Haley Stevens: A True Profile in Political Courage.

 

 

Ever since Donald Trump became the face of the Republican Party back in 2016 the far left as well as too many mainstream Democrats have been stunned as to why the GOP would get behind a candidate that they consider morally disgusting.  To them the question seems to be "For what shall it profit a political party if they gain power but lose their souls?"

The GOP has never directly answered that question mainly because it seems implicit. They get political power and that's what a political party is supposed to care about.  The media and the left – to whom everything is a moral question – either refuse to accept this as a legitimate answer. To politicians  -particularly the GOP - it’s the only answer that matters.

Over this same period the left has increasingly come to idolize so many Republicans – many of whom they loathed over the bulk of their career prior to 2016 – when they publicly broke with Trump, from Jeff Flake to Liz Cheney to Mitt Romney and so many others who chose not to seek reelection as a result. None of them seem to have realized the cost of doing the right thing is the end of their political lives and that as a result they no longer have the power to make policy and serve the public. Doing the right thing, particularly in politics, almost always comes an enormous cost and in the era since Trump took office the left has observed this and praised these people while ignoring the fact that they're no longer able to serve the public good. That these people have served as a voice against Trump and might have able to do good within in the party and America as a whole is irrelevant.  Thomas Reed, a  Congressional Republican famously said: "A statesman is a politician who is dead" and he might as well have argued politically dead applies just as well.

And it has to be noted this has only gone in one direction. Increasingly during the Trump era many left-wing Democrats have made pariahs of their own who choose to go across the aisle and work with Republicans. They've long accused the GOP of renouncing bipartisanship under Democratic administrations yet when members of their own party do likewise they have almost to one referred to as traitors. This was true of Jared Golden of Maine a Blue Dog Democrat who crossed the aisle multiple times and who chose not to run for reelection when he made it clear that the current tenor of politics had made it harder to do his job.  And the left turned on John Fetterman when, immediately after running as a progressive, he chose to work across the aisle and among other things chose to work with his Republican colleague in the Senate Dave McCormack for the common good of Pennsylvania. He has now become such a pariah among the left that it's frequently rumored he'll switch parties despite his saying he has no intention of doing so and his track record of voting with Democrats ninety precent of the time.

Much of this is being driven by the extreme left flank of the Democratic Party which has increasingly been far more of a weight on it then it will ever admit. They've spent much of the primary season of the 2026 midterms getting a lot of attention but not winning many critical races as they want, in large part because of the level of their candidates. This was true of Graham Platner's implosion in Maine earlier this summer where the left chose to stand stubbornly by him until a second accusation of sexual assault finally forced him to withdraw from the race. This led to Troy Jackson stepping in and while the Democrats may yet manage to pull out a win there Tuesday it nevertheless shows the toxic nature of so many of their candidates as well as what the left wants to accept.

The biggest example of this, and one that has drawn national attention, was the Democratic primary race in Michigan. In what came to be a bloodbath between former Justice Democrat Abdul El-Sayed and the more moderate Haley Stevens the polls suggested El-Sayed would win in a landslide. Instead the race wasn't called for El-Sayed until the following morning with El-Sayed winning by little more than a percentage point.

The normal path of every primary win is that El-Sayed was supposed to become a more moderate candidate, bury the hatchet with the other side and shore up where he was struggling, particularly with African-American and Jewish voters, in order to win in the fall. El-Sayed, by contrast and against all good sense, has basically chosen not to do that. His efforts to reach out to the African-American community and Jewish community are considered half-hearted at best, he's basically chosen to soft speak much of his past rhetoric rather then uniformly denounce it and time and again he chose to essentially refuse to campaign with Stevens on the trail.

Considering the narrowest of his win as well as the fact that the GOP was going to be laser focused on trying to pick off a Democratic seat in a race they were playing defense in as well as the fact that Michigan had gone for Trump just two years ago this approach to running was tantamount to political suicide. One can campaign as anti-establishment in a primary but once you're running in the general you need the whole party behind you. Instead El-Sayed has behaved like so many left-wing candidates have before: he assumes winning the primary is the same as winning the general. This works in deep blue districts; running for a Senate seat in a swing state is taking your life in your hands.

El-Sayed has time and again rejected multiple overtures to try and go anywhere near the center that Stevens clearly won. It was clear her willingness to stand by him was getting increasingly harder for her to deal with in October and the two never appeared on the same platform despite the efforts of multiple people in both Michigan and national Democrats to intervene. Despite all of the national criticism against him as well as the very real problems he had in the primary as well as a much closer race in the polls then a Democrat in Michigan should face – particularly compared to the nominee for governor Jocelyn Benson -  El-Sayed has run the campaign as if he had 'all the votes he needed' and he didn't need to bother with such things as 'party unity'.

