Detectives Logan and Barek discover a string of homicides are being carried out by former foster kids.Detectives Logan and Barek discover a string of homicides are being carried out by former foster kids.Detectives Logan and Barek discover a string of homicides are being carried out by former foster kids.
Photos
- Paula Chopauer
- (as Marsha Dietlein Bennett)
- Det. Kandell
- (as Ed Blunt)
- Cousin Chet
- (as muMs)
- Floyd Bolton
- (as Mohamed Dione)
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaCo-stars Chris Noth and Whoopi Goldberg share a birthday: November 13th. To the day, Chris Noth is one year older than Whoopi.
- GoofsThere would be no logical reason to arraign the only witness to the crimes with the other defendants, especially if the defendants were being charged with violent offenses and had alleged murdered another one of their criminal cohort.
- Quotes
Detective Mike Logan: What, you're going?
Detective Carolyn Barek: Well, yeah. Sleep, remember?
Detective Mike Logan: You live all the way in Brooklyn. My place is right down the street.
Detective Carolyn Barek: [gives him a wary look]
Detective Mike Logan: I'll take the couch.
[smirks]
Detective Carolyn Barek: I don't believe you got a
[searches for appropriate word]
Detective Carolyn Barek: couch that big.
Detective Mike Logan: Yeah, maybe not.
- ConnectionsReferences Caddyshack (1980)
Of which her performance in "To the Bone" is one of them, will come to that later. Of all of Logan and Barek's episodes, "To the Bone" is in my view the best and a Season 5 standout. Not just the episode itself, but also it's the episode where both Logan and Barek are at their most interesting individually and also together). It's not quite flawless, but nearly everything works and the best of the components are exceptional in execution. One of those episodes that is once seen and never forgotten.
Do agree with everybody that has said that "To the Bone" ends too abruptly and has too much of an incomplete feel. Agree even more so that it would have been even better in two parts to give the amount of content there is here more time to breathe and because it did feel like there was even more to the story.
"To the Bone" excels exceptionally everywhere else. As ever, the photography and such are fully professional, the slickness still remaining. The music is used sparingly and is haunting and non-overwrought when it is used, and it's mainly used when a crucial revelation or plot development is revealed. The direction has some nice tension while keeping things steady, without going too far the other way.
Some of the season's best writing in my view is here in "To the Bone". It takes no prisoners while also approaching the subject tactfully enough at the same time. The dialogue really does provoke thought and has a lot of tension, more so than most episodes of Season 5, tension that really blisters. The "ripped from the headlines"-like story (with allusions of the Charles Manson killings and the Harvey family home invasion) is exciting, tense, chills the blood and moves the heart. From as early on as the truly harrowing opening and the sheer brutality of the crimes. It really helps that the conflict is a long way from bland, the complete opposite of that. The conflict was actually really quite terrifying in a way not seen in any of the previous Season 5 episodes to this extent.
Logan's character writing here is the closest the season comes to capturing the Logan of the original 'Law and Order'. Barek is at her most interesting here too, some great perceptions but she is far from being too subdued and shows loyalty and care. The two work really well together. Watkins is a fascinating and surprisingly complex character that really unnerves the viewer, and the other reviewers are right with her being the equivalent of her being Logan's version of Nicole Wallace. Chris Noth and Annabella Sciorra are both excellent but it's unforgettably terrifying Goldberg (showing a completely different side that one wouldn't know existed looking at her previous work) that one most remembers.
In conclusion, a truly wonderful episode that should have lasted longer or been in two parts. 9/10
- TheLittleSongbird
- Jan 7, 2021