Why Did So Many Fans Leave Lose 20 Years Ago, Part 2: In Defense of Those Who Left After Season 3

 

I was a diehard fan of Lost then and now but I'm also a critic. I don't think the first six episodes of Lost are the weakest stretch of the entire series (I actually think it’s the middle of Season 2 but I'll save that for a different article) but I'll admit with the benefit of multiple rewatches over the years I know there are legitimate problems with those episodes and it's fair to discuss the biggest issues fans had as well as some that critics might have issues with.

Let's start with the biggest canard: Nikki and Paulo. If one of the reasons you left Lost in November of 2006 was because you had issues with two characters who combined had five minutes of screen time during those six episodes (I've clocked it over the years) then you were never really a fan of Lost to begin with and you're actually worse then all those people who hated Buffy because of Riley in Season 4. I don't have much use for those people either but at least those people have the excuse that Marc Blucas was a cast member for a year and a half and was vital to the plot.

So Nikki and Paulo weren't the problem with first six episodes. Here are the real ones:

The flashbacks are now almost entirely diminishing returns. They will improve in many cases when the show resumed in February of 2007 with a few glaring exceptions but there's no question there's almost no reward with them in the first six episodes.  We've gone to the well of both Jack's father and his marriage to many times by this point ('A Tale of Two Cities') Kate's flashback really doesn't give us any pertinent about her character then or now (I Do) and the most pertinent part of Sawyer's prison flashback won't even pay off related to Sawyer. (Every Man For Himself.)  Locke's flashback in 'Further Instructions' is somewhat better but it ends on an anticlimactic note (the final scene was cut for broadcast) and while Eko's flashback in 'The Cost of Living' is a great one, it's immediately undercut by the fact he dies on the island in the present minutes later.

Only Sun and Jin's flashback in 'The Glass Ballerina' is completely rewarding from beginning to end because it tells us much more about Sun's backstory and the real damage it was doing to both of them in their marriage. What's more it's pertinent to the on-island storyline in a way none of the others are because of Sun's pregnancy and will actually have relevance later in the season.

 

There are problems with Jack, Kate and Sawyer that have nothing to do with the love triangle.

Much as I'm a fan of Lost I know that as with any show there are periods where the writers hit a wall with many of their characters. This is especially true with Lost, where many characters have arcs or even entire seasons where the writers clearly lose what inspiration they had for them in the first place. It doesn't help when the writers seem to come up with potential arcs for them during one point of the show and then abandon it either during the season or in future ones.

Jack's weakest stretch starts after the Others take Michael in Season 2. There's a potential story about training an army with Ana Lucia that never goes anywhere and he spends most of the season at war with Locke which becomes just as draining. Matthew Fox takes a lot of hate from the fanbase because of how Jack is both self-righteous and stubborn and we see him at his nadir during the second half of the season.

Sawyer's problem is that the writers, having done much to redeem his character in the first half of Season 2, decide to arbitrarily turn him into a villain when he returns to the camp. There's no reason for him to steal the guns other then the plot demands and considering that by the end of the season he basically just gives them back you can see the gears of the story grinding.

Kate's only problem is that during the second half of Season 2 she becomes less pertinent to the story to the new arrivals, first the Tailies and then Henry Gale. That's true for many characters in Season 2 and Kate honestly isn't the one who suffers the most. But just as with Matthew Fox and Josh Holloway, Evangeline Lilly's performance has diminishing returns.

In theory having a story where the three of them are at the center of the action would seem like a great way to reset all three characters. The real problem is it becomes clear as early as The Glass Ballerina that when the Others forced Michael to bring the three of them to the ferry, the only one they wanted was Jack. They took Kate for the sole purpose of keeping Jack under control and they took Sawyer to do the same to Kate. In other words (heh heh) the writers are forcing the Others to use the love triangle for their own means and that's not a good sign for any of the characters.

Even this would work better if the show was less subtle about it. But during these six episodes Jack is essentially isolated from Kate and Sawyer and doesn't know where they are. Jack has more contact with Juliet and Ben during this period then Kate and Sawyer, who are essentially delegated down the food chain. One wonders if Danny Pickett is angry all the time, not so much because its his nature but because he knows he's been relegated to the B-Plot.

And its clear the writers, having figured out this much, now have to come up something to do with one leg of the triangle. And their answer is – to put them on a chain gang with some Others breaking rocks and hauling them away for reasons that aren't explained to them and it's very likely none of the Others themselves know. They've basically given Kate and Sawyer busy work for the first six episodes and if that  isn't a metaphor for Lost as a whole at this point, I don't know what is.

So when you combine both their well below average flashbacks and the fact that the writers have no idea how to handle the characters after putting them in this situation then the reality is that none of the three actors have anything to work with and Fox, Lilly and Holloway are forced to play notes they basically didn't play for much of Season 2 and that are essentially labored.  The writers will get a handle on them when the show resumes in February though it will take a varying amount of time for all three to get there. But it's clearly a slog for the actors as much as the viewers and I get why people would be frustrated with it.

 

The Others machinations are starting to just seem ridiculous at this point.

In Back to the Island  Emily St. James says in a future Season 3 episode: "At their most opaque the Others felt not like human beings but like enemies in a video game" and she has a point. Throughout the first two seasons The Others seem to be able to come out of nowhere, have superhuman strength and wear dirty clothes and disguises, all the while saying portentous things in which its clear they view survivors of a plain crash who are foraging for food and water as the real enemy. It's clear from the teaser of Season 3 that we're finally going to see what The Others are really like…

…except in those first six episodes they're just as maddening as ever. To be clear many of the characters we meet as well as getting a glimpse of their hierarchy is rewarding (and when I get to what works about these episode I'll focus on it). The problem is after spending two seasons only appearing in the jungle just to screw with the heads of the survivors they seems to have kidnapped Jack, Kate and Sawyer…just to screw with their heads.  A viewer could ask almost bemusedly if the only reason they took them was so they'd have less of a commute. (And when you find out the answer is no, you really wonder what's going on. I'll get to that.)

It's not just the polar bear cages and the mystery with the fish biscuit. Honestly that's mild compared to some of the crap they're pulling. Taking Kate to breakfast and giving her a dress, apparently just so Ben can introduce himself to her. Keeping another Other in a polar bear cage and after he helps Sawyer escape, forcing him to apologize before taking him somewhere else. Watching Sawyer and Kate make an elaborate escape plan and give us hope, only to show that there are cameras recording every moment that somehow Kate and Sawyer have missed even though they'll be apparent in later episodes because the writers need them to be there. And don't get me started on that whole act where Ben tries to lie to Sawyer and tell him they've put a pacemaker in his chest that he'll make his heart explode. Even some of the Others can't understand why Ben puts Sawyer do this.

By the time they reveal – "we've been on a smaller island all this time!" – you're really beginning to wonder if the only reason the Others went along with harassing the Losties in the first place was because every time Ben had Game Night he put them through these things. (Hey, we've already seen them have Book Club and we'll find they have a game room later, so I'm not talking out of school.) I almost wonder if by the time we reach the winter finale Sawyer doesn't want to get out of his cage is a metaphor for where the show is right now. "If I leave the Others are going to tell me one of my sandwiches has poisoned meat in it and I have to choose with a gun to my head.)

Matthew Fox honestly does get more rewarding things, mainly because he doesn't have to deal with this nonsense. It helps matters that the writers are partnering him with Elizabeth Mitchell's Juliet or Michael Emerson in every scene he's in and considering how brilliant the two are almost immediately he at least something to sink his teeth into.  The problem comes when we finally realize why they've taken Jack in the first place:

 

Can't the Others just say 'please?"  Eventually it becomes clear why Jack was kidnapped. Ben has a cancerous tumor on his spine that is borderline inoperable and he happens to be a spinal surgeon. He'll later reveal "Two days after I learned I had a tumor on my spine; a spinal surgeon falls from the sky."

