“Myth of Fingerprints” (Season 12 review)
By Hank74
Lennie-10/10
Ed-10/10
Van Buren-10/10
Jack-10/10
Serena-8/10
Nora-9/10
Supporting Cast-9/10
Plot-9/10
Performance-9/10
Value-9/10
Total Grade-93/100 or a solid A.
Notes:
Sometimes when you see the promo for an ep a week before it airs, those 30
seconds are so good and convincing that the entire 60 minutes will be good and
convincing. "Myth of Fingerprints" fits this very well.
I was considering going through another one of my comparisons, particularly
involving Van Buren with "Competence" and this ep, but I don't see
the point since they deal with two different issues. "Competence"
dealt with the personal aspects of Van Buren, "Myth of Fingerprints"
was more of a professional nature. Whichever ep it is, both gave Van Buren a
great stage to perform on and displayed her abilities and talents. I only
wished TPTB did at least one more of these kind of eps for Cragen in addition
to "The Blue Wall." But he has made up for it with SVU.
One thing that makes me wonder. Who would have been the ADA prosecuting this
case the first time? Could it have been Dianne Hawthorne from
"Trophy" or Charlie Harmon from "Shadow"? It would have
been more interesting to see this ep go into the "Order" side from
ten years ago and see if there was any accomplices to this scheme.
This was a great ep in that it dealt with the reliability of forensic
technicians and how their judgment could be clouded sometimes by things they
don't want to see. This is the first time an important group on L&O over
the years, the techs, has been in the spotlight. They passed this test. I'd
like to see Mr. Wolf and company do something on ballistics, the ME,
handwriting experts, etc.
One thing has baffled me all these years. Are the ME's like Rodgers separate
from those who give the detectives info on fingerprints on a gun or blood
stains on clothing? I know ballistics is another agency, but do people like
Russo and Rodgers work for the same department or are they separate? I have to
pay attention more to the older eps to see.
This was a great episode in terms of keeping us informed of the current crime
and the past crime. In essence, the second part was a replay of the original
crime that led to this. I would have been interested to see Van Buren take the
stand and/or the riding ADA on this. A little more could have been done for the
final part, but the ending with Lennie consoling Van Buren and her then
confronting Russo made that up.
Finally, I do think that Nora has a point when saying that the system needs to
have standards and any past problems need to be cleaned up.