Homicide Rewatch: The City That Bleeds

 

Written by :Julie Martin and Jorge Zamacona; story by James Yoshimura and Bonnie Mark

Directed by Tim Hunter

 

30^th Anniversary

Tom Fontana was no stranger to having critically acclaimed shows that struggled for ratings. As the force behind St. Elsewhere it had been ‘on the bubble’ every year from its first season to its last. One of the buffers for it had been the fact that it annually received a multitude of Emmy nominations and awards every season it was on the air: it was nominated for Best Drama every year (though it never won) and it won twelve Emmys during that period.

In January of 1995 Fontana was in the same position with Homicide. However there were two major differences. First while Homicide had received a huge critical response from the moment it debuted, Emmy nominations had not been forthcoming the same way they had for St. Elsewhere. (This would be the biggest blunder of the Emmys during the 1990s; bigger and more obvious ones were still to come for Fontana and David Simon sadly.) Second while NBC’s fortunes had been poor when Homicide had debuted in January of 1994, by January of 1995 it was a whole new ballgame: NBC now had the number one rated show on television in ER and Must-See TV, which had been a joke nickname when it had been given, was now a statement of fact when it came to the network’s prime time lineup as a whole. That rising tide had not lifted Homicide, however, and the network had no reason to keep a show that was going to rank 88^th out of 146 shows by the end of the season.

Drastic measures were called for, and it meant compromising. Fontana and members of the casts would later grouse about how in order to get more people to watch they would have to violate their rules of integrity. To have shootouts and detectives firing their guns was anathema to the kind of series Fontana and his writers had been trying to make all this time. The problem was NBC had allowed the writers a lot of leeway for Homicide during its first two and a half years and by and large the viewing public had yawned. They needed to get eyeballs watching the series soon. And that meant, as they would grimly joke, that they had to kill it.

You almost think the writers are hinting at that when they chose to title this episode “The City That Bleeds”. It’s almost like they’re saying to themselves: “Fine, we have to give them violence. We’ll give those peons violence.” But as anyone who watches this episode or the next two of the three-parter, the writers didn’t really compromise though they will no doubt go to their graves sure of it. The thing about police shootings on TV, then and now, is that there is a rule and it will be followed. They will find the killer at the end of the episode. Said killer will receive a horrific beatdown if they aren’t killed outright. Meanwhile the majority of the detectives will spend their time alternating between the bedsides of the wounded and tearing up the streets. There will be moments of introspection between the families of the victims and the detectives. And eventually the ones who have survived will wake up and know justice is done.

That isn’t how Homicide does things even when it does (by their standards) a conventional storyline. There are visits to the hospital during the next few episodes to be sure but by and large everybody’s out on the street. It is a red ball to be sure but the detectives spend the first two episodes on what will amount to a wild goose chase. At that point the bosses will stop allowing for overtime and the support becomes less interested. In the third episode the detectives will come upon a suspect for the shooting but while they suspect he does it (and we really think he did) we come away with no confirmation one way or the other. And while we do get a measure of vengeance to resolve things, we get no closure one way or the other and we come away actually more uneasy about the moral compass of the squad then we have at any point in the series so far.

The episode rewrites the rules of Season 3. Until this point the opening teasers have mostly been for comic effect with nothing real consequential happening of note. So we expect something similar here. Munch is teasing Bolander about his hangover and saying that Stan started table dancing at the Waterfront ‘last night’ (See Notes From The Board for the implications to continuity.) Munch comes in with Bolander and the search warrant for one Glenn Holton, the suspect in the murder of an eight year old boy named Billy Borkin. Howard is the primary on this case and she and Felton are waiting. (Felton teases Stan about where his grass skirt is and Stan tells him where to stick it.) Holton is a two-time sex offender and a pedophile. He is suspected of strangling an eight year old boy which makes him primo for the death penalty. (Stan says: “I wish” with good reason: as we’ll see later this year the state of Maryland doesn’t use capital punishment that often.)

They go in, put on their Kevlar and walk into the apartment building. Howard insists on going in first as the primary, Felton pretends to be a gentleman. They’re about to knock on the door. We’ve seen footsteps before and then we hear a creak. Howard shouts: “Police! Freeze!” We see the gun fire, and we see (tastefully by 1995 standards) the bullets impact. Then we see Howard, Felton and Bolander fall down and Munch staggering. “Ten-thirteen! Ten Thirteen!” Munch shouts is despair. In Maryland that’s code for officer down.

This episode and the three that follow will spend a lot of time in Maryland Shock Trauma. The opening sequence after the credits as the detectives we’ve gotten to know and love over the last two years are taken out of ambulances, stripped up their clothes and are under the care of surgeon who make it very clear how bad things are looking. In the squad Gee tells the detectives – who are joking and tossing a football – that they have detectives down. It’s a red ball and Frank is the primary. Giardello tells Russert to set up a command post and tells her: “Stan, Kay and Beau have been shot.” The way Giardello pauses before he says Beau’s name and looks at Russert is the first implication that Al is aware of Russert and Felton’s affair. He doesn’t mention it then or indeed while this crisis is going on. (It will come up in the following season.)

When the remaining detectives go to the apartment building they get their first hint as to why things happened the way they did. The detectives went to Apartment 201 believing that was where Holton was but the landlord tells them Holton was in 210. They make the natural assumption that Holton was waiting for the detectives, went upstairs to lie in wait and shot the detectives. While searching the apartment they find conclusive evidence that Holton killed Billy Borkin but that’s now the least of their concerns.

A shooting does bring out the people who care and in this case, it happens in the squad. During the first season we heard Bolander grouse to Munch over and over that Mitch Drummond was the only partner he ever had. Now for the first time we meet Mitch, who has been working in the bomb squad for the last few years. He says he’ll work on his own time to help the squad and that he owes it to Stan. The writers get away with this ply to other cop shows by pointing out this is a red ball and they’ll need all the help they get.

The other major loaner is Teresa Walker from Sex Crimes. (Gloria Reuben was only a guest star on ER during its first season and was available to co-star for this three episode arc.) The first African-American woman we’ve seen on the Baltimore PD in any form, Reuben brings a different kind of dynamic than she would to Jeanie Boulet the role that would bring her an Emmy nomination this same year. Jeanie’s character is known for empathy and sympathy; Teresa Walker is something of a bad-ass who will not even take guff from Frank Pembleton.

Both new characters bring a fresh dynamism to this veteran squad. Over the last season none of the detectives from Russert’s shift have either made an impact or seem very good at their jobs, so it’s refreshing to see two new characters get to show their skill in a way we haven’t before. Drummond’s interrogation of a sex shop owner is particularly impressive and the way Walker maneuvers through the world of this kind of sexual deviancy is remarkable in her fearlessness. It’s an interesting contrast with what we’ll later see in shows like Law & Order: SVU where we will see how detectives like Olivia Benson and Eliot Stabler have lost themselves in the darkness of their job almost from the end of the first season. Walker by contrast is fresh and refuses to  talk to any of these ugly characters as if they are anything less than human beings, even though they’re contemptible. She also does so with a remarkable bit of sarcasm which one rarely sees on those shows.

The investigation is, like everything else, secondary to the human drama which plays out in two different areas. Munch spends the entire episode at the hospital and the episode shows Belzer as we’ve never seen him. We see him frantic at the start, trying to figure out just what went wrong. Then he sits down and says: “They’ve made a mess of my shoes.” Then in a detached fashion he wipes it off and in tears says: “Their blood’s on my shoes.” We’ve never seen Munch this close to losing it. Then we see his snark later on when Gee asks about Stan but it’s angry in a way it hasn’t been first. He remarks about how they say, ‘in coma’ but when Gee starts to say, “When will he wake up?”

“You said when. The doctors, the nurses, they all say when. He got shot the head. It’s ‘if’ he wakes up. I say ‘if’ they start getting nervous.”

Gee then makes Munch go home and that he’ll call him if Stan wakes up. (He automatically corrects.) Giardello spends his time in the hospital being the pillar of strength he always is first when Beth Felton and the Felton children show up, then when Howard’s father and brother show up. He stays strong when we’re told that while Felton got away with minor wounds, Bolander has a bullet in the head and they have to wait to see and Howard got a bullet in the heart and her condition is critical.

He holds it together when Lewis shows up and tells him why they went to the wrong door. It was a clerical error, nothing sinister but Gee wants to do something demands the woman’s name and wants to make sure she gets fired and never works for the city again. Then he can’t find his car in the parking lot and Meldrick starts driving him back to the squad.

Lewis shows his mettle in this episode by being exactly what Gee needs right when he needs: he knows exactly what to say and more importantly when to say nothing. Eventually Al gets out of the car and walks off and tells us the story of his daughter Charisse. This is the first time we’ve heard Al talk about his children at all and in typical Homicide fashion its absolutely heartbreaking, a story of how Charisse at six suffered an undiagnosable illness and how she pleaded with him: “Daddy make it better.” We don’t need a road map to see how powerless Gee feels now.