The problem is by the time Ben tells Jack this, he's already gotten trapped in a net, spent a week in the Swan pretending to be Henry Gale, had his lie uncovered, continued to manipulate everybody, got busted out, manipulated Michael into kidnapping Jack, Sawyer and Kate, took them to an entire different island and has spent the last few days manipulating all three all without telling anybody why. And as we all know Jack only finds out when he's called in by Juliet to operate on a dying Colleen and in the aftermath finds the X-rays of a 40 year old male. He figures out what's going on and Ben still deflects. (I'll get to this later because I'm dealing with the low points now.)

In 'The Cost of Living'  Ben tells Jack casually: "We had such a good plan. To break you." After not explaining (he is Ben after all) Jack asks incredulously: "You want me to save your life?" Ben answers: "I want you to want to save my life." Considering everything he's already put Jack and his friends through (and no spoiler he hasn't even gotten started yet) you can't blame Jack for being so doubtful.

In the Any Questions section for this episode Nikki Stafford, who so often spoken for the fan base, asks: "Why are they going through with this? What's with this entire game when his tumor was so severe?" It's a more then pertinent question and one that Ben never answers. Like so many other parts of Lost the writers do answer it indirectly and in such a way that many fans could miss the implication. (Because it's not relevant to these six episodes I won't state it here.)

It's just as possible the writers haven't yet figured out Ben's place in the totem pole of the island hierarchy. Its clear Ben is the leader of The Others but the writers haven't figured out what that means in the context of Lost. We definitely know by the time the final six episodes end that whatever position Ben holds he isn't exactly popular with the rank and file.

That actually leads me to the other big flaw. During this episode Juliet says she's there to show Jack a movie and shows a tape telling Jack that "Some of us want a change" basically telling him to kill Ben during his complicated surgery. The problem is even before the winter break its very clear that isn't the truth: when he knicks Ben's kidney in the OR, then punches out an Other everybody – including Juliet – is shocked by what he's done and everybody acts as if killing Ben is the worst thing possible.  Juliet will later be punished for her actions as a result of this, which makes this entire bit irrelevant to the story.

 

The writers focus so much on Hydra Island they ignore most of the regular characters.

This is actually a pattern that will hold through the first half of Season Three for many characters and never pay off for some.  Sun and Jin are the focus of The Glass Ballerina and then both essentially disappear from the action until the season is basically halfway over. Hurley gets very little to do for the first three episodes and he seems to have forgotten that Libby, his potential girlfriend, was killed by Michael even though it just happened four days ago. Sayid and Claire are similarly ignored and while Claire becomes more pertinent in the second half Sayid, who has been vital to the plot for the first two seasons is given really nothing to work with in Season 3. (Naveen Andrews would express his frustrations with the show during this period.) And Bernard and Rose, the two most important recurring characters who aren't regulars, are basically forgotten until the final two episodes of this season. (And when they both show up, most fans were sure it meant they were going to die.)

The writers will realize this problem and learn from it in future seasons but it is understandable why, in addition to spend so much time with a sagging storyline, is leaving behind characters we've grown to care about. Throw in the fact that Eko is killed, effectively killing all of the Tailies who were regulars last season and the writers did seem to be failing with their two new characters and I could understand why so many people lost patience. It's one thing not to take your time with the mysteries but to put so many characters on the backburner for it, it was frustrating as hell even for those of us who stuck with it.

 

So in conclusion I can see why so many die-hards who stuck through the show through two seasons might not have wanting to 'Go Baack!' (sorry) after I Do came to an end in November 2006.

Now having stated all that, in my next article I'll explain the reasons even this six episodes had some genuine rewards that made it worth it for some of us.

Decision 2026: Tracking the Blue Dog Democrats

 

After the Republican Revolution in 1994 in order to help maintain Democrats  who represented conservative-leaning districts (mostly in the South) a unified voice the Blue Dog Coalition was founded. The term was coined by Pete Geren a Texas Democrat who claimed that the extreme Democrats had choked the members blue.

While the party was in retreat the Blue Dog Membership would constantly grow and would be responsible for the Democrats retaking the House in 2006 when fifteen members were elected. At their height in 2008, more than one in five Democrats in the House were Blue Dog Democrats. Over the decade they adapted more socially liberal stances to stay in alignment with mainstream party voters. And starting then they were the target of the left flank because they were encourage to field primary challenges to any Democrat who didn't vote for the war in Iraq. Their work was responsible for making Affordable Care act getting narrow passage through the house, passing by only five votes. The Washington Post named them the most influential voting bloc in the House in 2009.

But because of these positions combined with the Obama-era DNC choosing to abandon the 50 state strategy of Howard Dean, they were among the biggest casualties in the 2010 midterms. Two of the delegations leaders, Stephanie Herseth Sandin and Baron Hill lost reelection and their numbers shrank to 26 combined with retirements. That number was halved to 14 in 2014.

It's worth noting that during the 2016 and 2018 elections the Blue Dog Democrats actually grew considerable, reaching a caucus of 24. 11 members defeated Republican incumbents in 2018 in districts that had gone for Trump. But the attention of America was driven to 4 far left Democrats who'd managed to win House Races.

Much of the internecine battles between the left flank and the Blue Dogs were part of the Democratic Party's attempt to try and balance the growing left with the need for white working class voters, This need became all the more critical when Biden received just 33 percent of the white-working class vote in 2020. While this was an improvement over Hilary Clinton's 28 percent in 2016, the Party knew it was in trouble

At the start of the 118^th Congress six of the fifteen members departed, so the group reorganized and began an effort to stabilize. This included a recruitment drive which prompted Mary Peltola of Alaska, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez in Washington and Jared Golden of Maine to focus on ideological centrism, and pragmatic constituency-based (especially rural and working class politics). They're job was to advocate for fiscal responsibility and bipartisan consensus, opposing legislation that they thought was either too far to the right or to the left

Almost from the start their leadership led them constant attacks by AOC and other members, much in the same way left-wing Senators had focused their attacks on Joe Manchin and Krysten Sinema in the Senate.

Most of them are either in swing districts or even Republican ones. Perez, Golden, and Henry Cuellar represent districts that Trump carried both in 2020 and 2024. Members such as Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey and Adam Gray of California's 13^th and Vincente Gonzalez of Texas 34^th are in swing districts. Particularly in the current congress the Blue Dogs have been under attack from the left more than the Republicans because of their decisions to take position their constituents would want but the far left faction doesn't. Most prominent were Perez and Golden's vote against shutting down the government and then reopening it, a decision that was a factor in Golden choosing not to run for reelection this cycle.

While so many Americans were paying attention to those primary campaigns run by the Justice Democrats and DSA candidates the Blue Dogs were engaging in a primary drive of their own. They endorsed 9 primary candidates along side all of their incumbents. In addition two former members Melissa Bean, who represented Illinois 8^th district fr0m 2005-2011 and Ben McAdams who was part of it in his one term in Utah from 2018-2020 are expected to return to Congress, though they haven't yet announced if they will rejoin their former caucus.

Here is the complete list of candidates who've won with their endorsements:

Joanna Mendoza, Arizona 6^th

Bale Dalton, Florida 7

Leela Gray, Florida 13^th

Zach Dembo, Kentucky 6

Sam Forstag, Montana 1^st

Blake Gendebien, New York 21

Jamie Ager,  North Carolina 11

Brian Poindexter, Ohio 7

Bob Brooks, Pennsylvania 7

Bobby Pulido, Texas 15

Johnny Garcia, Texas 35

Rebecca Cooke, Wisconsin 3^rd

 

With three official losses – Thein Ho and Jasmeet Bain in California and Shannon Bird in Colorado, that makes the Blue Dog Democrats track record in Democratic primaries twelve wins (fourteen if you count McAdams and Bean) and three losses. That's twice as many wins as the Justice Democrats managed in the 2026 primary cycle and six more than the DSA did. And in overall winning percentage in their primaries they have a much better track record that either group did this cycle.

