Prejudice (Season 12 Review)
By Hank74
Lennie-10/10
Ed-10/10
Van Buren-9/10
Jack-10/10
Serena-8/10
Nora-8/10
Supporting Cast-8/10
Plot-7/10
Performance-8/10
Value-7/10
Total Grade-85/100
Notes:
This was the first episode that was taped after Sept. 11. You should have noticed
the American flag pin which Jack had on his jacket. Also there were mentions of
the attacks from Serena and Jack in his closing. In the "Law" part,
whenever Lennie and Ed went to a site, you could tell the American flags being
waved and hung on buildings and cars.
I think this episode was done as L&O's way of dealing with the aftermath of
9/11. Some others hit shows have done this with mixed reviews. Obviously, Mr.
Wolf stated that there would no episode directly devoted to 9/11 and only done
in passing. So they took the route of exploring the possibility of racism being
a mental disease and giving us a theory as to why we have seen the kind of
racism exist today, especially since Sept. 11. That would be due to fear of
particular groups.
From what I saw in this ep, Mr. Wolf and company decided to take a conservative
route in presenting this ep. Obviously they wanted to get the main point across
without going overboard. It was interesting to see racism being classified as a
mental disease. L&O has dealt with racism since day one, but never in this
fashion. I was expecting a little more discussion on the subject on the
"Order" side. But I give them the benefit of the doubt given this was
the first ep produced after 9/11. That's why I tried to be reasonable in my
grade.
Two episodes from the past immediately come to mind for me. The first would be
"Rage," because it was the only other time where racism was used in
the context of mental disorder, only in reverse with Bud Greer claiming he was
the victim of racism and hence had to kill Holbrook. But I think this ep is
more in tune with "Profile" because Arthur Tunney, though not
admitting any mental disorder, claimed to be fearful of minorites due to what
happened to his mother and hence felt justified in killing all those people.
On the plus side, we're getting to see more interaction between Nora and Serena
in particular. There is no question that Nora is to the left of the spectrum
while Serena has taken over the political right position from Abby. Wonder if
Nora was thinking about putting in a black second chair in this one as she
attempted to do in "3 Dawg Night."
Again I wished more could have been done to give this ep some additional spice.
Though Archer was great, it would have been more interesting if the defendant
hired a black attorney. What about bringing back James Earl Jones as Horace
McCoy. That would have been perfect, McCoy v. McCoy. Or perhaps have this case
assigned to a black judge and see if Archer or his client would have asked
him/her to recuse themselves due to supposed bias. I was even thinking about
jury selection and see what positions Archer would have taken. There is so much
more that could have been done. To me, this ep was just ice cream with no
whipped cream and no cherry on top.