For most of the episode Frank is no different then he’s always been, calm, unemotional, refusing to feel anything. He is utterly focused on doing his job and nothing else. Even after Al confronts him on when this will hit him, he just walks off. It’s only when the details of the raid on Penn Station for Holton seem to be getting away from him that he starts to flail. Bayliss knows enough to pull his partner off. For the first time we see how Frank judges this: “It’s my investigation! It’s my case!” We see Frank has been detaching himself from the real life horrors by focusing on locking up the man responsible. It’s only when Bayliss points out that while Frank is the primary this is not just his case. It’s as close as he comes to letting it hit him in this episode.

The episode also shows the signs of a media circus: the reporters from local TV are surrounding the station, already trying to turn this into a story. (The title of the episode is in fact a play of the slogan for the Baltimore Sun: The City That Reads.) It almost seems like the reporters have assumed the detectives are dead because it will make a better story.

And the episode gives absolutely no resolution at the end of it. We’re giving a cinematic chase scene in what is a raid on Baltimore’s Penn Station, a place where Holton will be. But the raid shows the detectives have come too late and that Holton has disappeared. The episode doesn’t end with a bang but simply tells us what we already know, reported by Bonfather.

It's kind of fitting that the last image is of Russert turning off the TV after Bonfather gives his press briefing. She knows that for all the kind words he said when he showed up in her office that’s only going to last so long and they’re going to be circling their wagons. So she turns off the briefing with the knowledge that the real work is about to begin.

 

 

 

NOTES FROM THE BOARD:

In a ranking by fans by Court TV in 1999, this episode ranked thirteenth all time.

 

Not by the Book: I’m not the kind of person who nitpicks details the way most fans do and Homicide isn’t the kind of show where that really matters. However every so often for a show that pays such attention to detail the show does let one of those details slip. And this storyline is the first one.

Why has it taken so long from the board to flip from 1994 to 1995? Starting with Every Mother’s Son (and chronologically Nothing Personal) the episodes have been airing in January 1995. Furthermore in All Through the House, it was Christmas of 1994. The show even mentioned that we were in January in the previous episode. So why has it taken until now for the squad to start investigating murders in 1995?

It's not clear just how much time has passed between Partners and the start of this episode. There’s an implication by the Previously on Homicide opening that the action of the bar opening took place yesterday. However if you freeze frame, the board was still at 1994 last night. And when we see the Borkin case erased and changed to black, it will be clear that it is at least the 46^th murder of 1995. Baltimore may have a lot of murders but it’s hard to believe that many took place in just a few days. The more reasonable explanation is that it’s been a couple of months since the last episode (even though The City aired the week after Partners) and Homicide is not the kind of show where we have these kind of leaps and bounds.

I’m willing to forgive this blatant continuity error mainly because this was the first time in Homicide’s run it had to deal with it. Seasons 1 and 2 all took place in 1993 and when Season 3 began we were already in the middle of 1994. From this point forward Homicide will handle that transitions from one year to the next far more smoothly with no errors this obvious. That doesn’t mean there won’t be others going forward but…well, we’ll save that for when it comes.

Detective Munch: Nope, not today.

When Beth Felton shows up and makes it clear that she just showed up to make sure Beau was okay, this is the final proof that the Felton marriage is over. Felton will realize as much in the next episode.

First Appearance: Rhonda Overby as Dawn Daniels, one of the major reporters for Baltimore local news. (Although she won’t be named Dawn Daniels for a while.)

Hey, Isn’t That…Tony Lo Bianco worked in television before bursting onto the scene in the cult hit The Honeymoon Killers and playing Sal in The French Connection. He constantly worked in television during the 1970s appearing as Tony Calabrese on Police Story, Quintilius in Jesus of Nazareth and the title role in Marciano. His most famous movie role was Johnny Roselli in Oliver Stone’s Nixon. He was a frequent off-Broadway performer. He also directed several television episodes in the 1970s as well as the horror movie Too Scared to Scream. He died in June of 1984 at the age of 87.

Gloria Reuben was the second straight recurring character on Homicide that the produces offered a regular role on it who would later find fame in ER. However considering that she’d already appearing the latter series while doing her stint her, it’s hard to blame her.

Reuben has worked consistently in television over the past thirty years. She was regular on the first season of Lifetime’s 1-800-Missing, played Thelma Gieffrey in Tom Selleck’s Jesse Stone TV movies, had a role of Marina on the TNT drama Falling Skies and had a recurring role on Mr. Robot where she played Eliot’s therapist (a very dangerous job). She currently has  a recurring role as Claudia Payne on Elsbeth and has just played Michelle Sanders on the Amazon series The Better Sister.

 

 

 

 

 

Landmark TV Episode Anniversary Commemorations: X-Files – Anasazi 30th Anniversary

 

Travel back in time with me 30 years. In the spring of 1995, I was very gingerly dipping by toe into the world of prime time television. Much of it had took place during the early months of 1995.

Prior to this point the few prime time shows I watched were comedies and if I’m being honest my sister, younger by three years, was doing much of the leading. She was the one who watched such part of Must See TV as Mad About You and Friends first (not Seinfeld) and she also watched quite a bit of what was of ABC’s comedies, most of them in syndication from Full House to Growing Pains to The Wonder Years.

What little television I had watched to this period was genre TV and mostly syndicated: Star Trek: The Next Generation but also such lesser known but still intriguing IP as War of the Worlds and Friday THE 13^Th; the former connected to the 1953 film, the latter with no site of the Vorhees family. The first adult drama I ever watched was the first season of Picket Fences in the fall of 1993 and then a slow progression.

I wish I could tell you there was a method to my madness but there really wasn’t during that period: I enjoyed gems such as Frasier and trash just as Melrose Place, was intrigued by Lois & Clark but also liked the second season of The Critic. It was not until spring break of 1995 that I ended up watching, completely by accident, the opening teaser of an otherwise forgettable episode of The X-Files called ‘The Calusari’. A monster of the week and not a very good one, frankly. But it was enough.

Until then I had never watched an episode of The X-Files but I figured it was a show about monsters. The next episode I saw was a rerun of ‘Red Museum’ which made me think it was about government conspiracies. The next two episodes reinforced that but while I first met the Cigarette Smoking Man in the episode F. Emasculata, I had no idea of his significance. (I actually thought his character had a name back then and I’d just missed it in an earlier episode.) I knew nothing about aliens and certainly not the mythology.

Now I want you to imagine what it must have been like for a sixteen year old teenage boy to watch ‘Anasazi’ for the first time in May of 1995. I didn’t know anything about the government conspiracy or the aliens involved in it. I knew nothing of Scully’s abduction or, for that matter, what had happened to Mulder’s sister. And I would have had no idea what landmark television was. What I did know after watching ‘Anasazi’ and seeing the final images was that this was going to be a series I was going to be following the fall.

Now in 1995 there was no such thing as streaming or even DVDs but network television did something back then that this generation of viewers would be stunned by. During the summers they would rerun most, if not all, of the season that had just past. (            Well, not for every show: Melrose Place and Homicide never got that treatment.) I spent much of my Fridays in the summer of 1995 devouring every rerun of The X-Files I saw. I did the same with Lois & Clark and I would engage in a similar pattern with many other series for much of the rest of my teenage years and well into my twenties. This was how I ended up getting involved with such classics of the 1990s as Chicago Hope, The Practice, and many other comedies and dramas right up until the first seasons of Lost and Ugly Betty. I engaged in similar practices for other series I missed the majority of over the next several years, including the first seasons of Buffy, Smallville and even with cable dramas such as Oz, The Sopranos and The Wire. (I actually continued this pattern with some cable dramas over the rest of the 2000s: I think the last one I did was Big Love.)

In a sense The X-Files was more amenable to the structure of reruns than other mythology series would be. Because of its Monster of the Week format being front and center, I got a picture of the series very well by seeing most of the second season in reruns. It helped immensely that the show had critically upped its game during this period; I’m not sure if the first season would have been enough for me to keep watching. (Full disclosure: I didn’t see the entire first season until 2001 by which point the show was all but over.) Fortunately The X-Files didn’t start doing its serialized stories until the second season. More fortunately among the ones I saw during that period were the ones that showed the abduction of Scully and all the repercussions.

But I didn’t know that when I saw Anasazi in May of 1995. So it says something not just about the ability of Chris Carter as a writer and the work of the entire cast that I could appreciate this episode for what it was in 1995 as being riveting television. Usually a season finale is not the best episode to serve as a gateway for becoming a permanent fan; I can’t imagine anyone seeing the season finale of any cable drama that followed – even the first season finales of The Sopranos or Mad Men – that would be enough to make the casual viewer want to watch next season. And it wasn’t the kind of thing that most dramas of that era could pull off: I’m not sure the average season finale for Law & Order or ER could make you do that; I know because I watched more than a few at the time and they didn’t draw me in. (I didn’t become fans of either show until they were deep into syndication.)