I suspect while the Democratic Party and all of the major names associated with it, left and center, have come to campaign and endorse El-Sayed it is done out of the necessity of party unity as well as the political calculus that any political institution has to endure in an election year. Democrats want to win elections and hold political power because that is the only way you can get things done. Much as the Michigan primary exposed fissures in the party that they will have to deal with down the road, the critical phrase is 'down the road'. I suspect many Democrats are repulsed by El-Sayed's rhetoric as they are many of their own more far-left members then and now. I expect all of them wish their candidate for a state-elected office would make some effort to try and moderate his rhetoric and they can't be thrilled that Tucker Carlson chose to more or less endorse him. Nevertheless the Democrats have taken the approach that has basically been the standard the Republicans have: "He's a son of a bitch, but he's our son of a bitch."

In the case of Haley Stevens it’s a different story. It's genuinely not clear what future she had in Michigan politics after losing the primary but it has to have hurt immensely to have lost by so narrow a margin.  She also did better with the voters who are more typical of the Democratic base, the kind of voters El-Sayed needs to win on Tuesday. So that the nominee has made it clear at every level that he doesn't think he owes her anything, even when it comes to making the most token efforts, should be considered offensive to good political standards. And its been clear that El-Sayed doesn't think he needs her. There was going to be a unity breakfast on Sunday when the two candidates appeared on the same platform. Yesterday El-Sayed made it clear he didn't want her there, which wasn't just an offense to Stevens but to all of the Democrats who had been trying so hard to paper things over before Election Day.

My feelings about El-Sayed aside I truly believe he has treated many people on the campaign trail shamefully, particularly his defeated opponent. It is the kind of arrogance and spitefulness I'm honestly more used to from our current President, never mind a man who is, to be reminded, running to be the junior Senator from Michigan.  So I truly think the decision Stevens made this afternoon was not merely incredibly brave but inevitable.

She chose to endorse Mike Rogers for Senate.

Just Rogers. Not John James for Governor, not any of the Republicans running for Congress in Michigan and she certainly isn't in favor of Trump.  She said she expected Chuck Schumer to become the majority leader and that she was still a Democrat. She just said she couldn't support a man who'd campaigned brutally against her and had done nothing to accept any olive branch she tried to offer.

The reaction from the Democratic party was frankly stunning in its speed. Within hours from Nancy Pelosi to AOC and Mamdani they all chose to pile on Stevens and call her  very close to a traitor. Her campaign manager resigned along with half her campaign staff. And Curtis Hertel, the chair of the Michigan Democratic Party essentially chose to excommunicate her saying "she is not a current member of the Michigan Democratic Party, nor will she be in the future." El-Sayed himself tried to downplay it saying:" None of this matters." To be fair it may not.

When Stevens said that she believed Democrats would flip the Senate Tuesday, she's not talking out of school. She made it clear that this was about a referendum on 'hate in politics' all of which is a legitimate argument considering much of El-Sayed's rhetoric. She had been counseled to remain quiet and out of the news cycle. In other words she's condemning the exact kind of hateful rhetoric that people like the President should do publicly with nothing to gain from it. The stakes are far lower than the Democrats truly want it to be: the Democrats were already favored to win take back the Senate before her announcement and that will likely happen even if Mike Rogers wins. And honestly if the Democratic Party believes everything – not just Michigan – but the entire blue wave will dissolve because of Stevens' actions, they're as dumb as everyone says they are.

What all of this lays bare is something far more simple: For all the morality and garment rending the Democrats, progressives and so many on the left have  made about the Republicans condoning a morally bankrupt candidate for the sake of political power, they are just as willing to do the same when it meets their political ends – and honestly when the stakes are much less important by comparison. I don't find this nearly as hypocritical as Fox News and the right absolutely will: they lost the moral high ground well before Trump showed up.

But it's part of a pattern that's always been just beneath the surface when it comes to so many on the left about basically everything: the way that they will throw out everything they've said about those they despise for years when they say something against a newer enemy. Rachel Maddow deciding to publicly attend Dick Cheney's funeral because he'd chosen in 2024 to endorse Harris is just the most public equivalent of this.