Many of them are running in the same states that many Justice Democrats also ran candidates but there are far more that they didn't. The Justice Democrats didn't try to run a candidate in Florida this cycle, the Blue Dogs ran two, nor did they try to run one in Kentucky or Montana. And its worth noting Jamie Ager managed win his primary in North Carolina where as Nida Allam failed in her second attempt to win earlier this year.

Many of the candidates will be fighting it out in districts the Democrats need to win this cycle. Brooks is challenging Ryan McKenzie, who won his district by one percent in 2024. Garcia is trying to join Gonzalez and Cueller as part of that coalition after the maps were redrawn by Texas last. Cooke is trying to beat Derrick Van Orden who ran five points behind Trump in 2024.

For some their chances have improved due to events having nothing to do with them. Max Miller was a heavy favorite to win reelection until a marital scandal became so public his father in law, Ohio Senator Bernie Moreno, said he refused to support him and that he should resign. Miller has stayed in the race and now the odds have shifted heavily in Poindexter's favor. When Ryan Zinke in Montana chose not to run for reelection Sam Forstag suddenly got a boost at the district has become a toss-up. As for Blake Gendebien, Elsie Stefanik's district seemed safe until Anthony Constantino faces multiple lawsuits, most recent from the fiancé of a Republican Committee chair who he accused of being arrested for a DWI.

Unlike the overwhelming majority of the Justice Democrats and the DSA candidates all of the candidates the Blue Dogs are running face an uphill battle. Most of the ones I've listed are all running in districts that are ranked as toss-ups while many are running in races that are magenta at best and crimson at worst. For some the odds are clearly shifting – Dembo and Forstag have shown considerable momentum in the last month – but it's going to be a difficult fight for the dozen who are running.

I suspect many of them will have an advantage that the Justice Democrats don't have: both House Leadership, the DNC and all affiliates of the party have a far more vested interest in Blue Dog Democrats winning then getting more members of the Squad. As I've mentioned before the only think that group of primary winners will do is change the names of some of the members of the Democratic caucus. The Blue Dog Democrats are trying add to the numbers of it and they will have a bigger role in whether Hakeen Jeffries becomes Speaker and if he does, how big a majority he will have. It will help the Democrats more if Bob Brooks wins in Pennsylvania then when Chris Rabb inevitably does even if the left will cheer the latter and not even care about who the former is.

For the record the Blue Dog Democrats are being supported by the Progressive Democrats which is officially aligned with Bernie Sanders. With that said I suspect that the alliance is more for the Sanders' wings benefit then the Blue Dogs. Sanders's own track record of endorsing candidates is notoriously spotty. This cycle alone he endorse a left-wing candidate in the Utam 1^st against Ben McAdams' , a former and likely future Blue Dog, and McAdams's trounced his candidate easily.  What's more none of the members of the Blue Dogs are associated with the far more left-leaning Justice Democrats who have publicly reviled them since they joined Congress in 2018 despite the fact that it was not until 2024 that they officially tied the Blue Dogs with ten members apiece.

While comparisons between Blue Dogs and the Justice Democrats success in Senate races are harder to clarify it is worth noting that Abdul El-Sayid, the Democratic nominee in Michigan ran under the Justice Democrat banner in his unsuccessful run for governor in 2018. (He lost the nomination to Gretchen Whitmer.) Mary Peltola, who lost reelection in 2024 for her House seat is mounting a political comeback for the Senate in Alaska. As I've written this year most of the Democrats to win Senate nominations in swing states such as James Talarico in Texas and Josh Turek in Iowa, managed to defeat far left Democrats while the left's attempt to run Graham Platner in Maine publicly exploded this summer. All five candidates are currently favored to win their seats on Election Day far more heavily then such prominent left-wing candidates as Annie Andrews in South Carolina and DSA member Angie Nixon in Florida, though of course a lot can happen between now and election day.

The right-wing media and the current administration have spent much of the past decade trying to tar the entire Democratic Party with labels such as 'radical left' and 'socialists'. Far too often in this cycle the mainstream media has been willing to play into the narrative the right wants and that the Bernie-AOC wing considers a badge of honor. They've never had any real use for Blue Dogs, usually choosing to consider them DINOs which is laughable considering that the loudest speakers have been Democratic for far less time than most of the Democrats they criticize and quite a few aren't even actual Democrats.

The reason is one the left really doesn't want to face. At their height the Blue Dog Coalition proved that not only was it sometimes easier for the Democratic Party to win without the left's help, something it was completely unnecessary. They serve as a blatant  contradiction to the narrative the left keeps trying to push: that Americans all want the far left agenda they prefer. It contradicts the reality of the half century since McGovern's 49 state landslide defeat drove the nail in the coffin of the liberal order and that the successes Democrats have had electorally since then – the New South of the 1970s, Clinton's Third Way and the 50 state strategy of 2006 and 2008 -  came when the party went where the voters were, rather then where the left says they should be.

The left has spent far more time trying to argue these successes were failures then they have trying to convince the electorate to embrace their policies  - perhaps because deep down they know they can't do that. It's far easier to blame the system and say there's no difference between the two parties rather then try to realize your vision. In the decade since Trump first won in 2016 the left has done much to create the illusion that there's a movement for what they're selling and the Republicans are more than happy to play into because it benefits them.

The reality of the 2026 Democratic primaries is different then the narrative so many want it to be: voters are in favor of a center-left party but the emphasis is on center.  The track record of the Blue Dog Democrats cycle as well as the fact that even some progressive Democrats are willing to back them shows that this as what the voters want. If those who back the AOC's and Mamdani's have a problem with that, they need to be reminded of their place in the Democratic House Caucus. The Democrats success in the House will be owed far more to the success of candidates like Brian Pointdexter and Ben McAdams' then it ever will Ilhan Ohmar and Rashida Tlaib and they would do well to remember that because Hakeem Jeffries should and will.

 

 

Nikole Hannah-Jones Put The Good of Society Ahead of Her Daughter. She Still Doesn't Realize Who The Victim Was.

 

A little more than three years ago I began a series for medium which was one of  my first real forays into contemporary issues in 'Educating About Education'

The thesis for my article, which I believe is still very much on point, was simple:

Everybody has something to say: Democrats, Republicans, talking heads, parents, the media, people who don’t live the state, people who don’t attend the schools. Every single person who has a voice in this fight has been quoted, interviewed or made a tweet. We’ve heard from everybody in America on this subject.

Except, of course, the people who everyone claims that this is about. The children who go to these schools.  I am not surprised by this because for everything we claim to be doing for our children, in reality it is all just another one in a long line of proxy wars that every single group in the world is fighting for through someone else. 

The impetus for the series was the one that I took the longest time to get to: the battle for integration of public schools.  This led me to Ruby Bridges and while I started my article with a trigger warning of sorts I didn't hold back in my opinion:

Ruby Bridges was six years old when she became the first African-American child to attend a whites-only school in Louisiana. According to the page on Wikipedia, her parents responded to a request from the NAACP to volunteer to participate in the integration of the New Orleans school system. Her father was resistant but went along because her mother thought this was better to give her daughter a better education but to take this step forward for all African-American children.

‘Volunteered her’. We’ve seen the famous portrait by Norman Rockwell. According to Bridges, “she saw the crowd” but because she lived in New Orleans, “she thought it was Mardi Gras.” She was walked to school by marshals, who were proud of her courage. Did anybody even consider the fact that she might not have comprehended what was happening to her?