But Anasazi isn’t any season finale. TV Guide once ranked it among the greatest season and series finales of all time: (it was in 2009 but there were fifty episodes among them) and fans of the show consider it arguably the greatest season finale The X-Files ever did. In fairness that says less about Anasazi and more for the declining quality of each successive season finale where the cliffhangers had to work harder to generate suspense as the mythology became more ponderous and more complicated with less hope that Carter would be able to tie things up by next fall. Anasazi has that vitality and freshness thirty years later because while each successive finale kept making the cliffhangers about the alien conspiracy, Anasazi makes it all about Mulder and Scully first and puts the aliens and everything else in the background until the very end of the episode.

One of the few places in Monster of the Week where I am in conflict with the writers is with Zach Handler’s review of ‘Anasazi.’ In it he claims this is an episode where the show is at a crossroads. “The writers can either begin wrapping up the mythology they’ve established…or they can expand outward from what’s established and add another story to the house of cards. They unfortunately choose the latter.”

To be fair Handler is making a criticism that every fan has with the mythology: was there ever a point when it could have been satisfactorily wrapped up? Both Handler and his co-writer (now Emily St. James) will make a convincing argument that the last time the mythology was completely satisfying was in Season 3 and having rewatched the series several times its hard for me to argue with them there. The fault, as always, must be laid at the feet of Chris Carter who never had an outline for the mythology as well for the enormous success of the series which as it became the phenomena it was made the writers have to keep pushing back whatever end game they had further and further and keeping making the house of cards shakier and shakier.

So while I think his critique of Anasazi is unfair I understand why he makes it. It would sadly become a tradition of The X-Files with each successive season finale to introduce an element of the mythology that Carter (who wrote every season finale) to introduce a person or element that changed everything for our heroes! – and by the time the new season began Carter and his writers would entirely restore the status quo. (More horrendously he did it with all three episodes that were supposed to be the series finale but ended with absolutely no closure for the fans.)

Anasazi does have certain elements of it to be sure. In the early moments of the episode Mulder is handed the MJ Files which supposedly have all the secrets of our government and the aliens since the end of the Second World War. But the reason Anasazi works infinitely better than the majority of the season finales that follows is that for almost the entire episode this is secondary to the human drama that’s going on. And for perhaps the only time Carter decides to keep Mulder and Scully front and center rather than use it as an excuse just to bring in all the series regulars we’ve met. And the few we do see are only there to be seen through our heroes.

When the Lone Gunmen show up on Mulder’s doorstep, he seems a bit off than usual. “Defaced any library books lately?” That’s the first sign that Mulder isn’t his normal sardonic itself. Indeed he spends the majority of the episode depressed and far more prone to anger then we’re used to seeing him. He turns into a fury when he thinks the secrets to the universe are a trick, punches Skinner when he tries to talk to him, is barely even civil with Scully. Even the thought of being kicked out of the bureau barely races a reaction from him. When he finally turns on Scully after the halfway point, the viewer has every reason to believe Mulder has finally lost it. He’s never been the most stable individual and even in the few episodes I’d seen up to this point, it was clear his frustration with his job has him simmering. The idea that Mulder might have finally cracked seemed very plausible after just five episodes; I imagine those who stuck with the show from the start thought it very likely.

So when Scully reveals to Mulder in the final act of the episode that for the last month the water supply to his building has been dosed with a major drug, it’s almost a relied that there’s an explanation for Mulder’s behavior. This is a clear triumph for Duchovny as well. Looking back on the first season it seems clear that Gillian Anderson nailed Scully from the word go but Duchovny was erratic when it came to Mulder, sometimes brilliant, but still finding his way. A huge part of the reason for the second season’s exponential improvement in quality is because from the season premiere on, Duchovny seemed to have figured out the intricacies of Mulder and has become far more subtle. It would have been easy for him to go over-the-top. Instead he underplays it and it makes his work so believable it’s almost disturbing.

The bigger revelation in this episode isn’t the MJ files or even what we find in the climax (though that does come close) but for the meeting between the Smoking Man and Bill Mulder. Mulder’s sister has been the lynchpin for his obsession going forward (Samantha actually isn’t mentioned by anyone in this episode) but this is the first time that Carter makes it clear that the connection goes deeper than that. That Bill Mulder clearly knows more about the conspiracy then he’s ever told his son is a very radical move. (It also gives the first solid explanation as to why Fox hasn’t been killed yet.)

The scene between Fox and his father (played by the superb character actor Peter Donat) is exceptionally well done. I didn’t know the details about the Mulder family when I first saw this episode but I could pick up on the awkwardness between father and son even then. It’s clear he wants to unburden himself of his guilt, so I while its shocking that Krycek shows up in Bill’s shower to kill him, it’s hardly surprising. And when Fox holds his dying father in his arms it’s clear at the ruthlessness of the conspiracy in a way it just wasn’t before. I would later learn the lengths of Smoking Man’s evil even by this point but the fact that he is willing to talk to a man one minute, order his killing the next, and at the end of the episode use him as a cudgel over the man’s son shows how cold he is.

Anasazi is also the first episode that really makes it clear just how far CSM’s power is. For two seasons we’ve known he has influence in the FBI, that he gives orders to assassins and that he can walk through the halls of government buildings with critical evidence. But this episode is the first time we see that malevolence fully executed. In the opening sequence when the telephone calls go out about the MJ files being broken into, he takes a call from a German (answered fluently) and then says: “Gentlemen, that was the phone call I never wanted to get.” We see his oily charm mixed with dismay at the clearly alcoholic and depressed Bill Mulder. And in the final sequence he calls Fox on the phone and tells him that his father was never against the project. “In fact he authorized it.” It’s clearly a move done in order to trace the call and when we see him getting in a helicopter with men in camouflage we finally realize that his power is not just being able to smoke wherever he wants.

The episode also works because Scully is the one who has to guide Mulder through this. At this point in the series there’s no one else capable of recognizing that something is wrong with her partner including the fact that she can no longer talk him down the way she used to. She spends most of the episode doing the spadework, finding a translator for the files, realizing Mulder might be framed for the murder of his father, doing the ballistics work for him to prove his innocence (nearly taking a bullet for her work) learning that Mulder’s building is being dosed and in an action that will be a plot point from this forward shooting Mulder to stop him from killing Krycek.

By the end of the episode she has to explain to him everything that has happened to him and the nature of what’s in the files. The biggest revelation is not just about a series of tests the government has been doing – but that Scully’s name is in the latest entry, along with Duane Barry the man who abducted her. Bill Mulder’s killing made this personal for Fox, this confirms that for Scully she can’t go back either. And what happens next will be an open question. In saving Mulder she has missed a meeting with Skinner and her position at the Bureau may be forfeit.

What lifts the conspiracy to a whole other level is what Mulder finds in the desert. After everything we’ve gone through we’re almost relieved to find aliens again. But as Robert Sherman writes in Wanting to Believe in his five star rave of Anasazi:

…this isn’t business as usual. The realization that the alien corpses piled up there have smallpox vaccination marks, coupled with Scully’s information about experiments on humans, takes the series into new and darker areas. The implications are honestly chilling. And The X-Files suddenly seems less … escapism about the FBI chasing monsters, and something nastier and much angrier.

Indeed much of the reason the mythology will be so satisfying in Season 3 is because Carter will spend much of it leaning in to the idea that the conspiracy has nothing to do with aliens at all but something far more unsettling.

Now imagine watching all of this for the first time and seeing the Smoking Man climbing out of a military helicopter with soldiers and demanding they go into the boxcars. Imagine him sneering at an indigenous teenager for answers (which would be chilling no matter what race the boy was). Imagine the soldiers climbing out of the boxcar and saying Mulder isn’t in there. And then here a line we heard said by Albert Hosteen a few minutes earlier: “Nothing vanishes without a trace,” only delivered with something close to anger, followed by a dismissive “Burn it.” Then we see someone drop napalm into the boxcar and Smoking Man climb back in. We hear an explosion and a flame and as the chopper flies off, CSM lights up incuriously.

Intelligent viewers would know Mulder would be all right and at some level I knew it even at sixteen. But in 1995 cliffhangers were still not the season ending event they would become a few years later. By and large, though I didn’t know it yet, cliffhangers were almost the sole property of sci-fi dramas at the time (I don’t think network television began to fully embrace them until the early 2000s) and they were the kind of thing that made the average fan want more. I spent much of the summer watching every X-Files episode that was rerun and they gave me enough of a taste to realize what I’d been missing.

