Four Feet Under—The Official Recap!(Because I never really finished the old one)
We open to an awkward little moment in the Dunbar home and the start of a very bad day for our good friend, Jim.
As Jim gets ready for work, Christie informs him that her chief editor is throwing a party—
that night. Nothing like a little warning. It’s not a work party. Just friends. Jim didn’t know they were such good friends. Christie pats him comfortingly, telling him he doesn’t have to go if he’s not ready. Being forced to go is one thing, but being left behind is quite another and Jim doesn’t seem to like this one bit. “Now, why wouldn’t I be ready?” he asks.
“Because you’re interrogating me, Detective,” Christie says. She tells him not to worry. She can go alone. Then she ruffles Jim’s hair as she walks away. Like he’s a kid or her brother or something. Jim doesn’t look overly enthused about that either.
He stews for a minute and then agrees to go to the party. Christie rewards him by kindly ridding his shoulders of imaginary dandruff once again (or does Jim have a problem? Maybe THAT’S why he’s so familiar with the smell of Marty’s dandruff shampoo…)
On the way to work, a guy on a bike knocks Jim down in a crosswalk. Hank gets spooked and takes off (which doesn’t seem like something a reliable guide dog would do, but…okay)
and Jim finds himself disoriented and alone in the crosswalk.
The terror and confusion is nicely played, as is Hank’s return and Jim’s refusal to accept the pushy offer of assistance a man in the street extends. My only beef with this scene is that it’s shot from so many angles (to show how befuddled Jim is, no doubt) that it ends up looking (at least to me) as if Jim has ended up on the same side of the street from which he set out.
It’s Jim’s case and the Criders are missing their son, Ben. Lloyd Crider doesn’t seem at all pleased to have a blind guy heading up the search. “Is it just you gonna be handling this?” he asks Jim.
Karen takes that one before Jim has a chance to say anything. “No, if your son is truly missing, then the whole squad will be involved.”
“But yes,” Jim says firmly. “This is my case.”
Karen goes on about how it’s a team effort all the way and sends Lloyd off. Jim doesn’t say anything, but Karen knows she has just undermined him. “His son’s missing, you know?” she says apologetically. “I’m just telling him what he wants to hear.”
“Not a problem,” Jim replies. I’m not sure how true that is, but at least he’s being classy. Keep in mind this is still his first week back on the job and Karen has only agreed to partner with him day-to-day to see how it works out. He’s not on very firm footing here.
Karen talks to Mrs. Crider, who speaks of her husband having spent some time in jail, while Jim gets friendly the little brother, Jake—who, incidentally, played Ron Eldard’s son in House of Sand and Fog:
Believe it or not, he seems happier as Jake Crider.
Jake seems reluctant to answer direct questions about the family, but opens up over the topic of the dog (Jim lets him pet Hank which, I know, isn’t appropriate when the dog is in harness but, under the circumstances, it undoubtedly broke the ice) and of blindness in general. Jim seems very comfortable answering Jakes questions (“…because you can’t see anything?” “I can never see anything.”), probably finding the candor refreshing. Jim goes on to describe how he gets mental images of things and how he uses sounds to orient himself.
Karen gets Jim out back to tell him that Lloyd Crider had served time in jail but Jim is more interested in some CGI carrion flies that only he can detect in a corner of the yard. Oh, and he smells something too.
Next thing we know, everyone is there while some cops dig up the yard. They find something…it looks like a body…Jim stands there tensely waiting to be proven right in front of Marty…and…it’s a dog. Everyone else reacts. “What is it?” Jim asks. “Bin Laden,” Marty says. Okay. Mean. But undeniably funny. Oh, that Marty. He gets less funny after Tom tells Jim it’s a dead dog. “Okay,” Marty says, “time wise, I hope this doesn’t factor into the kid’s well being. Like if we’d been looking for him instead of digging holes in his yard.” Lloyd Crider makes an appearance, irate that the dog he had buried in secret so his boys wouldn’t know it got hit by a car has literally been unearthed. “My kid is still out there, you know?” he says to Jim. “And accusing me—
us is a waste of time.” Marty undoubtedly agrees.