Only one person in the entire school agreed to teach Bridges. For one year, that teacher taught her along as if she were teaching a whole class.

Bridges was threatened with poison, marshals only allowed her to eat the food she brought from home. She could not participate in recess.

We commemorate Ruby Bridges as a hero. In actuality she went through an entire year of intense trauma, threats of violence and was essentially isolated from a proper educational experience in the name of progress. And there’s no indication she was asked if she wanted to do this. She was ‘volunteered’. Her parents basically put her through a year of immense torment that no doubt has to have given her immense emotional scars that probably she has had to deal with for the rest of her life. The fact that Bridges has essentially disappeared from public view not long after this happened is hardly surprising.

I remember discussing this with a friend of mine who is similar to me in his politics but blunter in his dialogue. He told me point blank that Ruby Bridges's parent were guilty of child abuse in his opinion. I didn't state that directly in my article (though I came very close to saying it outright) but I've always felt their was much truth to that:

To be clear I believe entirely in civil rights, in every aspect of integration, in every aspect of equality. I have little doubt people will read the previous paragraph and call me a bigot regardless. But look at the world we live in now. Just as it was fifty years ago, children are still at the center of wars they don’t understand as to why they are being fought.  Many of them didn’t ask to be put at the center of these wars, but their parents, then as now, considered their concerns irrelevant to the battles they are waging.  That these battles are being fought in a world that most of the combatants never set foot it should not shock us – the soldiers are never a factor to the generals or politicians.

I was reminded of all this with crystal clarity when I read an article online in the Times Magazine this weekend. The headline and the Lede tell you why:

In Fighting for Every Black Child, Did I Betray My Own?

A decade ago, I made a decision about my daughter's education that I hoped would challenge New York City's separate and unequal school system. Now 16, she thinks I made the wrong choice.

Perhaps it should come as little surprise that the author of this article is none other than Nikole Hannah-Jones whose 1619 Project has been condemned by major historians almost since it came out and that Hannah-Jones never backed away from. I had little reason to like Hannah-Jones as a historian or a writer; now I know for certain she is a reprehensible human being who is more interested in making a point then she is about fixing the problem.

The entire article, for the record, makes clear her narcissism in a way that is even less attractive. Even though it's clear from the opening paragraph that her own daughter believes that her mother has betrayed her for a cause she didn't know she was fighting, Hannah-Jones first instinct is to nevertheless make the story about the system and its failures.  This is not an apology to society or her own daughter but an argument in the paper of record to try and frame it so her daughter Najya is the victim of the system and not her parents. And just to be clear most of the article has less to do with Nayja's suffering or the recriminations but Hannah-Jones restating the argument about America is a racist society and still using her daughter as a proxy.

Hannah-Jones says that both she and her husband has managed to avoid segregated schools and had attended integrated ones. She acknowledges "the integrated education my husband and I received set the foundation that has allowed us to become the successful middle-class family that my daughter was born into. In other words she is a child who has bene the beneficiary of her system.

To be clear Hannah Jones compares herself – with no apparent irony – to the generations of black parents who made these decisions "based on the collective good and not just our individual advantage. Faraji (her husband) and I decided that our role in this struggle meant upending the status quo and sending our child not to a wealthy white school but a poor black one."

This is how she puts it:

We thought by sending Najya to a mostly low-income and Black school, we could help improve it for all the children there. I knew that P.T.A.s at poor schools often can raise only a few thousand dollars but Faraji and I could write checks that exceeded the annual P.T.A budget…I believed Faraji and I could bring some of that power with us. We had connections and time and status should not matter, but that we all know do. And more than that, we believed strongly that if families like ours went into schools like this one, it would challenge other families with similar values to ours."

Note the constant use of we and ours. Hannah-Jones has the arrogance of so many left-wing people – and that I see in our current President – that she, her money and time could succeed where generations had failed. This narcissism alone is bad enough before you consider that, just like those generations of black parents before her, she 'volunteered Najya to participate'. And to remind you the generations before were far poorer and has less opportunities then Hannah-Jones had and admitted she benefited from.

To be clear Hannah-Jones decided to write an essay for the Times Magazine and put her daughter on the cover. Hannah-Jones insists she wasn't planning to do this but we're only getting her version of events and I have little doubt she is no different from any other progressive who wants to speak about a cause when she's really talking about herself talking about the cause. She also points out how much personal, public response she received and how much activism she led. "In the outside world my choice had earned me valor."

At this point Nayja confronts her which is in seventh grade: "Did you know my school was bad like this when you put me here?" Hannah-Jones tries to deny but then her daughter tells her that she has looked up her school.

Hannah-Jones then says:

I told her everything I had said a hundred times on stages, in interviews, in discussions since I had made her a symbol of how the choices we make can help sustain – or dismantle – equality.

I bet a thirteen year old girl must have loved being told that her mother referred to her as 'a symbol' rather than her daughter. Her daughter had no room for this nonsense:

"So you had money to send me to one of the best schools, and you chose not to?" she said, hurling her words. "Because other kids are disadvantaged, you didn't want to put me in a great school?

If everything her mother hadn't been enough to make me feel love for Nayja Hannah-Jones that statement – said at thirteen – would have sealed the deal. In a single sentence she has dismantled the myth that her mother has built up around her, justifying everything that we've seen her do all that time. The fact that Hannah-Jones now admits that she failed "both my values and my child" is telling. Even an article that is about her child, she lists that failing her values as the first point.

The next several articles detail that as early as first grade Nayja is making it clear just how bad it is for her at school. Hannah-Jones is an active parent and witnesses much of the chaos that unfolds but continues to shift the blame to others – the faculty, the teachers., the aides. She points out that by this point all but one of the white children and the middle class children who started the school with Najya left but "we felt we could not abandon the school and our convictions at the moment we experienced the dysfunctions we knew defined so many of the segregated schools serving poor black children. We had to stay and fight for the students who did not have options."

The italics are mine because I'm pretty sure Hannah-Jones didn't retreat because she wanted to abandon neither the savior trope she'd decided she had nor the fact that the left never admits defeat even in the sight of clear failure. They put their convictions ahead of their daughter – and again, they didn't have to.

Hannah-Jones talks in great detail about how her daughter was clearly started to suffer academically and failing in both reading and multiple subjects. Rather than try to help their daughter – who should be their priority – they continue to visit the principal and get the superintendent involved. They also acknowledge they got private tutoring for Najya but made no effort to take her out of the school.

And she doesn't hide it:

Our child was suffering, but all these children were – they were languishing in classrooms with educators who did not take their academic potential seriously and largely refused to teach. What would happen to those children if we abandoned them as everyone else in power had?

Again Hannah Jones and her husband still refuse to put their own daughter ahead of 'the greater good' even though by this point it has been five years of no real results. And to be very clear there were many ways to do what she did that did not involve making her daughter a personal sacrifice: she could have withdrawn her child and continued to help from behind the scenes. In fact after she graduates the elementary school, she then doubles down and enrolls her in a middle school that is very much just as bad.

At that point Najya makes it clear she was going to prep for an exam for a prestigious high school that admits on a single entrance exam. She and her husband oppose them and as a result hadn't discussed them with her daughter. I think the only reason she agrees with this is that they'd had the confrontation in the car and there have been countless arguments between mother and daughter, which Hannah-Jones ever the writer, no doubt edited out.

By the time she reaches eighth grade Nayja is forces the decision

I explained our decision over and over but my answers never satisfied her. "But what did it do?" she'd ask. "Putting me in this school didn't change anything. I was not trying to be in this type of environment. It makes no sense."