It took a while for me to become a more devoted fan but by November of 1995 I was fully committed to the X-Files, aliens and monsters and the idea that someday the writers would explain everything. It took me a long time to realize they had no idea what they were doing but it never eroded my love of the show then or now. And it did all start with Anasazi, a show that really did reveal The X-Files mission statement. The truth can’t be buried forever, but there are forces that will do anything they can to stop it from being unearthed.

 

Back to the Island Character Study Series, Part 2:The Conflict That Lifted Lost to The Pantheon of Great TV

 

In retrospect I think that the Emmys did a better job when it came to recognizing Lost both in terms of total nominations and overall wins. As I’ve repeatedly mentioned Lost’s original run was almost dead center in the first part of Peak TV’s period of great dramas and it’s frankly remarkable it did as well as it did. I would have preferred it had been nominated for Best Drama for its second and third seasons (having seen the competition it was superior to House and Grey’s Anatomy, which received nominations for Best Drama at the time) and I would have liked a few more acting nominations over its run (Elizabeth Mitchell and Josh Holloway in particular deserved recognition for their work) but by and large I was fundamentally fine with what it got from the Emmys during its six seasons on the air.

And where the Emmys absolutely got things right was that they gave more than appropriate recognition to the two actors whose work is not merely considered the highpoint of the show but much of television: Terry O’Quinn as John Locke and Michael Emerson as Ben Linus. Both received Emmys for Best Supporting Actor in a Drama (O’Quinn in 2007; Emerson in 2009) and both received the most nominations overall than any other performers in the cast: O’Quinn received three nominations overall and Emerson received four.

That they did as well as they did is even more remarkable when one considers the competition both men had to face during their tenure on the show; it wasn’t quite as hard as surviving battles with the Smoke Monsters but it was very nearly the TV equivalent. O’Quinn was up against The West Wing and The Sopranos at the start of his tenure as well as the powerhouse work of William Shatner on Boston Legal (Shatner beat him the first time O’Quinn was nominated). By the time Emerson was made a series regular for 2007, both men would have to go up against the work of John Slattery on Mad Men, Aaron Paul on Breaking Bad and the endless series of great supporting actors who were cast on Damages during the three seasons the two shows’ runs overlapped. When Emerson won in 2009, he was up against not just Paul, Slattery, Shatner, but William Hurt in Damages; in 2010 when both men were nominated they faced off against Paul (who deservedly won) Martin Short for Damages, Andre Braugher for Men of A Certain Age and Slattery – all more than worthy Candidates.

Both men were more than aware of how great the other’s work made them; when O’Quinn accepted his Emmy in 2007, he went out of his way to thank Emerson in particular and say how lucky he was to work with him. And indeed if you asked any fan of Lost to give a list of their favorite moments on the series, I guarantee you the majority of them would talk about scenes between Ben and Locke. This was held by both Stafford and both authors of Back to the Island and it’s impossible to disagree: in my own writings as early as 2009 I knew just how great their work was.

Ben and Locke were never part of the three official battles that Stafford claimed existing during Lost: Stafford arguing that Locke’s major opponent was Jack and that Ben’s was Charles Widmore. But every time I rewatch Lost I think by and large the show was more about the two of them than anything else. That might be a bit of a stretch considering Michael Emerson didn’t appear on Lost until Season 2 and wasn’t officially given the role as leader of the Others until Season 3 and (fifteen year old spoiler) Locke was dead by the end of Season 5.

Still I think there’s an argument for it, considering how similar both men were at the end of the day. I don’t just mean the many real similarities in their lives growing up and when they got to the island (Stafford provided a fairly comprehensive list in her Season Four compendium); I mean that of the regulars we followed for the majority of the series both men were disciples of the island and were willing to put it above everything else. This led them to be separate from the group throughout their lives: Locke always stood more apart from the survivors; Ben was the leader of the Others but he was always viewed with the kind of disdain by his followers the survivors viewed Locke. Both of them believed that they had been chosen by the island and that they were special. Both were more than willing to sacrifice every relationship they had in the name of protecting the island. In many ways both were the perfect candidates for what Jacob had planned for them.

But there was a critical difference between how both men approached the island and it clearly crackled. Locke loved the island and treated it with respect. He was always more genuine about his love for it and how special it was and that never changed during his entire run. Ben thought the island was special and remarkable but he never seemed that happy to be there the way John always was. His attitude always seemed to be darker, more cynical and quietly angrier about being there.

And there was always something very different about their natures that never seemed to fit. While John’s character would take a turn starting in Season 3 which shocked many of the initial fans of the character, there was always one constant. He would do anything for the island and that frequently led him to do horrible things but he always felt remorse. At the end of Season 1 he famously told Jack Boone was ‘the sacrifice the island demanded’ in beatific tones. But by the end of Season 2 it was clear he felt great remorse about Boone dying for his quest which he expressed to both Eko and Desmond by the end of the season.

Locke was capable of being violent at times but it was rare that he was willing to kill for the island. The few occasions he actually killed someone – Naomi at the end of Season 3, one of the Others while the island was jumping through time – he was doing so to protect the survivors who while he might not be a part of it, he didn’t want them to die. Even after he defected to the Others in the middle of Season 3, he still wanted to protect the survivors: he gave Sawyer the recording proving Juliet was a mole, his leadership in the Barracks in Season 4, while dictatorial was still protective and when he learned of the threat Keamy posed to the freighter he tried to talk to him first rather than attack him. It’s worth remembering Locke’s final act on the island was done in the name of helping the ones who were left behind and while he was being manipulated by greater forces, it was still a selfless action – particularly considering that the island meant more to him than anyone there.

Locke was never the kind of person who could kill if he stopped and thought about it, even if the person deserved it. When confronted with Anthony Cooper on the island, the man who had done everything to make his life a misery, he couldn’t bring himself to kill him. Even while he manipulated Sawyer into doing so, Sawyer asks why he didn’t do it and he said: “Because I can’t!” He wasn’t lying. And when Jack was about to call the freighter, he fired a shot at Jack’s feet but didn’t kill him the way he’d just killed Naomi moments earlier. (The next time they met Jack showed no such qualms and it was only because the gun was empty that Locke didn’t die.) Locke could be ruthless at times but he was never cold-blooded.

By contrast Ben Linus is famously described by Sayid in Season 5 as “a liar, a manipulator, a man who allowed his own daughter to be murdered to save himself, a monster responsible for nothing short of genocide.” Ben doesn’t deny this when he’s with Locke, only that he did so in the name of the island. That does little to change the fact that he is a sociopathic liar and an emotional torturer, preying on the vulnerabilities of everyone around him and using them to his own means. He has no problem sending people to their deaths: he does so over and over throughout the third season and he has no problem killing people himself, sometimes for cold-blooded reasons, sometimes in the heat of the moment. After Locke tries to parlay with Keamy at the end of Season 4, Ben first attacks him and then stabs him with his own knife. Locke’s first action is despair: “You just killed everyone on that boat.” Ben’s reaction is chilling: “So?”

Even if you consider that Keamy killed his daughter just a few days earlier Ben’s actions are still utterly coldblooded. He stands over Keamy’s body and waits for him to breathe his last (Locke’s still trying futilely to save him) and the moment Keamy dies goes about his business to move the island without the slightest bit of remorse about all the innocent lives who have just been lost as a result of his actions. In a sense much of this is negating in his final actions on the island: he knows that the person who moves the island can never come back and that he has been chosen to ‘suffer the consequences’.

The final scene does show Ben in what appear to be honest moments. He tells Locke that he’s now the leader of the Others, apologizes for ‘making his life so miserable’ and then walks below the Orchid to move the island. As he does so with tears in his eyes saying bitterly: “I hope you’re happy Jacob,” we see a man who is about to lose everything and it chills us.

Of course by the time we see that,  we know that Ben has spent his entire time off the island manipulating Sayid into becoming his personal hitman, has spent much of the last three years watching everyone who left, has threatened Charles Widmore that he will kill his daughter Penelope and has made it clear that he intends to find the island again. He’s about to manipulate Jack into going back to the island, start maneuvering all of the Oceanic 6 to go back, and is doing so over the body of Locke – who we will later learn that Ben himself killed. While flying back on Ajira 316 Jack asks Ben what will happen to the other people on the plane and Ben is clearly surprised by the question: “Who cares?” he tells him.

In Back to the Island Murray argues that Emerson always did his best work with O’Quinn ‘the two actors delivering their lines to each other with a mix of smugness and self-doubt, shifting from scene to scene. Murray also tells that Locke and Ben’s dynamic is more interesting than Jack and Locke because of their similarities. ‘The difference is that Locke’ an idealist and Ben’s a cynic which is why it’s so fun to watch him control Locke just by dangling the two things he thinks he wants most: to expose Ben as a phony, and to learn the secrets of the island.”

