User Reviews

("Son. Yes, your father cheated on me but that's because that's just the type of man he was. He had too much love for it to be restricted to his family. No, he didn't give you the attention he should have, but don't judge him."

"Dear Son, I never showed you the love you deserved. That's because I put all my feeling into my music. That's just the way I am. Don't judge me."

"John, your father might have ignored you, but he wrote that he loved you... in a song. So much love! Now you know. Don't judge him."

"Everyone, I spent my life being angry at my father because he didn't act like a father toward me. But now I've realized that, as well as loving everyone else, he did secretly love me and my mother. So I won't judge him."

Happy faces, laughter and love all around - no judgement.

The End.)

From the above, I hope it's evident just how I feel about seeing TV and film writers smugly trot out this garbage again and again, excusing the behaviour of philandering, too-selfish-to-parent-their-children scum. The very title of the episode gives their BS away!

Murder as the basis of a show, I can accept - and love! It's (thankfully) such an alien concept to most people that we can accept it as the basis for entertaining mystery shows and films. But common-place behaviour which, in real life, breaks up so many families and traumatizes so many children for their rest of their lives should not forever be getting the shallow, patronizing, sugar-coated Hollywood treatment. How many times do you think anyone has actually ever said, "He cheats, but he always comes back to me, and that's all that matters" and meant it? Or, "Dad never had any time or affection for his family, but I know he loved us down deep inside, so it's had no effect on my adult life at all"?)

Okay. Had to get that off my chest. As to the rest of the episode, I found it only okay. We never met the first victim and the second is someone we hardly know and who turns out to have been killed merely for having been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Worst of all, the eventual killer might as well have had "Murderer" stamped on his forehead from the moment he first appeared.

I'm also not really liking the new season 8 Jessica, whom Angela Lansbury apparently spent years fighting to get onscreen. Strong, confident, assertive? No problem. The problem arises when the character is a civilian who's poking their nose into police cases so strongly, confidently, and assertively .

Suspension of disbelief worked when Jessica was shrewdly and (more or less) discretely investigating crimes. But now she seems to be ordering everyone around, including the police, and generally acting like she herself is a senior police officer and has some official mandate to involve herself in everything. For me, this at once makes her less likeable and destroys the suspension of disbelief.

Still, early days. I'll try and give it the rest of the season to see if I get used to the new style, or if they tweak it a bit, or if the stories really impress me before deciding whether to carry on with the remaining seasons.

I'll take this episode from New Orleans and leave it to rot in the lone star state.