Questions for Marty

[maggiethecat]

Please give the reasons for your answers:

1. What is the character's best trait?

2. What is the character's worst trait?

3. What do you most wish that you knew about this character? (This would be not something that was revealed in the series.)

4. What would you have liked to see this character do just once in the series?

5. What did this character help Jim understand about himself?

[shmeep]

1. What is the character's best trait?
His sparkling personality. ;D

2. What is the character's worst trait?
His mean streak. (No I did not just say that!)

3. What do you most wish that you knew about this character? (This would be not something that was revealed in the series.)
More about his personal life. Why did he stop wearing the ring halfway through the show? Was a divorce contributing to his general crankiness? Did losing the wife cause him to wear some of those horrible shirt/tie combinations because she was no longer there to pick out his clothes for him? What was going on with his hair?

4. What would you have liked to see this character do just once in the series?
I would have liked to have seen one long and satisfying scene in which Marty and Jim are just goofing off together and cracking each other up.

5. What did this character help Jim understand about himself?
Marty personified everything Jim knew he was up against working as a blind man in the real world. He helped Jim recognize he had the strength to face it and to even win upon occasion.

[housemouse]

1. What is the character's best trait? His tenacity.

2. What is the character's worst trait? Along those same lines, not knowing when to let things drop.

3. What do you most wish that you knew about this character? (This would be not something that was revealed in the series.)Did he drive that firefighter who was previously a cop off the force?

4. What would you have liked to see this character do just once in the series?Show a bit of subtlety.

5. What did this character help Jim understand about himself?I think Marty brought out more of the pre-shooting Jim more than any other character. With Marty Jim had to fight for everything, Marty wasn't giving him any slack, he forced Jim to walk the walk.

[anna]

1. What is the character's best trait?

His loyalty to people once he has accepted them. I'm thinking of Marty's talk with Karen after Nick dumped her, his offer to take Jim to look for Hank. If Marty accepts you, he's there for you.

2. What is the character's worst trait?

His belief that everyone is entitled to his (Marty's) opinion. If Marty has a thought, he has to "liberate" it, no matter how offensive or annoying it might be.

3. What do you most wish that you knew about this character?

I, too, would like to know about his family life. What is his relationship with his wife and child? He can be very compassionate, so I can imagine him having a warm family life. However, he also can be a complete pain . . . so maybe not. At the very least, he would keep things interesting!

4. What would you have liked to see this character do just once in the series?

I would have loved to have seen him work a case with Jim - just the two of them.

5. What did this character help Jim understand about himself?

Marty helped Jim see that it was not all about Jim. In SM, and again in FF, the bottom line of Marty's remarks in the last scenes in the locker room was that Jim had to be part of the squad and think about the effect of his actions on the rest of the members of the team.

[hoosier]

1. What is the character's best trait?
His often brutal honesty. He wasn't afraid to keep reminding Jim about the gun or reminding him that he was on 'modified assignment'. When he was yanked off questioning Bostic, he said that he wouldn't change how he dealt with suspects even to please the boss.

2. What is the character's worst trait? He was often belligerent. He didn't seem to learn that you didn't need to be in everyone's face to get your point across.

3. What do you most wish that you knew about this character? What happened between him and his partner Billy Concher that drove Billy to leave the force and join the fire department.


4. What would you have liked to see this character do just once in the series? He and Jim work a case together. They would butt heads because, as Jim said, "they have different styles" but they would have to find a way to work together to solve the case


5. What did this character help Jim understand about himself?
That he could not rely on his past reputation to smooth his way in a new squad. He would have to earn their respect by proving that he could do the job.

[maggiethecat]

Oh, Jeez, I haven't done Marty yet?

1. What is the character's best trait?
I would have to agree that it's his honesty, although sometimes he was a little too honest.

2. What is the character's worst trait?
Where do I start? He was hotheaded, confrontational, quick to judge -- oh brother, was he quick to judge -- and he apparently trimmed his hair with nail clippers.*

3. What do you most wish that you knew about this character?
Why he seemed to have absolutely no understanding -- or even wanted to begin the process of understanding -- what Jim dealt with daily. The repeated nasty little cracks really started to wear, to the point that I really began to wonder if maybe some blind man had killed his pet hamster. Okay, I'm kidding . . . but not by much. He seemed bound and determined not to give Jim a chance from Day One. He came around in the end, but he was, until almost the end, obsessing about Jim and the gun. I would almost have understood this attitude if Jim had been assigned to be his partner, the very notion of which gives me cold chills ("No, I'm not telling you where I parked the car and get your damned hand off my elbow."). Until the last episodes, he just seemed over the top in terms of acrimony and resentment. Even that last little locker room speech in FF, as rewarding as it was? Sorry, but it just wasn't Russo's place, certainly not as a man with lesser experience, to give Dunbar a performance review -- that was Fisk's job.

All by way of saying, I guess, that I really would love to know just what caused Marty Russo to be so arrogant and contentious in the first place.

4. What would you have liked to see this character do just once in the series?
Same thing I said about Christie, actually: relax.

5. What did this character help Jim understand about himself?
That past performance wasn't a pass into their good graces . . . but I think Jim knew this, anyway. As for Marty letting Jim know that he had to lighten up and be a member of the team, he got the same information from Karen and she did it in a much more palatable way.

*Plus he had a mean streak a mile wide.

[Duchess of Lashes]

1. What is the character's best trait?

Not being afraid to speak his mind. Although it may not have been what Jim wanted to hear, when Marty spoke up about "losing the gun" I think there was no doubt that it contributed to the pivotal decision.

2. What is the character's worst trait?

His biting sarcasm, his lack of regard for the effect his words might have on someone else, the fact that he wouldn't let things drop, his temper, his unkindness....I could go on and on and on

3. What do you most wish that you knew about this character? (This would be not something that was revealed in the series.)

What happened in his past to feed his insecurities, why it was he felt it so necessary to make Jim feel so unwelcome, so unwanted, why he felt so threatened by him

4. What would you have liked to see this character do just once in the series?

You know, the headline Marty most fears, "Cop Gets His Ass Kicked by Blind Guy".

5. What did this character help Jim understand about himself?

I would like to say that Marty showed Jim there were many tough obstacles to overcome along the road to acceptance - but Jim was already well aware of that. I would also like to think that Marty showed Jim it often took a team to make things work - but given the year he had just survived, I think Jim knew that too. In those two things, what Marty may have ultimately showed Jim is that when life gets tough, he didn't have to depend only on himself to make it through, that there would always be someone there for him. (Lord knows he could have handled all a whole bunch better! But if he did, he wouldn't be Marty, would he?)