That is a key part of their dynamic throughout the series. However I’d argue that Locke, who many fans thought was the dupe in these scenes, was actually smarter than he looked. A large part of this was because of their beliefs in the mystical properties of the island. By the time we meet Ben in Lost it’s clear that he is using his faith in the island to maintain control of the Others. Locke’s faith in the island remains strong throughout the series with two critical exceptions.

When Locke meets Benry in Season 2, his faith in the island has been ebbing ever since he opened the hatch. Benry takes advantage of this to manipulate John by telling him that nothing happens if you push the button. (Ben of course knows differently.) Even after he’s exposed he just changes his story and Locke still believes in him before Michale facilitates his escape in ‘Two for the Road’. This combined with what he takes away from the Pearl Station convinces him it’s a joke and it leads him to destroy the button – and it turns out to be disastrous.

One of the most iconic scenes in all of Lost comes as the Swan is blowing apart around him. Locke makes no real effort to run, despite Desmond’s warning. The last scene of him in Season 2 is his looking at Eko and saying three simple words: “I was wrong.” These words basically sum up everything Locke has gone through not just this season but his entire life so far. It’s a moment of tragic honesty because he absolutely believes it.

By the time he meets Ben again in ‘The Man From Tallahassee’ he has come on one mission: to blow up the submarine. Ben figures it out immediately and tries to tell Locke that if he does this “it will make me look bad with my people’. Alex actually tells him that he’s being manipulated by Ben and it’s possible he is – but then there’s that scene at the end where he’s being held prisoner. He tells Ben that he knows he could have stopped if he wanted to. He could have told Ryan to look in the pack and take the C4 and he didn’t. (There’s also that small fact that the show’s writers have never confirmed or denied he blew up the sub – but let’s not go there.)

Indeed Locke speaks with a kind of radicalism and moral superiority that he only seems willing to show to Ben, and never Jack. He refers to Ben as ‘a pharisee’ who doesn’t deserve what the island has to offer, eating food from a fridge and sleeping in a bed. And there is the clearest difference between them which Locke points out: “I’m in a wheelchair and you’re not.”

And it’s the one point Ben can’t refute. He knows Locke was in a wheelchair for four years and now he’s walking immediately. And on an island where no one gets sick, he developed a fatal tumor on his spine. We’ve seen him try to argue that the crash was proof of divine intervention to Jack: “Two days after I learned I had a fatal tumor on my spine, a spinal surgeon fell from the sky. And if that’s not proof of God, I don’t know what is.” Jack didn’t buy it at the time and it’s clear Locke has a similar contempt for the idea.

Ben does know that Locke is a threat to his power and no doubt arranges for Anthony Cooper to be brought to the island as a bargaining chip to keep Locke in place. He then sets up ‘a test’ in which Locke has to kill his father as a sacrifice and I mentioned how that went. But he’s stunned when Locke shows up with the body of Anthony Cooper on his back, demanding to know the secrets of the island.

Ben pivots and tries to tell Locke that he’s not the leader but Jacob is. Now there is a Jacob on the island but Ben argues that he is the only one who ever talks to him and sees him. Locke calls him on it: “I think there is no Jacob…You are the man behind the curtain. The Wizard of Oz. And you’re a liar. “

Then Mikhail shows up with vital information. Locke says that Ben is taking him to see Jacob. Mikhail is infuriated by this. Locke starts to beat Mikhail to a pulp. There’s no love lost between Mikhail and Ben (we never find out why) but he orders first Tom, then Richard to intervene. Ben’s people just stand by watching. Ben knows that he is on the verge of toppling. Even Alex points it out before they leave.

So Ben takes Locke to Jacob’s cabin, in one of the most terrifying scenes in Season 3 and indeed the series. There he speaks and gestures to a completely empty chair where he says Jacob is sitting. We are completely with Locke when he says that Ben is completely crazy and turns away in disgust. And then we hear a voice that says: “Help me.” Locke hears it, but Ben doesn’t. Then we see the cabin completely explode in an incident of terrifying telekinesis where we appear to see…something – in that chair. (Oh, how fans spent hours trying to figure out who was in that chair and we weren’t even close.)

During this episode ‘The Man Behind the Curtain’, we finally learn Ben’s backstory. We learn he wasn’t born on the island (as he’s been claiming all season) but that his mother died giving birth to him and his father never forgave him for it. Eventually he and his father were recruited into the Dharma Initiative where his father (and later Ben) were basically treated as janitors, unsuited to joining the scientific pursuit. Roger would drink and take out his abuses of the world on Ben and then Ben started seeing the images of his mother on the island. He explored the island on his own, met Richard who seemed impressed by him and said he could join them “but he would have to be very patient” At some point he would lead the Purge that wiped out the Initiative and killed his own father.

The question posed by Murray is interesting: “Does Ben ever actually believe anything they believe? Is he just using them as a way to wield power? Or is some larger force guiding him?” The short answers to these three questions are: It’s unclear, almost certainly and yes. In the first flashback of Ben on Lost, it’s fascinating how much it resembles that of the castaways: the audience is aware of all of these secrets but he never tells anyone else. He shows Ben two key pieces: the cabin where ‘Jacob’ resides and the pit where the bodies of the Dharma Initiative were left after the purge. And it’s telling he only shows them both to a man he plans to kill, which he does at the end of the episode, when he shoots Locke.

But he’s clearly stunned when Locke tells him that Jacob talked to him, even if he doesn’t understand the message. This clearly emphasizes to Ben that Locke is special in a way Ben just doesn’t seem to be. Clearly reeling from this he then orders Pryce to lead his raid on the beaches to take the pregnant women in what is a clearly a last ditch attempt to maintain his power. It backfires spectacularly and in the season finale we see Ben desperately pleading Jack to give him the phone because he says Naomi, the woman who parachuted onto the island promising rescue is representative of a hostile force.

Ben is telling the truth for once but we can’t exactly blame Jack for not believing him. He beats Ben to a pulp and takes him prisoner. And when Locke shows up at the radio tower having just thrown a knife into Naomi’s back, Ben reacts with shock rather than dismay. The island has chosen Locke and his days are over.

Ben and Locke spend Season 4 more or less ostensibly on the same side. Locke and Ben both agree there is a threat to the island on the freighter. Ben actually knows far more about that. But Locke has no reason to trust Ben right now – he did just shoot him and leave for dead the previous day – and he’s still trying to find a way forward.

Locke’s character takes a lot of criticism in Season 4 for having gone over the dark side. And its true his leadership in the Barracks and his action on the island does show him basically at his worst. Essentially he is a dictator, despite his denial. But he’s not good at it because while he wants to keep everyone safe he thinks his main job is to protect the island. His faith is now fully restored and it has granted him a bit of a messiah complex. Walking to the barracks Sawyer actually refers to him as Colonel Kurtz and as Nikki Stafford said in Finding Lost, it may be the most accurate nickname Sawyer gave to date. His followers think he’s completely deranged (and that’s before he tells them he got his marching orders from Walt) and the only reason they’re following him is because Hurley spoke up on his behalf. (This is a decision Hurley will regret almost immediately.) But for all this Locke genuinely wants to keep the people at the barracks safe.

The same can’t be said for Ben. Considering that he knows both the man behind the freighter, what his plan is and what he will do to get it, he spends much of his time as prisoner not acting to help protect anyone else but mocking Locke’s leadership and trying to manipulate him. He gives what little he knows in dribs and drabs but only for leverage. It’s clear in retrospect Ben is still trying to find a way to turn this situation to his advantage: he wants to stay alive long enough so that he can keep his power. The only person he wants to protect is his daughter Alex, so he draws a map for her, Rousseau and Karl to take to the Temple.

And as anyone who watched Lost knows it ends in tragedy. In ‘The Shpe of Things to Come’ Keamy and his mercenaries attack the bunker and kill almost everyone Locke brought there. Keamy then threatens to kill Alex if Ben doesn’t come out. Ben tries a bluff, and it is one of the saddest moment in the show’s history. He tells Keamy that Alex isn’t his daughter and that she means nothing to him. Those are the last words she hears before Keamy kills her.

Emerson received his Emmy nomination for his work in this episode and it’s another feather in his cap. There are few scenes more stunning after Ben unleashing the smoke monster on the mercenaries and then before they flee Ben says he has to say goodbye to his daughter. This moment breaks Ben in a way that nothing else really has.

Cabin Fever is a powerhouse episode for both O’Quinn and Emerson. Locke is still trying to find a way to the cabin to find Jacob but slowly a path opens to him. He takes the occasion to show to Hurley the true horrors of what Ben did, particularly when it comes to the Purge. He is given a dream which leads him to where the cabin is.

