com/Outlaw
Season One, Episode One, Pilot
Original Air Date: September 15, 2010
Gregory Beales, a man on death row has one last hope of saving his life for a murder he claims he didn't commit. His attorney makes a case for a stay of execution to the Supreme Court and Justice Cyrus Garza grants the stay despite warnings not to. At the same time he grants the stay, Garza resigns from the Supreme Court shocking everyone, including his staff. Garza gathers his team to work the Beales case so that the justice he believes Beale was originally denied will finally prevail.
Supreme Court Justice Cyrus Garza (Jimmy Smits) is the most conservative justice on the Supreme Court who has a penchant for gambling and the ladies. Garza's father, Francisco Garza, was also a judge but the complete opposite of his son. Cyrus is in trouble with his bookie to the tune of a half million dollars and we all know that isn't a good thing.
Garza's staff is made up of young, bright and driven individuals. Lucinda Pearl (Carly Pope) is the private investigator working for him. She's pretty cool. She's young, intelligent, outspoken and has a wild streak. Eddie Franks (Jesse Bradford) is Garza's clerk. He's Yale-educated and straight-laced and seems to be Lucinda Pearl's favorite person to tease. Mereta Stockman (Ellen Woglom) is sort of the female equivalent of Franks and the exact opposite of Pearl. Rounding out Garza's staff is Al Druzinsky (David Ramsey), Beales attorney.
Mereta Stockman delivers one of this episodes more humorous moments. After overhearing part of the conversation between Cyrus and his bookie, she believes Cyrus to be dying. She blurts this information out in front of the rest of his staff and Beales family then proceeds to confess, in front of everyone, that she loves Cyrus. The moment is funny and awkward at the same time.
Based on information from Lucinda Pearl, Garza grants Beales his stay of execution because he believes the man is truly innocent. Garza does so despite being warned by Senator Vidalin (Richard Portnow) that if he doesn't vote the right way he will be impeached. Cyrus and his team dig into the Beales case and learn that Beales truly is innocent of the murder because he was in jail on an unrelated crime at the time the victim was murdered. After tracking down a hard-to-find witness, Rita Schmidt (Judith Lightfoot Clark), they get the piece of the puzzle they need to free their client and get the real murderer into custody.
But the celebration doesn't start there. While the rest of his team is enjoying a cookout to celebrate their win, Garza notices that someone is following him. His bookie has given him three months to pay the money he owes. He knows he's made many political enemies. Just who has sent the muscle after Garza remains to be seen.
As with Law & Order: UK, Outlaw is a show I didn't have any intentions of blogging about. I was going to watch it and be done with it. As I tried in vain to get to sleep last night, I kept thinking about the show (I guess it says something good about a show when you think about it instead of sleeping?) and decided to blog it. For a little while, at least. NBC aired a sneak peak of the first episode of Outlaw on Wednesday, September 15, 2010. Conan O'Brien is one of the executive producers of Outlaw.
I've been a fan of Jimmy Smits for a while now. I loved him in L.A. Law (where are the season sets of that show on DVD, 20th Century Fox??) and various films. When I read that he was returning to television in a new show I jotted it down and counted the days until it premiered.
I've read some reviews and viewer comments around the Internet today for Outlaw and they appear to be mixed. Some really, really hated it while others really, really loved it. Some comments have said Outlaw is basically L.A. Law: 2010. I, personally, think that's wrong. Smits' Outlaw character, Cyrus Garza and his L.A. Law character, Victor Sifuentes aren't the same man and I don't think it's fair to look at this show and see Sifuentes instead of Garza.
As for my personal opinion of the show: was it everything I was expecting it to be? Not really. Was I disappointed with it? I can't say that I was. Personally, I'm on the fence right now. I didn't love it and I didn't hate it. I hate to judge a show on a single episode (unless it's really, really bad or really, really good) so I'll be sticking with Outlaw for a few more weeks, at the very least. I felt that Smits was in top form (as he always is in my most humble opinion) in Outlaw and it was such a pleasure to see him back on television that I'm looking forward to watching more of the show for him alone.
Outlaw airs on Friday nights at 10:00 p.m. (9:00 p.m. Central) on NBC.
For more information:
NBC Official Site: http://www.nbc.com/outlaw/
Internet Movie Database: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1592226/combined
TV Rage: http://www.tvrage.com/Outlaw
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