Now I have no doubt this is the mildest version (and most printable) Najya gave her mother over the years.

I respected her growing independence…but it also unsettled me. Her adamance started to seed a fear that if I continued to force her to live my values, it could haunt our relationship far past her school years.

Again I'm pretty sure this is the mother's version of events to make herself seem the heroine and again she frames the decision to let her daughter make her own decision – but again she limits it by saying she has to choose a 'public school'

Najya, to be clear, chooses a school that is very much 'the type of public school she has spent her career arguing against'. But it's clear Najya makes it very clear that the link between race and educational opportunity is clear to her daughter.

But again Hannah-Jones makes it clear that the real agony is her own:

How could I spare myself the judgment I had meted out to others when they justified why they – despite believing in integration – sent their own children to schools that entrenched inequality?

The obvious answer is that a good parent, regardless of their race, wants what's best for their child. It's telling Hannah-Jones seems more upset that she betrayed the cause then her own daughter. This could be seen as ordinary teenage rebellion – and far more moderate and justifiable then so many – but Hannah-Jones makes it about her. Then when things get bad for her daughter culturally and academically Hannah-Jones seems almost smug at her for making the bad choice. As for her daughter's failures – very much the cause of the kind of education her mother basically forced upon her without consent – she can only manage to achieve her goals by the benefit of the privilege that comes with the wealth Hannah-Jones inherited as a benefit.

Tellingly the story ends not with Najya's graduation but Hannah-Jones bringing he daughter to talk with the principal from her own school.

And the essay ends basically still about the mother more than the daughter:

For years I had been defending my decision to Nayja, trying hard to balance empathy for her with the justification of her father's and my choices. I wanted my child to see it my way; to see the struggles she was having as part of a lineage and a mandate, to understand the tremendous privilege that I believed inoculated her against the worst consequences of the dysfunction and at times educational malpractice that she and her classmates experienced.

Najya's answer speaks volumes:

"Sometimes I wish instead of always thinking about other kids, you would have thought about me, I never really got the education I wanted."

Hannah-Jones said: "I realized what she'd been yearning for most was my acknowledgement that she had borne thee cost not only of our unjust society but also my ideals." And then to undercut it: "In this, Najya had become part of a long, unwanted tradition in Black communities."

Just to drive the point home she openly uses the story of Ruby Bridges and makes it clear yet again that, all her words and contrition to the contrary, there's still a part of her that believes she was playing a role of one of those people all those year's ago, that some day her daughter's sacrifice will be worth it. The fact that she is still willing to monetize her own daughter's suffering and neglect as a story for her own brand

My sympathy, as you might expect, is entirely for Najya Hannah-Jones who was used as a pawn by her parents in a battle she didn't ask to fight, who when she called her mother on it, her mother was more interested in defending her decision then her daughter, who is still as much a symbol to her mother than she may ever have been a child, whose mother really still seems to care more about the state of the world then her own daughter's happiness.

I see you, Najya Hannah-Jones, even though I'm not sure your mother ever truly did.  You were drafted into a battle not only without your consent, but your parents had no reason to put you through. You paid the cost for your parents convictions, and their decision to keep putting you through even in the sign of the clear pain and suffering you were feeling is as much neglect and abuse as so many of the children that do suffer from these problems but don't have the means your parents do. Your parents chose essentially to cosplay you in the world of segregated education not for your own good but for their well-being, their status, their recognition. And even now its clear your mother doesn't see the damage she's done you and still sees you only as  a mirror for her actions. They have forced you into what will no doubt  takes years of therapy to overcome – and that you are fortunate to have the funds to deal with it.

I suspect your mother's version of events is the mildest version but your independence and clarity shows that somehow you managed to come through the other side. So what I think the world needs to hear – and deserves to – is your version of events. What was the cost of being the symbol of your mother's values?

You don't have to tell this story now, or ever. But you should know that if and when you do, there will be people like me who will have your back and support you for it.  Your mother is not the victim in this story, you are. If you were to permanently cut off ties with them when you graduate from college I think countless millions could blame you.

And always remember: the system did not fail you. Your parents did. Your mother had delusions of grandeur combined with the fanaticism of a true believer and chose to make you the cause. She forgot you were a child first. And that is a crime as bad as anything you will face in America today.

And as to your mother, the question you raised was not rhetorical. And I'm pretty sure daughter knows it too.

 

 

 

Women Should Serve In Every Political Office. I'm Not Sure Her Bold Move Truly Does.

 

 

One of the oldest cliches in recent years is 'representation matters'.  I'd say that those who make that blanket statement are getting it wrong. Representation matters, yes, but only in a few critical areas. And the one where it matters the most  is elected office.

This isn't an abstraction to me because I live in New York  where women serve in the most important offices in the state and at a national level. Kathy Hochul is running for her second full term as Governor. Two years ago Kristin Gillibrand was reelected as Senator. And if the Democrats regain control of Congress this year – as looks increasingly likely – it will be because women such as Laura Gillen and Cait Conley were elected in swing districts.

All of these women have come under the same kind of brutal attacks from Republicans that are associated with members of the Squad (and yes a few more members of the Justice Democrats will likely be joining the Democratic caucus from New York this cycle). But it is my belief they represent the best of government because they understand who their masters are: their party, their country and their voters. 

In theory these are the masters that all elected officials are supposed to serve though it seldom works that way in practice. In recent years extremists of both parties have argued that there is a different agenda every elected official, regardless of party should serve, and they criticize those who don't meet those metrics. Having spent far too much time among both groups I feel safe in saying the far left has higher standard.

Both sides will actively hold those in office to an impossibly high standard. But those on the far right will always limit their attacks to Democrats whether they are in office or not and defend the Republicans. The progressive, by contrast, will attack both parties and will, if anything, be harsher on the Democrats then the Republicans. They will lambast them whenever they do something that they consider wrong and give them only faint praise if they do something they believe is right.

They believe the far left agenda is the only one that all elected officials should follow, even if they didn't run on it. And they have no use for an elected candidate serving any of those three masters. The only master they should serve is the progressive agenda, no matter how unpopular with the electorate it is.

For that reason I am wary of organizations who claim to be arguing for not only a left-wing agenda but who argue that it is the elected officials duty to serve only a specific group of identity politics. And that brings me to Her Bold Move.

I've been receiving missives from them for several years, as I have so many other Democratic candidates and left-wing missives but I didn't know much about them until recently. Her Bold Move was founded in 2021 as – and I'm quoting them – a PAC that supports women running for political office in the United States, with a specific focus on breaking male supermajorities and protecting reproductive rights in states with abortion bans.

As I said, I'm in favor of women hold political offices at any level, particularly a state one as well as protecting reproductive rights. Yet there are a couple of things in this that set off alarm bells.

The first is the timing. By 2021, as I've written before, the Justice Democrats had gone through two election cycles and had essentially failed as it mission statement. It had only managed to elect 6 representatives to Congress, no Senators and no governors and in most cases couldn't get past the primary. Furthermore many Democrats had tacitly endorsed parts of the Sanders/AOC agenda that year and the Democrats had suffered losses in Congress even as they took back the White House. The voters were endorsing a return to normality but not the left-wing agenda.

The second part is the tacit idea that female Democrat officeholders at a state level can serve the agenda of women better then Democratic candidates alone. There's a fallacy here because all elected officials, no matter their race, gender or sexual identification, have to win elections by getting the votes of everybody. A female candidate can't win elected office if she only gets the votes of women and that means she's going to having to appeal to issues that are not only limited to women.. Taken to the next level, if she wins elected office she is there to represent all the people in her district or state, not just the people who voted for her. Kathy Hochul is governor of New York and she represents all of them, not just the Democrats, and certainly not just all the women – some of whom almost certainly will vote for Bruce Blakeman in November.