Emerson spends the entire episode in a daze, almost as if he’s being moved from square to square. It’s clear he knows that his time is over and he’s bitter about it. When Locke awakes he tells him: “I used to have dreams,” sadly and matter-of-factly. When Ben tells Locke that he’s doing a good job of manipulating Hurley Locke fires back: ‘I’m not like you’ and Ben instantly deflates. And when they finally reach the cabin. Ben just said: “The island wanted me to get sick. It wanted you to get well,” and he sits on the steps utterly defeated. It’s hard not to feel sympathy for him at this point.

After the events in the season 4 finale Locke ends up leaving the island to try and persuade the Oceanic 6 to come back. This ends with the revelation that he ended up dying during his question. It’s not until the fifth season episode ‘The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham’ that we learned how that happened – and we see the final confrontation of Ben and Locke.

I’ll save what happened in this episode for another article but what I will say is that once Locke leaves the island his faith has gone. Each meeting with one of the Oceanic 6 leaves him more emotionally drained and by the time of his last meeting – with Jack – he is about to kill him. He received a message from multiple sources telling him to bring everyone back he’d have to die, but watching O’Quinn in these scenes you see a man who just wants to kill himself.

And then Ben breaks the door down. We’ve never seen O’Quinn like this in these moments, he is completely in total despair, utterly broken. When Ben tries to tell him how important he is he tells him: “I’m a failure’. Just as when the Hatch was blowing up Locke completely believes his words with a sincerity that hasn’t been present any other time. The last time he was on the island and that may have saved him. Now he’s off it and he’s at the mercy of Ben – who as we’ve seen has none.

There was a great amount of debate as to why Ben would talk John out of committing suicide only to strangle him two minutes later. The underlying idea throughout Season 5 was that Ben was doing this because he knew John would come back to life on the island. However in ‘Dead is Dead’ when Sun asks him this very question. Ben’s response is: “I had no idea this would happen…Dead is dead. You don’t get to come back from that. Not even here.” And indeed, by the end of Season 5, we find out Ben was absolutely right about that.

So why did he kill Locke? After many rewatches I’ve figured the simplest answer is likely the truest. (Yes I know this is Lost were talking about.) After Alex was killed and he was banished, the only thing Ben lived for was revenge on Charles Widmore. We see that he spent the better part of two years utilizing Sayid to do just that. He clearly wants to get back to the island but he doesn’t know how but he thinks the Oceanic 6 might be the key. When Locke shows up, he thinks this might be his chance and saves him. Then he learns Locke has no intention of going to see Sun and that he knows how to find a woman named Eloise Hawking. With the means to get back, his jealousy of Locke overcomes him and he strangles him. He then uses his death to manipulate the Oceanic 6 to do what he wants so he can get them on a plane that will get him to the island and once he’s there back in his proper place.

And then he wakes up and see ‘Locke’ looking at him. (I’m not going to tell you who it is yet.) Ben knows now it’s all been for nothing. He’s never going to be in charge of the island again; he’s never really been chosen. Hell, he couldn’t even get his revenge on Widmore, because when push came to shove he hesitated when it came to killing Penny and Desmond, who he underestimated beat him to a pulp. Ben is now as much a failure as Locke was and his faith in everything he ever believed in is gone as well.

That’s why I think that its fitting that when the truth about Locke is revealed and he is laid the rest it is Ben who is the one who give the eulogy for him. It’s a bizarre scene but it’s also sweet. Ilana asks: “Didn’t any of you know him?” There aren’t a lot of people around but the tragedy of Locke on the island is that he never let any of the survivors know him and that in many ways led to him meeting his end.

So when Ben says: “I knew him”, it’s true. Over those four seasons Ben knew Locke knew better than anyone else perhaps in his entire life. Sure they were mortal enemies but those people know each other the best. And Ben’s eulogy is short, sweet and for once, honest:

John Locke was a believer. He was a man of faith. He was a much better man than I will ever be. And I’m very sorry I murdered him.”

Even this final statement contains a genuine truth. Ben isn’t sorry for killing Locke because of the horrors he’s unleashed in its wake or even as an act of repentance. Just like Jack he has finally realized what a remarkable man John Locke was, now that he’s too dead to hear it. It’s an act of remorse and repentance from a man we spent most of the series thinking had none. It’s not the first time Locke was able to accomplish in death what he could never do in life.

Of course that doesn’t mean every part of Ben’s storyline was perfectly done. In the next article in this series I will deal with the conflict between Ben and Widmore, which started out seeming like it might be the endgame of the series and proved to be one of Lost’s biggest anticlimaxes.

 

 

 

This is Jeopardy: Tales From The Ultimate Tournament of Champions, Part 2 (2400th Article)

 

 

2400^th Article

Part 2: The Sweet Six

 

CHRIS MILLER - $93,844

Chris’s moment in the sun on Jeopardy compared to others on this list and those I’ve mentioned before is relatively brief. His first appearance on Jeopardy was in April of 2004 and his last was in May of 2005. But what a light he left behind.

Over the first five games played in April of 2004 he won four games in runaways and $123,597 over the course of them. He was then defeated by Scott Renzoni (known to the Jeopardy world as Renzo) on April 8^th. Renzo then won four games and $112,998 before he was defeated. Two months later Ken Jennings entered the Jeopardy stage and Chris became the only player in Season 20 to win exactly five games. (Sean Ryan won six and Tom Walsh won seven and I’ll talk about them later on.)

When Season 21 started Ken Jennings’ streak was paused for the 2004 Tournament of Champions. Chris would face off against Russ Schumacher (the ultimate winner of the tournament and Tom Baker, who won just over $102,000 in three games in the quarterfinal. That was Tom’s day in the son and both Russ and Chris would be fortunate to advance to the semi-finals via wildcard.

In the semi-finals Chris drew Tom Walsh and Anne Boyd, who’d won $84,600 in four games a month before Ken arrived on the scene. Chris did better this time and was leading going into Final Jeopardy.

The category was POETS. “A San Francisco resident since the 1950s, in 1998 he became the city’s first Poet Laureate.” Chris was the only player who didn’t write down the correct response: “Who is Ferlinghetti?” As a result he went home with $10,000. That Halloween he dressed up as Ken Jennings. He didn’t know that just a few months later he would be back on the Jeopardy stage fighting for a chance to play against him.

Chris managed a narrow runaway victory against Mike Thayer and Dennis Donohue in his victory in Round 1 which netted him $21,799. He then faced off against Ryan Holznagel and Dave Traini, both of whom had significantly more postseason play then him. (In addition to his Tournament of Champions win Ryan had participated in the 1995 International Tournament. Dave had been a finalist in the 1987 Tournament of Champions as well as the only season of Super Jeopardy in 1990.) The Jeopardy round was pretty much dead even with Chris finishes in second behind Dave.

However in Double Jeopardy both Ryan and David moved swiftly ahead and Chris spent much of the round in third. It was only because Dave got four clues incorrect in the category EXPERTISE OF AREA and Chris made a late surge in the category SANTA’S EIGHT TINY REINDEER that he ended up in front with $11,600 to Ryan’s $11,022 (don’t ask) and Dave’s $9000. Still it was far from certain he’d prevail.

The Final Jeopardy category was IN THE DICTIONARY. “Much in the news of the world at the end of June 2004, it’s the only English word to contain ‘GNT’ consecutively.” As Alex noted before the responses were revealed: “This is one of those toughies that either comes to you immediately, as it appeared to with Chris, or you struggle and struggle and struggle.” And Chris was the only one with the correct response: “What is sovereignty?” (Iraqi sovereignty was at the center of the news during that period.) Chris added $10,445 to finished with the odd total of $22,045.

Chris faced off against Matt Zielenski and Lan Djang in the quarterfinal, as I mentioned in my previous entry on the UTC. Chris had the best game with 20 correct responses and 1 incorrect response. As a result he finished with $18,200 to Lan’s $9600 and Matt’s $8400 – almost, but not quite, a runaway. The Final Jeopardy category was NATIONAL ANTHEMS: “Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore wrote the national anthems of these 2 countries.” Chris was again the only player to come  up with the two correct countries: “What are India and Bangladesh?” (Both Matt and Lan wrote down India and Sri Lanka.) Chris’ total was bumped up to $30,000 and he faced John Cuthbertson and Brad Rutter in the second set of semi-final games.

Chris was able to keep up mainly because of Brad’s overreach on a Daily Double early in the Jeopardy round of Game 1 and Brad’s being the only player to give an incorrect response in Final Jeopardy that same day. As a result he and Brad were tied with $10,000 apiece at the end of the first day, just $3500 behind John. For much of the Jeopardy round of Game 2 Chris was able to keep up with Brad and finished it only $400 behind. After responding correctly on two clues in WORLD COINS in Double Jeopardy he was in the lead.

Those were the only two clues he responded correctly to that round. Brad managed one of the most dominant performances in his entire career during Double Jeopardy, giving ten consecutive correct responses and leaving John and Chris in the dust. Chris finished in third place and won another $20,000.