Fisk calls Jim into his office with a brisk (and surprisingly raspy) “Dunbar!” and then greets Jim affectionately with “close it!” when Jim enters the office.
Turns out Jim hasn’t been quick to jump on board with the psychiatric sessions that were a condition of his reinstatement. Jim wonders if digging up the dog has triggered this interest in his mental well being, but Fisk just tells him he has to report to Dr. Alan Galloway
that day. Unless, of course, it’s more convenient to put it off again because of previous plans with the wife. Not quite sure how that’s all supposed to fit together.
Ben Crider’s body has been found. Karen gives her usual monosyllabic type of crime scene description and Jim starts asking picky questions about how Ben was left and the state of his clothes. This scene shows us brilliantly just how observant and sharp Jim is and how frustrating it must be for him to have to rely on the eyes of others who may not have his ability to size up a situation. “Is there like a skipped belt loop or something that says he was killed and then dressed afterwards?” he asks Karen.
Karen seems at a loss. “If you’re asking if it looks like he was molested I—I can’t tell.”
“How about your best guess?”
“I can’t tell.”
He keeps his patience but something tells me Karen knows that if Jim could see, he would have been a lot better at finding evidence than she is.
Marty and Tom arrive. Marty is still harping on the dead dog incident of that morning. “I’d like to know the time of death,” he says. “I’m just curious what difference a few hours could’ve made.” Jim gets right into it with Marty. “If you’re implying he could’ve been found alive in the hours we spent in the yard, you’re gonna get your nose broke.” Tom throws in his wise words of mighty peacemaking. “Boss is here with the dad. Everybody shut up.” (I love Tom!) Lloyd cries, holding his boy’s hand through the fence. Something about this scene seems to touch Fisk in an unusual way and his sympathy is obvious. He’s suddenly greatly motivated to blame Kent Newell, the friendly neighborhood sex offender, for the murder.
Marty and Tom badger—ahem—interview mentally-deficient Kent Newell until he confesses. Jim, listening in his usual attitude, back to the glass, jumps when Marty bangs his hand on the table to intimidate the suspect, showing Jim would possibly not have gone that way in such an interview. Afterward, Jim is quick to point out the flaws in their technique, all the while leaning on Marty’s desk. (Don’t you love Marty’s territorial behavior? Shuffling papers and moving a framed picture, making it clear to Jim that he’s doing it. He should have just urinated on the desk and been done with it.)
Jim goes over the interview. “‘You want our help, Kent?’ he answers yes. ‘Did you hurt Ben?’ he answers yes. I think if you asked him if he was a
gorilla, he’d answer ‘yes.’” Marty and Tom both defend their methods while Karen backs Jim up, saying she didn’t hear anything very specific from Kent Newell. Jim and Karen have their own conversation with Kent, who claims to have hurt Ben by burning him with an iron, “Like I got burnt, see?” he says holding up his thumb for Jim to see.
Turns out he only confessed in the first place because he didn’t want the other cops to be mad at him. “‘Cuz he’s an idiot don’t mean he’s not good for the homicide,” Marty says as they all meet up in the squad room again. Marty is still smarting over losing that confession. “He’s still a candidate in my book,” he tells Jim. “So I wouldn’t get smug about this.”
Jim straightens up, smugly putting on his sunglasses. “You could know me 50 years, Marty, and you’d never see me smug.”
“I’m seeing it now,” Marty notes.
Jim takes the dog out and Marty gives Karen some heat for being in lock step with everything Jim says. “Since when are you his bottom bitch?” he asks her. Karen doesn’t find this question pleasing, but Marty pushes with a threat. “He will not last. And you worked really hard, Karen, to get where you are but you’re gonna get zero credit when he washes out and all your old friends feel like you treated ’em like crap.”
In spite of having championed him to Marty, Karen lets Jim have it on the way to see the medical examiner.
“Okay, look,” she says. “If you’re gonna survive on the job and the people who support you are gonna survive, then you’re gonna have to quit with the bull in the china shop mentality.”