These combinations, as with so many other progressive groups, seem to force Her Bold Move to run candidates with both hands tied behind their backs. Which is why it's not clear how successful they've been at their mission statement. That brings me to a different factor.

According to Google Her Bold Move reports that its endorsed candidates have won roughly 85-88 percent of their races." That sounds impressive until you read that 'it doesn't maintain a direct running list or a public directory'. And like many other groups it only highlights the candidates who win and ignores the ones who lose. Nor does it keep a static historical archive of past winners – or those who've lost.

You have to rely on other organization to check their record so I looked on Ballotpedia, one of the more verifiable sources for it. That site tells a different story then the one Her Bold Move trumpets.

They have endorsed high profile federal and statewide figures such as attorneys general and gubernatorial hopefuls, but the bulk of them target state legislative seats, county clerk positions and local school boards. Now I suspect that 85 to 88 percent success rate is built very much the same way our current President picks his endorsements for state and federal office: Her Bold Move will pick Democratic candidates (presumably all female), most of whom I assume are favored to win anyway and that counts them as part of their record.

Ballotpedia tells a different story. They list 84 candidates who meet Her Bold Moves standards Setting aside those who are currently running this cycle. At this point 11 of them  already lost their primaries. To this point I can only find 10 candidates who've managed to get somewhere since 2023. Two lost their primaries, three lost the general and two were nonpartisan.

Despite that I need to be clear I think more highly of Her Bold Move then the Justice Democrats for five reasons:

1. They're living up to their mission statement and running candidates in places that are absolutely much harder for progressives to win, such as Tennessee, West Virginia and Kentucky even after four years. The Justice Democrats stopped doing that at least three election cycles ago.

2. They're trying to win at state and local offices as opposed to the deep blue districts that the Justice Democrats have focused on and keep losing at.  Considering that I believe in a 50 state strategy and local offices at every level I approve of that.

3. They are running more candidates at every level in each new cycle as opposed to the Justice Democrats running far less than their initial cycles.

4. They are willing to embrace non-partisans and independents in a way organizations like the Justice Democrats aren't.

5. Their mission statement is far simpler than most progressive organizations and therefore more likely to have success.

For that reason despite their relatively limited success to this point I applaud on every level what Her Bold Move is trying to do.  The problem comes in their execution.

Because over the last two years I've been on their mailing list and its very clear to me that they would consider me and anyone who isn't a female, whether cis, lesbian or trans, as someone they do not want as an ally. And that's because despite the nobility of their mission statement the online missives they send out on a nearly daily basis are so blatantly leaned towards the most left-wing identity politics agenda it makes the missives I used to receive from Daily Kos and other progressive websites seem like exercises in diplomacy by comparison.

I think by far the best way to illustrate that is to relate some of the ones I got in regard to Graham Platner in July. Over three days they sent three different emails arguing – justifiably in this case – about how horrible a choice Platner was. To be clear I didn't receive any emails from them in regard to Janet Mills during that period  but let's let that go. Instead on July 9^th they showed the six candidates. Mills was there and they brought up the names discussed:

The women on this list are literal current STATEWIDE OFFICEHOLDERS on the same list as a former Congressional STAFFER and the co-founder of a beer company.

Women are held to a vastly different standard. Men often require less experience and far fewer credentials to be taken serious as political candidates. They are framed as 'fresh voices', 'outsiders', 'fighters' or 'the kind of candidate who can win."

To be clear this a truth that's being held to every single candidate who runs as an outsider including some progressives. I mention this because Her Bold Move was an early endorser of Annie Andrews who also has no political experience but is being framed as a fresh voice, an outsider and a fighter by organizations like Her Bold Move. In fact these are terms that are more or less used for every candidate who is running for office these days whether they are male or female, any race or sexual orientations.

And none of this, for the record, even endorses Mills or Shenna Bellows, the two women in the race. Her Bold Move is basically choosing the biggest mess up the left has made – and they're using it to advertise for themselves. They're not even backing a candidate in Maine this cycle.

The bigger issue I had – and one that inspired this post – was one I received this week. It said, "Can we trust progressive men with women's issues?" The post was more or less a slam on Ruben Gallego.

Gallego was elected to the Senate from Arizona two years ago, taking the seat of Krysten Sinema who for most of her term had been attacked by the left as to moderate. She'd eventually shifted from Democrat to Independent before choosing not to run for reelection. Gallego was one of the few major victories for the Democrats in 2024.

However like most elected officials Gallego started moving to the center when he was elected. As Google states, he has adopted a tougher approach to border security, start to emphasize cost of living and economic stress, and has positioned himself by saying Democrats must adjust their platform on public safety and border enforcement to win competitive swing states.

So just as the left always does when a progressive decides to govern for the center where the votes are Her Bold Move chose to attack Gallego as not being trustworthy. Their arguments were specious at best, saying that Gallego was a protector of Eric Swalwell in Congress and that Gallego was sexist because he'd introduced the State of Men's Health Act in Congress. Even worse he did so alongside Roger Marshall of Kansas who is not only man but – gasp – a Republican.

To put it very mildly Gallego only narrowly won election in Arizona over Kari Lake – a woman but because she's a Republican I suppose she doesn't count . He outperformed Kamala Harris in Arizona by nearly 93, 500, many of whom I can only assume were men. So it's clear who the voters of Arizona wanted as their Senator and who they wanted as their President. This was clearly done to slam Gallego.

More to the point Her Bold Move didn't even use this as an opportunity to push for two of their own candidates who are running for the Arizona House of Representatives: Mariana Sandoval and Deborah Howard. For that matter they didn't use it to grant support Katie Hobbs, whose running for reelection as Governor in Arizona. The post was done solely to argue that Gallego – and by extension all male candidates who ran under the label of progressive – could not be trusted when it came to women's issues.

These posts, I need to be clear, were among the mildest of the ones I've received from Her Bold Move over the past years. Almost all of them spend more time attacking elected men in office – sometimes Republicans, though as you can see that's not a given – then they do lifting up female candidates on the major issues they talk about.

At best, this is the kind of reductive thinking I see among the progressive all the time to the point that if taken to its natural extension argues that female candidates are only supposed to run for office to help women in their states or districts. By extension if Kamala Harris had won the Presidency in 2024 Her Bold Move would have wanted her to devote her administration solely to helping women and/or people of color and if she tried to do anything to help anyone else, it would have justified primarying her in 2028.

At worst, the position of Her Bold Move plays entirely into all of the arguments that right-wing media, conservatives, Republican office-holders and of course You-Know-Who have been making about the Democrats catering to the radical left who don't have the interests of 'real Americans' and heart. The Democratic Party is notorious for its problems with white working class voters: Harris' receiving barely 32 percent of them was an all-time low and its been our party's Achilles Heel in the 21^st century, if not longer.  Her Bold Move plays into the right's narrative so perfectly that were it not for the fact that it does endorse candidates and has had quite a few wins, one would almost think it was a false flag for the Republican party.

Last month I wrote an article where I directly asked a question I've wondered about since at least 2024: do left-wing candidates actually want to win elected office? As I put it

A huge part of the reason I take the far left in American politics far less seriously then everybody in the media and both parties do is because the last decade has done much to convince me that to them the one issue that is the only one that counts to both parties – can they win? – is at the bottom of priorities for the overwhelming majority of left-wing voters…The left has always believed far more in principles as a litmus test for candidates then electability. There's a joke in there about because they've never managed to have any real political power, the principles are all they have.