Chris also had a marvelous sense of humor during his interview segments. After responding correctly in a clue about Sergeant Slaughter on Jeopardy, he took some ribbing from his friends about knowing that. In his quarterfinal appearance he brought his Sergeant Slaughter action figure in with him. It’s been twenty years since we’ve seen him on Jeopardy and I’m sure he’d like to come back – he’d probably do better if he wasn’t going to face Brad again.

 

JOHN CUTHBERTSON - $97,900

As I watched the Ultimate Tournament of Champions first round unfold, I had two conflicting desires with each set of three: those I hoped would advance and those who I thought had the potential to advance. These two sets didn’t always overlap and quite a few of the names in the Elite Eighteen weren’t in either initially. But one of those that was in both was John Cuthbertson.

John’s original run in September 1993 came immediately after Brian Moore’s and he quickly became one of the standards for great players during the 1990s. John managed to win $82,400 – the highest amount for the 1993-1994. Indeed until the dollar figures were doubled in the fall of 2001, only three players managed to win more in five games: Steve Chernicoff, who I’ve discussed before, won $83,902, David Siegel who won $86,200 nearly the end of the 1994-1995 season and Doug Lach, who won $85,400 near the end of the 1999-2000 season.

Going into the 1994 Tournament of Champions John was one of my favorites to go the distance. He managed to win his semi-final game against David Hillinck and Rachael Schwartz, though both his competitors managed to advance due to the wild card. David won the first semi-final and Rachael won the second. When it came to the third John was up against none other than Steve Chernicoff and College Champion Jeff Stewart.

Steve led the game from the start of the Jeopardy round until the end of Double Jeopardy and finished with $9000 to John’s $4700 and Jeff’s $4800. Then came Final Jeopardy. The category was DEMOCRATS. “When Grandma Moses was born, this man was president; at her death, JFK was president.” Somehow Jeff was the only one who knew the correct Democrat: “Who is Buchanan?” John thought it was Chester Arthur (who wasn’t a Democrat) Jeff advanced to the finals and John went home with another $5000.

Ten years later John returned to the Jeopardy stage. His competition was not much easier than when he’d last been on it. On his right was Bob Blake, winner of the 1990 Tournament of Champions and a semi-finalist in Super Jeopardy. On his left was Bruce Ikawa, who’d won $80,699 in his original appearance in 1991.

From the start of the Jeopardy round it was a fight between Bob and John for the lead and Bob finished the Jeopardy round ahead with $8600 to John’s $7200. (Bruce trailed with $1400.)  The back and forth continued through most of Double Jeopardy until John managed to get nine of the last ten clues correct, finishing by running the category PUT OUT THE GOOD SILVER and finding the Daily Double with the last clue. He finished with $24,000 to Bob’s $18,200 and Bruce’s $9400.

The Final Jeopardy category was 12-LETTER WORDS. And it was incredibly tough: “A chemist in the 1920s coined this term after finding lavender oil not only hid the odor of his burnt hand but also healed it.” Nobody could come up with a correct response and when John heard it was ‘aromatherapy’ he said: “Really!”  John bet by the far the most of his two opponents, wagered $12,500. He was left with $11,500 and that was enough to win, getting bumped up to $15,000.

Things were no easier in Round 2 when he faced Tad Carithers, who’d beaten Leszek Pawlowicz in his first round victories and Bob Verini, a seeded player for his victory in the 1987 Tournament of Champions and being a runner up in the Million Dollar Masters. Tad dominated the Jeopardy round, finishing with $9600 to John’s $2600 and Bob’s $600. However in Double Jeopardy John managed to find a rhythm and finished with the barest of leads, Again he found the Daily Double on the last clue of Double Jeopardy but this time he bet just $900 and finished with $14,500 to Tad’s $14,400. Bob loomed as a spoiler with $3000.

The Final Jeopardy category was WORDS FROM MYTHOLOGY: “It refers to a mythical bird that calmed waves, or to past happy ‘days’, spelled differently, it’s a sleeping pill.” This time John knew the correct response in Final Jeopardy: “What is halcyon?” He added $8400 to his total to advance to the next round with $22,900.

I mentioned John’s appearance in the quarterfinals in passing in the previous entry when I mentioned both April McManus and Robert Slaven. The Jeopardy round was incredibly close and while John was in third at the end of it, he had $4200 to April’s $5800 and Robert’s $6600. His overall performance was limited compared to his opponents: he only responded correctly on thirteen clues. But he didn’t get a single one wrong and that gave him $12,800 for second to Robert’s $15,000 and April’s $11,200. And as I mentioned he knew the correct response to Final Jeopardy, where Robert did not. This got him into the semi-finals with another $30,000

However he was now against Brad Rutter and Chris Miller in the two game total point affair. In the Jeopardy round of Game 1 it seemed Brad was unstoppable: at one point he had $6800 before he found the Daily Double while John had a mere $2000. However Brad wagered and lost $4800 and John had a chance. Indeed he finished the round ahead of Brad with $3400 to Brad’s $3200 and Chris $1200.

John’s highpoint was when he went on a run early in Double Jeopardy and got to the first Daily Double ahead of Brad in SYMPHONIES. He wagered $3000:

“This Soviet superstar subtitled his third symphony ‘May First’ It took John a moment: “Who is Shostakovich?” Alex congratulated him as he went up to $8400. When Brad got the $1600 clue wrong in that same category it looked like John was on track for an upset. But then Brad went on one of his runs and he finished Double Jeopardy in the lead with $14,200 to John’s $8000 and Chris’s $7200.

Then came Final Jeopardy. The category was NUCLEAR POWER: “This state, besides having the first, also has the most nuclear reactors.” Both Chris and John knew the correct state: “What is Illinois?” (The first nuclear reactor was at developed by Enrico Fermi at the University of Chicago.) Brad went for the other obvious state: “What is Tennessee?” (thinking of Oak Ridge.) He lost $4200. At the end of Game 1, Brad was tied for second with $10,000 trailing John who led with $13,500.

The Jeopardy round of Game 2 was close from the start and Brad finished with $5400 to Chris’ $5000 and John’s $3200. But then Brad went on his historic run and John managed to stop it when he rang in with a correct response on the final clue of Double Jeopardy. When Alex said humorously “Brad will never forgive you for getting in ahead of him. You put a stop to his mo!” John joked: “On about the tenth try.” At that point Brad had $26,600 to Chris’s $7800 and John’s $5200 and despite his effort to drum up suspense, everyone knew who was going forward. John had to be satisfied with coming in second and getting the minimum guarantee of $30,000, ending his run with $97,900.

John has not been back in the twenty years since and considering his track record against some of the greatest Jeopardy players, including Bob Verini and Brad Rutter, both of whom came back several times, I think it’s well past the time we saw John return for the Jeopardy stage

 

 

JEROME VERED - $389,801

 

I truly have saved the best for last. Almost from the moment the UTC began if I had been asked to name one player who I thought could have done as well as Ken Jennings had the five game limit not been effect, there was one name that occurred to me. And it was Jerome.

Jerome was the first Jeopardy player I ever watched who might very well have been a prototype for Ken Jennings. In his five game run from May 18^th to May 22^nd, 1992  he was the benchmark for all great Jeopardy champions I would see for the next decade. He won $96,801, second only to Frank Spangenberg for most money won during the pre-2001 era. And he shattered Frank’s one day record of $30,600 with a mark of $34,000, which stood until Ben Sternberg broke on April 29th 2002.

I thought going in to the 1992 Tournament of Champions that Jerome would waltz to victory that year. He ran away with his quarterfinal match and to work to beat Robert Slaven in his semi-final game. Then he faced off against Leszek Pawlowicz and Bruce Simmons in the finals. It was the first lesson I learned in trying to handicap a Tournament of Champions. You can’t. Jerome ended up in third place with another $7500.

Jerome didn’t participate in the 10^th Anniversary Tournament and for reasons I have never understood was not invited to participate in the Million Dollar Masters in 2002. Starting on February 28, 2005 Jerome started to make up for lost time.

He faced off against 1991 Tournament of Champions Winner Jim Scott and 2000 Jeopardy Champion Michelle Clum. Slowly but sure he built up a significant lead and while he couldn’t quite runaway with it, he still managed an impressive finish, winning $27,601 in his first appearance.

In his second game he faced off against Leah Greenwald, who I will write about in a different piece some day and Sean Ryan, the first player in Jeopardy history to win six games. The Jeopardy round was a battle between Leah and Jerome. In Double Jeopardy San surged but Jerome maintained. He finished Double Jeopardy with $21,000 to Leah’s $14,500 and Sean’s $9000.

The Final Jeopardy category was 20^th CENTURY ASIA. “In 1942 Aung San, commander of this country’s independence Army, married nurse Khin Kyi.” All three players knew the correct country: “What is Burma?” (Their daughter was Aung San Suu Kyi, the future Nobel Laureate.) Jerome won another $30,000.