On a personal note I truly find that so many seemingly intelligent people have chosen to make Abdul El-Sayed either an existential threat or potential savior to the Democratic Party, if not America itself, demonstrating the same kind of silliness that I found with everything involving Graham Platner. Again, El-Sayed is running to be the junior senator from Michigan, full stop. He's not going to have any more power in the Senate if elected then any of the other freshman Democrats who will win office. He'll have the same influence that James Talarico, Roy Cooper and Sherrod Brown all do if they win: one Senator, one vote.  If you truly believe that him winning is the  equivalent of the destruction of the Republic, you watch too much Fox News. If you believe that it can bring about the instant realization of a socialist utopia, you don't understand how Congress works.

Now at my core, I don't think El-Sayid is any more qualified to be in the Senate then Ken Paxton is and for the same reasons. And I also understand why the Democrats lined up behind El-Sayed after the primary the same way the GOP did with Paxton: "He's a son of a bitch, but he's our son of a bitch."  But whatever my personal feelings are the decision isn't up to me: it's up to the voters in Michigan and Texas and I believe they are perfectly capable of making up their own minds without having to be told what the entire world thinks they should do. I have my opinions about it, I know what the polls are telling me about both men's chances but in either case, I don't think the voters will listen to me so I'm not going to hit them over the head with it.

Haley Stevens, however, does live in Michigan and does have a reason to care about this as well she should. Now it is still possible, even likely, that El-Sayed will still win election on Tuesday.  Early voting has been going on for two weeks and the most it may do is influence some Stevens voters to either stay home or vote Republican. To be honest I think they might have done so even if Stevens had said nothing and I suspect Stevens knew this too. So her decision was about her future in politics. The choices were simple: be quiet and possibly have one or take a stand and lose everything. Stevens chose the latter – and I truly do find that brave even if that is not the opinion of so many in America today.

Like every major political website I think that a blue wave, perhaps a tsunami, will happen Tuesday. Perhaps it will be enough to sweep El-Sayed to victory; I suspect it will. But no matter what I think I respect and admire Haley Stevens's decision. It was a true Profile in Courage, the one that Democrats say they want to see more often – but of course, only by Republicans.

Homicide Rewatch: Secrets

 

Written by Yaphet Kotto

Directed by Ed Bianchi

 

Secrets is the second episode written by Yaphet Kotto and a completely different beast than his previous episode Narcissus. In fact of the three episodes Kotto will pen for Homicide this is the most atypical as it doesn't put his own character front and center the way other two will.

That doesn't make it a bad episode. Indeed Secrets plays very much like an episode any of the other writers during the show's run could have turned out and I mean that as a compliment. Kotto manages to put several of the critical storylines that have been playing out throughout Season 6 with perfect precision, continues the trend of the season for having the unit investigating cases that don't fit the traditional mantle of what Homicide has done in the first five years and centers it on a plot that as it unfolds is fascinating both in the nature of what the villain at the crux of it is doing and the grayer area of just how horrible it is. Indeed nearly thirty years later the question at its center is even more fascinating then it was back then, even though we now live in an era where it is increasingly difficult for anyone to hide their secrets from the world – and increasingly there are no consequences when they come out.

Munch and Ballard are called in on what is clearly a suicide: Josephine Dalton, 46 who's killed herself via carbon monoxide poisoning. She's clearly very wealthy – the car is a BMW and the house is mansion. What's more she's married with two young kids who discovered her when they came home from school. Not the type to kill oneself but they have to do the paperwork. Dalton is Vice President of Fayette Securities and the kids knew something was wrong when she was there when they get home: she's always at work. They say she was fine until the previous night when she was crying in her room and wouldn't say why.  Ballard wants to know what could have inspired Dalton to kill herself but first Munch and then Giardello make it very clear that if it’s a suicide move on. "It's hard enough understanding why people kill each other. Why they kill themselves, that's not ours to answer."  Considering Al is no doubt still unable to understand why Crosetti killed himself four years later, he speaks from experience.

Meanwhile Bayliss and Pembleton are dealing with Kenneth Alden who has shot himself. He left a note: "I'm sorry. Love, Ken." Pembleton is somewhat more philosophical considering that Alden is the President and CEO of another prominent Baltimore business. He shot himself in his office while his secretary was bringing him coffee. He has a wife and a son. Its only when Scheiner shows up and is told that a middle-aged man of the corporate variety killed himself that the detectives put it together. (Scheiner: "Must be contagious.") This causes Bayliss and Frank to wonder if there's a connection.