“Is that what you’ve been seeing?”
“Well, yeah. You know, it’s like you got something to prove.”
Jim faces her. “I do.”
I love that line. So simple and yet saying so much. I would have been completely undone, but Karen has more strength than 98% of the female population. “All right,” she says. “Well if that’s all this is about then and you have no intention of staying on the job, then why don’t you tell me so I don’t end up collateral damage.”
The M.E. tells Jim and Karen that Ben had had some untreated broken bones in the past, which makes a conversation with Lloyd Crider inevitable. They sit him down and ask him about that. Lloyd claims Ben never complained so it didn’t seem like he had been seriously hurt. “Very stoic for a ten year old,” Jim says. I must point out here that this quote from Jim has been listed over at TV Tome as a blooper but, when you think about it, it isn’t. See, if Lloyd was right and it happened back when he was first locked up (or, more likely, just BEFORE he was in prison) then Ben was quite possibly about ten when he broke that arm. Anyway, Jim starts to get tough with Lloyd (who acts the hell out of this scene, by the way) but Karen lets him go before Jim is done questioning him.
“Another happy customer,” Marty has the gall to say to Jim when he and Karen enter the squad room. Marty, who has just bullied a false confession out of a mentally-challenged man, doesn’t seem to be in much of a position to criticize.
“Are we alone?” Jim asks Karen. She assures him they are. Jim has obviously been stewing about what Karen had said to him over at the M.E.’s office. “Regardless of how long you think I’ll last on the job,
don’t cut short my interviews.” Karen quickly points out it was her interview too and that she didn’t think it would have done any good to continue. At this point, the old Jim probably would have been furious—and shown it. But Blind Jim has learned some patience and merely waves the topic away with an “All right. Okay,” and reestablishes his common ground with her. “But we’re on the same page, right? He’s a candidate?” Karen nods. “He’s a candidate.”
Next we see Jim, not at his mandated psychiatric session with Dr. Galloway but—at a dinner party, standing alone and ignored, frequently checking his watch.
Christie has been watching closely and goes to check up on him. Then Smarmy Clay Simmons approaches, instantly repelling me with his word choices and the way he is coming on to Christie. “What are you slurping there, Christine?” he asks. “The pinot or the cab?...My caterer brought it. Too Oak-y for my fat Irish tongue.”
Ew! The combination of the word “slurping” and the image of a “fat Irish tongue”—especially when used in such close proximity to one another—grosses me out. He’s trying to be impressive, speaking of “pinot or cab,” but he also wants to prove he’s just a regular guy.
Jim sees through him instantly. I think he is entirely right in thinking Clay is hitting on Christie, although I don’t think Christie thinks it’s an accurate assumption. The look Clay shoots Christie when he says, “Steak, which I know YOU adore” is something he never would have dared to do, had he not been fully aware that Jim couldn’t catch him at it. Playing host and rival at once, Clay talks down to Jim. “And you being a cop, I’ll guess. Raw?” What a great, tight smile Jim has as he says, “Rare’s fine.” It’s a passive-aggressive alpha-male (sorry Mags) ritual to win the mate, no matter what Christie believes is happening. “Mmm.” Clay says. “I’ll pass it on.”
Jim tries to figure out where all his food is in peace and is anything but gracious when the woman next to him offers to cut his steak. “I’m fine,” he says, really trying to keep his attention focused on the conversation between Christie and Clay.
Clay is talking up Barcelona and starts trying to get Christie to go to a conference with him there. “Well, Jim’s just back to work,” Christie says. Clay’s voice drops to a whisper as he speaks of all the contacts Christie could make there. His line, “I know every absinthe bar” is the last straw for Jim.
I love the moment when Jim knocks his drink into Christie’s lap and then says, in such an innocent voice, “I am so sorry. Did I get anyone?”
“My lap,” Christie says, dabbing at her dress with a napkin.
With a very poor choice of words, Clay says, “Here, let me get at that.”