Her Bold Move is not the worst example of this contradiction but it's by far the most frustrating. On the one hand they have a very clear and simple goal that is worthy and should be accomplished. But on the other, their approach for achieving  it in their email blasts makes it clear that they care far more for that litmus test and arguing in the angriest way possible, even if it ends up pushing opponents into the enemy camp and making it all the harder to realize their own goals. With friends like them, the Democrats don't need enemies – and we've already got quite a few.

But I do support women holding elected office and even if Her Bold Move views me as suspect I'm still going to help women get there. I'm going to vote for Hochul for reelection as well as whatever women are running for state legislative office. And I'm already working to try and help Mary Peltola win the Senate in Alaska. I honestly don't know if Her Bold Move will go that far. Not only is Peltola a Blue dog Democrats she's got a history of reaching across the aisle. In fact one of her first jobs in politics was running Lisa Murkowski's write-in Senate campaign in 2010 which helped her after she was primaried by a Tea Party opponent.

Peltola, you see, actually does  support women holding elected office, whether they're progressive or not. Meanwhile Her Bold Move isn't running any candidates in Alaska this cycle. Maybe they should have asked Peltola who probably could tell her where to find them – and more importantly, how to get them elected.

Homicide: Lies & Other Truths

 

Teleplay by Anya Epstein & David Simon ; story by Noel Behn

Directed by Nick Gomez

 

It's tempting to look at the fate of Michelle Forbes on Homicide as part of the show's continuing struggles with female regulars. By this point Isabella Hoffman and Melissa Leo had already been written out of the series under less then ideal conditions and the fact that Forbes was departed less then a season after Leo's could make the show look bad.

However its also clear that the bigger problem was that Juliana Cox essentially was facing the same issue that Megan Russert had the first season she was a regular and Brodie his entire tenure: the series is primarily based on the murder police and anyone who is secondary to it will be lacking. While it might have been noble to try and increase the prominence of the M.E's role on Homicide as we saw in the four seasons before Cox arrived that's never been that big a role to begin with. And as an unfortunate side effect by putting Cox at the center of every medical examination the writers had been forced to reduce the roles of the several recurring characters who had recurring roles. The most obvious example was Alyssa Dyer who only made one appearance on Homicide during Forbes's entire tenure. It's not a coincidence that once Forbes left the show Harlee McBride and Ralph Tabakin began to appear more frequently.

With that avenue cut off the only avenue left for Forbes was love interest and in truth that never worked particularly well either because as much chemistry as Forbes and Reed Diamond had their relationship was derivative of other police dramas. What's more it paled in comparison to the first season relationship between Bolander and Dr. Blythe way back in the first season. That storyline worked because of Beatty's gift at playing the melancholy surrounding Bolander as well as the fact that both actors were playing divorcees in their late forties, neither of whom were conventionally attractive. For all the darkness that surrounded so much of Cox and Kellerman's relationship it really seemed like Homicide was trying to boost its ratings with it rather than genuinely explore something.

One can hardly blame Forbes when it was announced the series was renewed for a seventh season she made it clear she didn't want to be around for it. Her exit still came as a huge shock to be when 'Lies & Other Truths' aired in March of 1998 mainly because I hadn't seen anything in the press about it. Part of the reason it bothered me was for an episode ostensibly about wrapping up Cox's arc, it appears to end in something of an anticlimax. While that's keeping with Homicide as a series overall, I do think its slightly unfair that so much of what is her final episode has so little to do with Juliana Cox.

The main story of the episode is part of an interesting pattern for the final half of the season: for the next four weeks the detectives will primarily be dealing with cases that don't involve names going up on the board. It's part of the larger theme of Season 6 as a whole: we spent much of the first third of the season dealing with the living victims of murder and now we're looking at how detectives deal with actions that don't involve murder in the definition of the term. So in that sense the fact that Cox's last major story is not about the usual metrics of her job is keeping with that pattern.

 

The episode opens with the crime in question: what would now be referred to as a case of road rage. A couple driving a car start honking a truck, the car passes it, and then the truck gets on the car's heels. This leads to the truck causing the car to crash into a semi that's parked nearby, killing the driver and leaving the passenger paralyzed while the truck's driver is killed too.

Munch and Kellerman are called into look at this because there seems to be a clear sign of intent from a passerby.  The case really isn't Homicide's purview and even if it is, as both detectives point out, it's only a paper clearance with killer and victim both dead. The issue is that the driver is a state maintenance road vehicle and there may be issues of liability. That is where Cox's involvement becomes critical.

Munch seems more interested in this as a murder because he's the primary and he can get an automatic clearance. Kellerman argues that the one witness is unreliable. By the time Munch and Kellerman get to the survivor –  the wife of the driver – she's hired her attorney. Despite being paralyzed from the neck down, She confirms the husband accidentally cut him off but that the driver seemed to be trying to run them off the road. The autopsy reveals that the driver of the state vehicle had a blood alcohol level of .09, just below the legal limit.

Later that day Cox's immediate superior comes to the morgue, ostensibly to say congratulations but then to tell her about the Dietz case. He tells her that they have some information that says the blood alcohol level should have been higher. It's pretty clear to us but not necessarily Cox that the state wants her to fudge the results. At first they just ask her to check the results again and Cox is willing. Only then does she learn that the attorney is planning to sue Maryland for compensatory damages on behalf of Dietz's wife. Then the boss comes back and basically tells her to change the numbers so that Dietz is drunk, therefore taking the state of the hook. Essentially Cox's job is dangled in front of her so that she has to be a team player. We can see on Forbes's face how much this turns her stomach.

The scene between Kellerman and Cox for lunch is sweet because it’s one of the few times this season we see the old Kellerman. He doesn't like seeing the city pressuring Cox into doing something that will take them off the hook for liability. Kellerman genuinely doesn't want to see the woman he cares for be forced to sell out her integrity. Cox is genuinely afraid of losing everything because of what the bosses make her do. Its Mike who tells her that the best thing to do is to go to the press. Juliana knows that she could end up losing her job. Its sad to see her tormented and you can tell that Mike genuinely wants her to do the right thing because he knows her.

Cox then visits the hospital and sees Mrs. Deitz suffering. She then goes to see Al and asks him for advice. She tells him everything she knows and asks for advice on who to talk too.  The story is leaked but the result is still the same: Cox is called to the director is kept waiting for a long time and is fired via a message by the secretary.

In what is perfect symmetry Cox recalls that on her first day on the job she fired a M.E. for falsifying a report in order to make a detective look good. Now she's being fired because she didn't do the same thing for her superior. It's a message that Simon will carry forth in The Wire; those who try to do the right thing are the ones who are punished for their actions if they cross the bosses. Kellerman is upset, blaming himself for what he did

 

 

The thing is there's an actual murder that takes place involving Bayliss and Pembleton and its actually more interesting. They've been called to Fort Haliburton where John Dean did prison for Watergate (Pembleton knows this) but he remembers it was also something to do with armed services. The officers received an anonymous phone call about a body that had been buried alive. The victim is Ashley Ashford Akton of Chattanooga and it's clear that he was in a coffin that was splintered to death but he was also their with a high tech cell phone and a water bottle and flashlight as well as an air tube to keep him alive. However the coffin collapsed "and the grave became real," as Pembleton puts it.

Unlike the case Munch and Kellerman have called to this is a murder: the coffin has been tampered with causing it to collapse. They have a witness who says that five men arrived in a truck and four of them buried the fifth.  The case then gives a chance for Kotto to shine as Al Giardello – and insight into his character.  Giardello tells then that the fort was once used for CIA operations at the start of the Cold War, one of the largest in the world.

This leads them into a world of wannabes and real-life spies. The wannabes include Akton. His widow tells them she received the call on the answering machine, saying where she was and that 'I've been betrayed!" Her husband's father and uncle received their military instruction at that fort and Ashley was obsessed with the history. His wife honestly seems more annoyed at his death then anything else: "He was as secretive as he was incompetent." Ballard finds out his cell phone was sold at the Silent Service Spy Store.