It is a suicide and Ballard still wants to know why. Munch wants to move on and he very likely would have until Pembleton and Bayliss come in and ask if there was a connection.  The two of them were prominent in the Baltimore financial community, which isn't that big. Bayliss is more sanguine saying that two suicides in one day is plenty. They might have been inclined to let it go except the 'widow Alden' wants to have a word with them.

The widow knows what "I'm sorry" means because she received a similar envelope, one that has photos she's very reluctant to share.  They are photos shot from a distance of Kenneth with another woman and Mrs. Alden believes he killed himself out of fear of exposure. Pembleton finds this a bit extreme – he's had his share of murders involving infidelity – until Mrs. Alden tells him that suicide might be the easy way out. The women is Jesse Mesker, Kenneth's half-sister.  The two have the same mother. Pembleton posits that Alden killed himself not because of guilt but because he was afraid of being exposed. Ballard and Munch realize that these photos might indicate that blackmail was involved – and part of the Homicide detail's mandate is to investigate extortion.  Giardello orders an investigation to find out who might have took the photos. Munch, to his credit, now realizes that Dalton's suicide fits the same profile and Alden and that an investigation might have merit.  Bayliss is more philosophical: he knows that no matter what secrets these two people had they didn't have to kill themselves. "Time passes on, people can forgive anything," Bayliss says. The viewer knows he's talking about what happened in his family. "People can forgive anything."

Jessie tells Bayliss and Pembleton that the two of them had been having an affair for 25 years, longer then his marriage. They'd been meeting at lunch at the Ambassador for decades. The detectives are more perfunctory then usual but its worth noting that Jesse doesn't feel the least bit ashamed about what she and her half-brother were doing and wonders more about her brother's own guilt. Mr. Dalton is very reluctant to let Munch and Ballard go through her things until Munch reveals that Alden committed suicide and the link's established – the two victims were members of the same country club, Fairglen. There's no evidence the two knew each other but Mr. Dalton reveals that before she died his wife also received photographs of his wife having an affair with their children's babysitter.

There follows a hysterical sequence where Bayliss and Pembleton interview a clerk at the Ambassador Hotel where despite not being able to tell about the tenant's privacy she tells them everything they need to know about Alden renting the place, that he and Jesse saw each other their repeatedly and the visitor one Brenner Jones. It becomes more serious when Frank and Tim bring Jones into the box and show him his photos. They can connect him to the apartment and a fight that was heard, and once they reveal the truth – particularly that the subjects of the photos he took have committed suicide – he's genuinely shocked.

Then the case takes the turn that makes it interesting. Jones admits he took the pictures and made delivers but not to blackmail.  He was told to do this by an old money, old society member of Fairglen named Remington Hill. He told them where and when Alden and Dalton would be having their affairs and was right both times. Jones tells them he did this because he needed the money – but that's a lie too.

The scene between Bayliss, Pembleton and Hill is a highpoint of the season. After a short discussion in which Bayliss and Pembleton talk about Jones he barely puts up a denial and then says about Jones: "He's a weak man, don't you think?"

He admits he hired Jones to do some 'research' – which he calls the 'proper term'  But then he says he didn't blackmail the two of them despite behavior he considers disgusting. Hill said that the two of them were behaving like animals and he wanted them to stop what they were doing.  He says he never threatened to expose them. He went to them directly, said that if they didn't change their ways, he would reveal the truth and that they chose to kill themselves instead.  Furthermore he tells them that he was doing this to give themselves a chance to reform. While he is brazen saying "I'm not responsible for the weakness of others."

He's momentarily shaken when Bayliss points out that both Alden and Dalton left children behind and spouses to grieve – but only momentarily saying: "Then they were sacrificed for the greater good." This would be frightening until he tells them that there were others that he photographed and threatened them with exposure. He has been compiling information for over a year for those who needed 'intervention' . This week he sent photos to eight other people and made the same demands – and they all promised to stop. He says that if 8 out of ten made the right decision, the moral ledger shows a balance.

When the two leave the club Frank immediately wants to go back and doesn't like the idea of Bayliss saying we have nothing on him.  Frank doesn't like that Hill passed judgment but Bayliss reminds him Dalton and Alden made the choice to kill themselves. Bayliss actually seems to be on Hill's side – and then he points out what has been the subtext: "If someone had taken pictures of me and my uncle, I might have been better off. I would have been better off."

I have to say, now that we live in a world where society takes pictures of what it considers the worst behavior of strangers and holds them publicly guilty, Remington Hill's actions almost seem benign. He privately took the pictures, told no one else but those involved and only said he'd tattle – as Danvers puts it – if they didn't stop. By the standards where TMZ and Twitter are almost the mildest versions of this Hill's behavior almost seems merciful and certain utilitarian. (I actually agree with Ballard when she says tattling should be a crime.)