Lightening fast, Jim reaches across Christie and grabs Clay’s arm. “Hey, Clay, you go patting at my wife’s crotch, you’re gonna get your arm ripped off.” He ends with an attempt at a smile, trying to make it seem like a joke, but it’s too late. Clay is officially spooked.
The horrified looks on the faces of all the “high class” party goers is priceless.
Jim and Christie burst through their front door, conveniently saving their fight until they get home. That takes some will power. If I was as angry as Christie, the fighting would have started in the hall outside Clay’s apartment, but this is TV and people wait until they’re in a photogenic spot before letting loose with messy feelings.
The fight scene is one of my favorite moments of the series because it is the most impassioned we see Jim and, again, a lot more is going on than what meets the eye. (“Jim, we were just talking!” “Oh yeah? And I was just clumsy!”) Have we seen Jim using blindness as an excuse for anything yet? I guess he’ll do anything to try and show Christie what Clay had really been up to. (“I guess because I’m blind I can’t hear either. He thought because I can’t see, I got no balls.”) Christie acknowledges Jim’s masculinity (“…so you proved that you do…”) but won’t cut him any slack on his behavior.
What really comes to a head here is that Jim knows it is his own infidelity he’s projecting onto Christie. Christie wants things to get back to normal again. “That was normal tonight?” Jim asks. “A guy inviting you out of the country?” Christie’s tone softens just a little. “Come on. Do you really think that I would go without you?” But Jim is heartless. “Yes,” he says. He knows this isn’t fair to Christie. His guilt is all over his face for a moment but, being the flawed Jim we have all come to love, he practically accuses Christie of having an affair.
She goes cold. “But that’s your world, Jim. Not mine.” It’s hard to say if Jim is relieved or furious at having his past infidelity finally thrown in his face. Every emotion he has suppressed thus far seems to burst out of him as he says, “What is that supposed to mean? What do you mean by that? Why don’t you just say it, huh? Say it!” So many things could be behind an outburst like this. Anger at himself, obviously. Anger at Christie for being the injured party all this time and for causing him so much guilt. This moment has probably been hanging over both of their heads since Jim was blinded, waiting for the time when Christie would have to admit to Jim how hurt she has been by his infidelity. He has no response when she says, “Just because you couldn’t say faithful doesn’t mean I can’t.” His folded hands come up to his mouth as he sits there, silenced, probably filling with guilt as his anger subsides. Powerful.
Jim and Karen go to the Crider’s again. As Karen interviews Allison, something happens behind her out the window that I never noticed until (I kid you not) this week. Jim is in the backyard with Jake and the two of them are roughhousing with Hank. Adorable. How did I never notice that was happening in the background before? Yet another of those little touches.
Karen tries to get to the bottom of the untreated broken bones while Jim has another chat with Jake. Again, Hank is the big ice-breaker. After Jim describes some of Hank’s less professional behavior, Jake asks if Jim ever swats him when he’s bad. “No,” Jim says with just the perfect inflection. His voice shows mild shock at the thought of striking Hank and there’s even a gentleness there. A reverence. “I never hit him. I don’t believe in hitting dogs.”
“Me neither,” Jake says. Always focused on the task at hand, Jim brings it back to the case. “Yeah? Dogs and kids should never be hit. That’s my philosophy.” Then he asks Jake what his dad would say about it. “Your dad used to drink a lot, huh?” he asks. Then, leaning in confidentially, says, “Mine too.” A ploy to get Jake to open up or a little bit of truth leaking out? Who knows? But something about it seems authentic. Jake still won’t admit to any abuse in the home, but he does let it spill that his dad killed his dog, Rocky, by hitting him on the head. Jim starts to suspect that Jake may be trying to tell him that the same thing happened to Ben, but Allison interrupts them.
Marty and Tom meet up with Jim and Karen as they are going over the crime scene again. After talking to Jake’s teacher about possible signs of abuse and hearing about the demise of Rocky Crider at the hands of Lloyd, Marty no longer seems very concerned about Pa Crider’s feelings. They need leverage going into that interview. At this moment, the four detectives come together as a team. No judgment. No ego. Just a crime that needs to be solved. Marty determines that if Allison wasn’t involved in abuse, she closed her eyes to it. “I know where I’d get my leverage from,” Marty says. “And I know how I’d get it.”