In the last game of the quarterfinals Jerome was up against his toughest opponents to date Michael Daunt and Dan Melia. Dan had won his Round 2 match with $37,600, the highest winnings of anyone who won a Round 2 game. Slowly but surely Jerome decimated these two greats, finishing with the only runaway of the quarterfinals: $26,200 to Dan and Michael’s $9200 apiece.

Final Jeopardy was an exercise but all three players took it seriously. The category was BIBLICAL CITIES: “Of the 10 most populous U.S. cities, the one that shares its name with a city mentioned in Revelation.” All three players knew the correct city: “What is Philadelphia?” Jerome wagered $6000 to finish with $32,200. Of the six players who won quarterfinal matches, only he and Frank Spangenberg won more than the $30,000 minimum guarantee.

Jerome would face off against Frank and Pam Mueller in the semi-finals. In the Jeopardy round of Game 1, Pam got off to a fast start while Jerome and Frank trailed for much of it. Jerome managed to gain ground near the end and was in second with $5400 to Pam’s $6600 and Frank’s $2800. But in Double Jeopardy Jerome made his move, making near runs of WORLD HISTORY and finishing with a near run and the final Daily Double in AIRPORT NAMES. He was leading with $19,600 to Pam’s $14,200 and Frank’s $6800.

The Final Jeopardy category was FAMILIAR PHRASES: “This 5-word rule or maxim has been attributed to both H. Gordon Selfridge and John Wannamaker.” Both Jerome and Frank knew the correct response: “What is ‘The customer is always right?” Frank bet nearly everything and Jerome was cautious and bet $3500. Pam would lose $4200. At the end of Game 1, Jerome was in the lead with $23,100, Frank was next with $13,500 and Pam trailed with $10,000.

But all three had enough experience in Jeopardy to know where you were at the end of Game 1 of a final met nothing the next day. And for Jerome it definitely seemed to be the case in the next day. All three players were about even on correct answers: Frank and Pam each gave 18 correct responses; Jerome seventeen. But Frank didn’t get a single clue wrong and Pam only missed 2. Jerome got four clues wrong but three of them were in Double Jeopardy and critically two of them were $2000 clues, one in ROSSINI OPERAS, one in ROCK & ROLL HALL OF FAMERS. When Frank and Pam found a Daily Double apiece in Double Jeopardy, at the end of the round Jerome was in a distant third with $7800 to Pam’s $16,800 and Frank’s $18,000. Victory seemed slim going into the critical Final Jeopardy.

The category was WORDS FROM LATIN: “Some of the periods of time called this occurred in 304 A.D. (it lasted 4 years), 1314 (2 years), 1958 (19 days), 1963 & 2005. Even though I had more or less lived through one I had no idea what this referred to.

Jerome’s response was revealed first: “What is interregnum?” (In 2005, John Paul II had recently passed and the world was living through one.) He wagered nothing. His 2-day total was $30,900. Pam wrote down: “What are conclaves?” She knew it was wrong but time ran out before she could come up with an alternative. She lost $11,901, leaving her with $4899. She was clearly betting so that she would have more money than Jerome if he had bet everything and been correct. Instead she dropped to $4899, giving her $14,899.

It was up to Frank. He hadn’t been able to come up with anything. He wagered $11,901. That dropped him to $5800 and it made Jerome the first finalist in this tournament. The image below shows how stunned he was as he gained another $50,000.

The highpoint for Jerome’s run in the three game final was at the end of the first game when he was in second place, slightly ahead of Ken. The totals at the end of Game 1 were very close: Brad had $18,400, Jerome was next with $16,400, Ken was in third with $16,000.

Jerome’s struggles began in Game 2 when he went in the red on the first clue he responded to and could never climb out. The only benefit was that Brad and Ken were not doing much better. At the end of the Jeopardy round Brad was ahead with $4200, Ken was next with $2400 and Jerome was at -$1400.

His fortunes improved in Double Jeopardy when he starting in the category RICH-ARTS & ROB-ARTs and found the first Daily Double three clues in. Still in the hole, he bet the $2000 he was allowed:

“Around 1912 Robert Delaunay brought color to the forefront of this -ism, thereby created Orphism.” Jerome knew it was cubism and said afterwards he thought it would be a question about Orphism. He did well the rest of Double Jeopardy finishing a respectable third with $8200 to Ken’s $11,000 and Brad’s $15,000.

Final Jeopardy was the turning point in the finals. The category was LAW & SOCIETY. “This Hollywood legend who died January 21^st, 1959 supporting placing monuments that have since brought legal challenges.” Brad was the only contestant who knew the correct legend: “Who is Cecil B. De Mille? (director of The Ten Commandments. Yes even in 2005 we were struggling with those.) Jerome was thinking of James Dean. At the end of Game 2 Jerome had $19,600 to Brad’s $38,4000 and Ken’s $26,000.

In the third game Jerome couldn’t even ring in at all until the 16^th clue of the Jeopardy round. He managed to get up to $2200 by the end of the round to Ken’s $4600 and Brad’s $9800. Then during Double Jeopardy Brad effectively took command.

Jerome’s only victory was a moral one when he got to the last Daily Double in the Tournament in ‘G’ PEOPLE. He had just $3400 to wagered and he bet $3300.

“His triumph as Richard III in 1741 made him the leading British actor of his time.” Jerome knew it was David Garrick and went up to $6700. But by that point Brad had all but runaway with the game and the tournament. Jerome would have to settle for third place and a $250,000 payday.

By that point with his combined winnings Jerome was officially the third winningest player in Jeopardy history. He managed to hold on to this title throughout the next eight years though Roger Craig had come close to unseating him after his  victory in the 2011 Tournament of Champions. And for that reason, unlike every other player on this list Jerome was invited to participate in the Battle of the Decades, representing the 1980s. (Pam Mueller was invited back to the 2000s, no doubt because of her performance in the Ultimate Tournament of Champions as well.)

Even though Jerome’s appearance was against two former Tournament of Champions winners – Tom Cubbage and Bob Verini – and even though during the first four games of Round 1, every single player who had advanced to the quarter-finals had won the Tournament Champions I still thought Jerome had a good chance going into the match. He had, after all, defeated two Tournament of Champions winners just getting to the semi-finals of the UTC and gone head to head against Brad and Ken. By contrast both Bob and Tom had lost their first appearances in the Ultimate Tournament of Champions. (The fact that the same could be said of every single first round winner to that point didn’t enter into the equation; I still hadn’t learned my lesson after twenty years.)

But from the start of the Jeopardy round until the end of Double Jeopardy the fates seemed to be against him. He spent almost all of the Jeopardy round in the red and only on the final clue of the round did he move on to the positive side for good with $1000. Bob had gotten off to a good start but it was still close: Bob had $5800 to Tom’s $2600 and Jerome’s $1000.

Bob went on a tear early in Double Jeopardy but Jerome rebounded by getting the last two clues correct in 1980s BOOK. He then got to the other Daily Double in FIRST LADIES’ FATHERS. (They gave you the father; you had to identify the first lady. With $6600 in front of him he wagered $3000 and it was another doozy:

“William Bolling, a Virginia judge.”

Jerome staggered guessing: “Who is Elizabeth Monroe?” Apparently his daughter with Edith Bolling, who married Frederick Galt and who’s second husband was Woodrow Wilson. Jerome dropped to $3600 and you could practically hear all hope drop out of his voice from that point forward every time he rang in or selected a category.

Altogether he gave 16 correct responses but gave six incorrect ones, including both Daily Doubles he hit. Still a late run in PHYSICS brought him up to $8400, still in a position to prevail as Tom and Bob were so close: Tom was at $13,000; Bob was at $14,000.

If you saw my entry on Tom on the Battle of the Decades you know he prevailed. Jerome got a correct response in Final Jeopardy but demonstrated an ‘impish sense of humor’ when he wagered “US $1600.”

Indeed in addition to all his other merits has a contestant it was fun watching Jerome play: every time the Final Jeopardy music was player he would motion along with his head with the final notes. And he always had wonderfully entertaining stories throughout his run. Among his anecdotes: how a rabbi he defeated in his first game wrote about him in his sermon on Yom Kippur, how when he went to buy candy for some contestant in the UTC the nun told him “I’ll be praying for you” and how, after the UTC, he wanted to buy a piano with his winnings and found out it had been sold to the Edge. “He’s not even a piano player,” Jerome told us incredulously. He still has an influence over Jeopardy champions to this day: Troy Meyer paid tribute to him at the 2024 Tournament of Champions where he was seated prominently. I think it’s well past time Jerome got to return – and I’d love to see how he’d feel about Ken now that he’s behind the podium.

 

This is the end of my roster for the UTC. In the final entry in this series I intend to deal with a category I also ‘pre postseason postseason champions’ which will make sense when I explain it.