And as Frank and Tim find out there's no real crime to charge Hill with and not even Jones. The matter would be closed – except Gharty then comes in and tells them Fairglen has one less member – Remington Hill.  The detectives assume he killed himself but Dyer points out his trigger finger is clean. He's been killed and its been staged as a suicide. They look at the list of the eight people he blackmailed. Three of them were at the club but they have iron clad alibis. However Brenner Jones was in the club too.

Jones makes it very clear that he killed Hill when it was clear the detectives weren't going to do anything to stop him. He also says that he wasn't doing it for money; Hill had a secret on him as well. He's willing to go to jail for murder but he won't tell his secret no matter what.

 

 

The title is accurate because it also refers to the Mahoney storyline and all of the secrets that are starting to spill out. It starts on an optimistic note when Falsone asks about Meldrick's trial board and asks if Giardello can do something to 'grease it'

Al's response is hysterical: "Are you suggesting that a trial board can be manipulated? That there's no integrity in the process?" Falsone doesn't hesitate. "Pretty much."  Al: "I'm shocked, very shocked, by the very notion of such a thing." We already knew that in fact Giardello has done exactly that because he more or less implied it to Lewis last week and as we see very clearly in the trial board it plays out exactly like Giardello said it was and Meldrick knows as much.  He doesn't contest the findings and indeed he gets the exact punishment.  Giardello then says he called in more favors then Meldrick wants to know.

I have to tell you that immediately afterwards Gaffney chooses to weigh in. "If it was up to me, you'd be back in a radio car for that stunt you pulled. He then faults Al on his problem being a 'lack of discipline."  This is the broken clock occasion. Still its hard to resist their final exchange:

Gaffney: "If I were running his shift, I'd be offering you a transfer out."

Meldrick: "Respectfully speaking, sir, if you were running his shift, I'd be taking it."

Giardello doesn't say anything at all; just smiles beatifically. He has no idea how soon he will regret his decision.

When Kellerman, Falsone and Stivers see Meldrick their reaction is 'the football's back'. None of them seem overjoyed Meldrick is back from suspension and there's a real awkwardness between them that the tossing of the football – Lewis's bonding exercise for the entire series – doesn't erase. Stivers is uncomfortable she's at Meldrick's desk but Lewis doesn't want to talk about it. Critically no one wants to toss the ball to Mike and when they do no one wants it back. Mike's hopes that this will be over soon are dashed almost immediately.

Meldrick has no desire to partner with Mike when he makes the offer in the weight room  and when Mike tries to 'thank him' for helping clear the Barnes murder – a murder, it's worth remembering Mike had no interest in closing on his own – Meldrick denies any involvement. It's also clear given how bloodthirsty Kellerman is when he asks Meldrick how he got the Mahoney crew to turn on each other that Lewis really does want to move forward. When he reveals what's going on with Judge Gibbons and says Meldrick should "ease up" whatever he's doing. The fact that Mike plans to go to jury selection on the civil suit in order to make Gibbons sweat and that Lewis has no interest in it basically shows how far apart the two are. Meldrick genuinely just wants to forget everything he's done; Mike wants to dance on the graves of every last bit of the Mahoney organization as it falls apart.  Lewis is genuinely upset when Mike leaves.

And there are signs that things are getting worse. Falsone and Stivers have caught the murder of Tonio Cornell who'd been in line to replace Luther if Georgia Rae hadn't stepped in. At this point Stivers knows that if he's dead they're can't be much left of Georgia Rae's crew. Falsone then says that they should talk to Meldrick directly. Stivers has been living in denial that Meldrick did this but Falsone enlightens her and tells her his part in giving him the information on the Mahoney crew.

In doing so he officially takes off any shine that was left on his halo at the start of the season.  He admits his role and what was happening to the Mahoney crew. When Stivers asks why he helped him he just says: "He's my partner. He asked." And when Stivers asks why he was so interested in Luther's shooting to the point we thought he was on a mission for some higher calling Falsone makes it clear that his problem was that half the shift  was carrying some big secret. He wanted to know what the dirt was, so he could transfer out if the shit hit the fan.  Everything he did about the Mahoney shooting was simply so he could avoid working with Kellerman so if IID came down he wasn't dirty. And the fact that Stivers is clearly willing to tell him about the shooting and Falsone says he knows enough makes it clear he has no desire to make a mess. He doesn't want the truth revealed. He just wants to stand clear when the dirt hits.