This leads them to Nelson Broyles played by familiar character actor Jon Glover. Glover at this point in his career was still very good at underplaying his roles and you can see the subtlety when he shows them a dynamite vest used in East Germany. Broyles recognizes the phone and says he knows the owner only by his code name: Johnny B. Goode and that he demanded top of the line material including the cell phone. He tells the detectives that he called 9-1-1 when he monitored the call and her Goode/Akton suffocating. He was anonymous because it was a breach of his customer's privacy.

After going through the CIC groups and coming up empty Giardello says he has 'a contact with inside information'. At this point we think we know Al well but there's something impressive about how after Al calls the phone and says "Sam. It's El Diago" then meets with a Russian who says, "El Diago they haven't hanged you yet." The way Pembleton and Bayliss are introduced to Sam Dunn. Bayliss and Pembleton get a whiskey and get a crash course in 'wannabe spies', the people who were drawn to the skills that were taught at Fort Halliburton because of the skills there. "They wish the Cold War had never ended," Dunn says. (No one could know in 1998 that it would resume but that the skills involved would be very much 21^st century.) He says that Akton along with his fellow acolytes will likely have a string of failed applications to CIA, NSA, FBI and even local law enforcement and that they will likely have known Acton from childhood. These applications will be 20 years old so it says something that not only can Sam get the information but he does so after Al just asks.

They cross reference his graduating class as well as very law enforcement applications from 1972-1975 this leads them to three of his classmates and one of them is none other then Nelson Broyles. Bayliss then decides to try and lure them in. They still have the cell phone in evidence control and he decides to use it to make a bogus call to Danvers and talk about the imminent arrest of these four actors. Broyles is monitoring it and he'll panic and phone the other three spies. Bayliss is right about this part but wrong about what Broyles panic will cause him to do. "By spreading disinformation?" Frank asks. "It's a classic Cold War technique," Bayliss says.

The technique works – sort of. They find his three compatriots who call themselves the 'sons of the Silent Service'. Ash was on a training mission which involved burying him alive like the East Germans in the 1950s but then something went wrong. Someone switched the caskets and Nelson Broyles insisted they all leave. This is a very funny scene as we see a bunch of balding fortyish men who really do look like CPA's arguing "Do we have to tell you all are secrets?" and then getting upset when they're all arrested.

The episode's climax comes when Broyles comes into the squad room with the dynamite vest we saw strapped to his chest, his thumbs on the trigger. There's a perfect mix of comedy and horror in the scene as Broyles insists his innocence and is shocked that the other members have 'betrayed the cause'  He makes an impassioned plea for the Cold War and its operatives and argues "Better dead then a captive!" Bayliss and Pembleton make it clear that they just want to interview him: "Surely you can resist simple law enforcement techniques." They appeal to his sense of pride and they get Bayliss to cutoff the switch to the bomb.

"My mind has been trained to resist the most powerful brainwashing techniques known to man," Broyles says proudly. Cut to him in the box probably a minute later. "I confess," he says over and over. Akton was killed because he was a dilletante and a drunk who revealed his secrets to outsiders. He claims we are still at war "a war against our own complacency." (Considering what would happen just a few years later, these remarks seem incredibly prescient.) Yet despite Akton breaking the rules not even Broyles can explain why he called 9-1-1. Bayliss makes it clear that at the end of the day Broyles couldn't practice what he preached anymore than Akton could. Broyles is practically in tears as he signs his confession.

The scene that unfolds in the Waterfront with the detectives talking with Sam and Gee. Bayliss casually asks if there was anyone he couldn't break. Sam says: "There was only one man. His determination was inhuman…Al Giardello." When Bayliss asks if Giardello was a prisoner of war Al remains stone-faced. "I'd prefer not to talk about it." But Sam does. He was KGB in Hanoi and he tried his best for four months and not only did he fail, Al convinced him to defect. Asked how he did all Al says is: "Me and $300,000."

The show also wraps up Falsone's custody case which goes pretty much as the viewer and even Falsone expected. What's fascinating is that the custody hearing has gone on so long that even Falsone doubts whether his reasons for suing in the first place were the right ones. Its striking to see a character we've seen so certain professionally and personally actively expressing doubt for the first time and Seda does much to further humanize his character. After the arguments are done Paul and Janine are waiting and Falsone acknowledges what he sees on the street: "the mothers sometimes show up, but the father is never in sight." He talks about his father, who was an alcoholic (Janine tells him that) but says his father was there for him. "If today I'm a cop instead of a criminal HE gets all the credit."  And then he tells Janine that he just wants the best thing for his kid. "And if him staying with you is the best thing for that to happen, that's okay too." The custody arrangement remains the same but Janine decides to give him more opportunities to see his son regardless of the ruling.  

The final scene between Kellerman and Cox is beautiful. She tells Mike that she wants to smell something in the air that isn't formaldehyde. Over the TV they see the state has settled with Dietz for $45 million. Kellerman tells Cox: "You did good."  Asked if she leaves town what happens to us Cox says: "Much to my dismay there never was an us."  She kisses him goodbye and says, "Stay out of trouble, Okay?" She has no idea how much trouble Mike's about to get in.

In a scene of perfect symmetry Juliana Cox leaves the show the same way she came in: driving fast out of town with the same song playing as before. Regardless of how you feel about her character Simon and Epstein gave her a perfectly symmetrical exit.

 

NOTES FROM THE BOARD

Mahoney PTSD: Kellerman asks Cox out for lunch at the Waterfront and Cox reminds him just how badly he got drunk the last time she saw him there. He tells her that Meldrick got suspended and Georgia Rae was suing him. "I think I'm okay now," he assures her. You just can't stop lying can you Mike?

'Detective Munch': Munch is behind the bar at the Waterfront in Cox and Kellerman's final encounter. The fun part is that usually clued in John serves the two of them drinks, watches the report and sees Juliana leave utterly unaware of what has happened. "Where'd Juliana go? The night is young." "She had to leave," Mike says. Munch has no idea he'll never see her again.

Hey, Isn't That… One of the most gifted character actors of all time, John Glover was nominated for five Emmys all between 1986 and 1994. Twice for Best Supporting Actor in a miniseries or a special for An Early Frost and Nutcracker, Money, Madness and Murder, twice for Best Guest Actor in a Drama, for playing Paul Kohler, a doctor who suffered from Elephant's Man disease on L.A. Law and Dennis Atwood on Crime and Punishment, a very short live series by Dick Wolf and playing Ned Miller on the first season of Frasier. For the purpose of this article I'm only going to focus on his TV work and that's more than enough since this episode.

Following this appearance he would play the Devil himself in the short-lived cult series Brimstone. His most famous role to most viewers was playing Lionel Luthor on Smallville, a role he played as a regular for the first seven seasons of the show. He's had roles as Declan Gage on Law and Order Criminal Intent, Simon Craft on Numbers, Samson Gray on Heroes and Jared Andrews across four seasons of The Good Wife, He played Teddy Maddox on Fear the Walking Dead and Eliot on And Just Like That…

He also has a substantial career as a voice actor, most famously for playing the Riddler on Batman: The Animated Series as well as other DC related shows in the 1990s. He also did the voice work for Abraxas in Tron: Uprising and Rodey in Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai.

Needless to say he's had a substantial film career particularly in the 1980s and 1990s usually as heavies. Such favorite work includes Brother Leon in The Chocolate War, Brice Cummings in Scrooged and Daniel Clamp in Gremlins 2. He also recreated his dual role of John and James Jeckyl in the film version of Love! Valour! Compassion! In 1997 . His last film role of significance was Mr. Sivana in Shazam!