Jim nods, paying very close attention to Marty. See? Even that first week back, Jim was willing to work as a team with the rest of the squad. He obviously found Marty’s insight very helpful and it may have even been what cracked the case for them.
They bring Allison into the station and threaten to have Jake taken away if she doesn’t tell them what happened to Ben. “We don’t want to do this to you Allison,” Jim says gently. “But we will.” Jim scares her into cooperating by telling her the same thing will happen to Jake if things continue. Next they talk to Lloyd, who eventually has no choice but to confess, since they know everything anyway. He then seems to blame his son for dying. “You know I got beat a thousand times worse than that growing up,” he says, crying, “and I never keeled over and turned blue.”
And then…GALLOWAY! Yes! Finally!
Jim starts right off being a smartass. “Hey, let me ask you something,” he says. “Are you doing this?”
I'm especially glad there’s a picture of this one because I don’t think I can do justice to whatever it is Jim thinks shrinks do while listening to their patients. Galloway allows himself a laugh. “No,” he says. “Would you like me to?” But he doesn’t have much patience when he realizes Jim isn’t about to take the session seriously. Jim goes into a sarcastic spiel about his first week back and by the time he gets to the part about Fisk telling Jim he’s like the son he never had, Galloway has had enough. Jim makes it clear he’s only there as a condition of his reinstatement. “Yeah,” Galloway interrupts. “I understand that. But regardless of whether you want to be here or not I still have to make some kind of report as to your state of mind. Understand?” he tells Jim the content of their conversation is confidential. “I don’t believe you,” Jim replies, making his shrink face again.
Now Galloway has really had enough. “Yeah. Okay. Well, then when I make my report I’m just gonna have to say that you’re uncooperative, and that you’re exhibiting any and are attempting to mask obvious signs of post traumatic stress and that you’re
paranoid! Why don’t you just tell me how you’re feeling, Jim?”
“How do you think you’d feel if you were in my shoes, huh?” Jim asks back, serious for the first time.
Then Galloway delivers the line that seems to get Jim to trust him—at least a little. This is when I started to trust him. “I’d be scared,” he says candidly.
And sorry to be quote happy here, but I must quote Jim’s wonderful response. “Of what? Failing? Not being able to connect with people the way you used to? Being pitied? Not wanting your anger to boil over when it starts to heat up?”
Dr. Galloway starts to take notes at the mention of anger.
Jim continues. “Afraid that all the people that think you can’t do this, including your own wife, are right?”
“You know it’s healthy to acknowledge these things,” Galloway says.
Now Jim speaks with passion. “I’m gonna tell you something and you can write it in your little report. I grew up in Red Hook. I served in the infantry in the Gulf War and I worked anti-crime in the 3-4 where we took more guns off the street than any five precincts combined. I will make this work. Believe it.”
Jim goes home to find Christie waiting for him with a bag packed, ready to leave him, believing they are past talking.
Jim tries to get her to stay by claiming not to be the same person who had cheated on her but she raises the excellent point that
she is still the same person and that she has been holding onto all her hurt and humiliation since the shooting and now that Jim seems to be fine again, she has to acknowledge that she isn’t. Jim continues his attempt to get her to stay but she interrupts, saying, “No, you get me to talk and I’m just gonna stay and it’s gonna be six months wasted before I realize that I should’ve just left.” She flees the apartment without her bag, leaving Jim alone in their bedroom, devastated.
Later, Jim walks Hank out in the park. He sits on a bench, turning his face up toward the rain, getting a mental image of the colors of the trees as the drops hit them.
Sitting there, his face tenses and, for the first time, we see him appearing to struggle not to cry. Then Christie approaches and sits beside him on the bench, taking his hand.
It’s that magic rain. The kind that doesn’t make you wet and that cures all your marital problems.