The bigger problem is Lewis didn't ask for Cornell's name. Now that he's dead things are out of control. Meldrick may have started a drug war but he has no way to stop it – something he will find out at the end of the episode.

Lewis finds that out when he catches his first call back on the job the murder of one Nate Bihari, a supplier vital to the Mahoney organization. He doesn't understand why someone would kill someone who's officially neutral and who they'd need after the war was over. Munch is partnering with him (and is one of the few members of the squad still on the outside of all this) says, making sense of a drug war is like making sense of cancer. He doesn't know he's working with the man who started it when he says: "Violence is a contagion that feeds on itself." Munch is absolutely right on this.

And as if Mike has lost any pretense of being a detective his scene at the courthouse shows him basically at his most disgusting. He shows up there for jury selection, saying he's there to give Gibbons a friendly wave. Then when Gibbons sees Kellerman he all but turns white and immediately dismisses the case. Then Kellerman smirks, all but dances out of the courthouse,  and then hurries up after Gibbons to taunt him about what he's done, actively telling him with the Mahoney organization very much still around that the Feds have him dead to rights and he'd better give up Georgia Rae. When he turns and sees Mahoney's representatives leaving the courthouse himself, he doesn't even seem that concerned. We'll see that he shouldn't have shared that secret.

The episode ends with Bayliss and Ballard at the Waterfront the first time they've had dinner since "their disaster of a date" as Ballard puts it. Apparently it ended with performance anxiety on Bayliss's part. He tells Ballard that he never talks that much about his personal life, not even Frank. He comes about it very clumsily but then he confides something that's been on the backburner for the last half of the season.  He confides about his failures in relationship and for the first time to anyone he confides – vaguely but still directly for 1990s audiences – that he's bicurious.

Ballard takes it better than Frank. Bayliss confides that he was always terrified about telling anyone this because it would scare them off. And Ballard tells him: "I'm not running away." In an episode full of secrets Bayliss has chosen to share his biggest one. And in a series where the darkest truths only come to bear in the box, there's something brave and hopeful about it.

 

Notes From The Board

It was the 1990s: Gharty is suffering from a cold (that's why Munch was partnering with Ballard but comes in anyway. "After 30 minutes of Regis and Kathie Lee, I had to get out of there." Not even watching Montel Williams?"

"Detective Munch" While Munch has his own great line there's a lot of fun watching Ballard react to partnering with him. In the teaser when Munch is talking about the safest place in America to live – Stearns, Minnesota – and that Baltimore is the city with the third shortest life expectancy he tells Ballard he plans to move there and become a farmer. Ballard's reaction by the end of the teaser: "I thought you'd be milking a cow by now." Asked what would be so bad you'd have to end your life Ballard's response: "A date with John Munch." One moment later Munch walks by: "Ready to roll, partner?"

The best line comes when Lewis says Nate Bihari was like Switzerland and Munch reacts with fury: "Hey don't go trusting the Swiss. Turns out they spent World War II skimming money from my dead relatives." When Lewis is baffled Munch unfolds: "I don't like their chocolate. I don't like their cheese. I don't like that little knife that folds out into cutlery. Don't go talking up the Swiss to me!"

It's rather strange considering that she's the main client in this civil suit Georgia Rae Mahoney isn't in the courtroom. Maybe she didn't want to be seen in the same place as the judge that was on her payroll. Or maybe she's dealing with the fallout with her crew falling apart. (Or maybe Hazelle Goodman just wasn’t available that day.)

This is the first episode where all three recurring medical examiners: Scheiner, Lausanne and Dyer appear in the same episode. I guess now that Michelle Forbes is gone they can afford to free up time for these characters which honestly isn't a bad thing.

Remak Ramsey, who plays Remington Hill, was a Baltimore native who had roles in The Stepford Wives, The Front and played Richard Bissell in the NBC miniseries Kennedy, Justice John Campbell in Lincoln and the War Within and Dean Acheson in Truman. He also played Thomas Hutchinson in the TV miniseries Liberty! The American Revolution and John McWilliams in Julie & Julia. Better known as a stage actor he appeared in Half Sixpence, Private Lives, The Devil's Disciple, Saint Joan and The Heiress all on Broadway. He was twice nominated for the Drama Desk Award (Off Broadway plays) for Outstanding Actor in a Play for The Winslow Boy and Quartermaine's Terms. It is unknown if he is alive or dead as of this writing.