A New Take on The Pilot

[maggiethecat]

longlashes said:

Sheesh! Here we go again! I have watched and watched and rewatched the Pilot episode. And I have yet to come away from it thinking that Christie is anything but human!

Oh, absolutely human . . . but not exactly the Queen of Timing. As for whether her iciness may have driven Jim to find companionship elsewhere, or whether his infidelities were the cause of her iciness . . . we'll never know.

On a purely frivolous note, what is up with that pie on the counter? It's huge and looks oddly fake.

[rducasey]

maggiethecat said:

On a purely frivolous note, what is up with that pie on the counter? It's huge and looks oddly fake.

I always thought it was one of those ceramic fluted pie plates with a lid. I tried to put in an image from Ebay but it would not paste. I always wonder when Christie is slamming the pans around, what is in the frying pan wrapped in foil, but since the Dunbar's never ate (except for the Chinese food) maybe it was just something for Hank.

[maggiethecat]

greenbeing said:

So it's always made me wonder about the people who would have seen exactly what happened between Jim and Terry and the gun incident.

Not only what witnesses might have seen . . . but what did they hear? Thanks to Kyt, who posted some amazing screencaps in the early pages of this thread (hope they're still there) we know that Terry's "cover" consisted of what looks like a packing crate instead of the side of the building, as I'd always surmised. I think we know that Terry did indeed hear Jim yelling, "Terry, look at me! Terry, he's empty -- take the shot! (or whatever the exact wording was, and I'm sure you all have it on your mental hard drives).

Granted, the gunfire was constant, plus siren noises and yelling on the street . . . but I have always wondered if anyone else heard Jim's frantic pleas to Terry.

Just as I have always wondered how Terry explained away his "big Browning 9" being in Jim's hand when he fell.

[Dreamfire]

maggiethecat said:

greenbeing said:

So it's always made me wonder about the people who would have seen exactly what happened between Jim and Terry and the gun incident.

Not only what witnesses might have seen . . . but what did they hear? Thanks to Kyt, who posted some amazing screencaps in the early pages of this thread (hope they're still there) we know that Terry's "cover" consisted of what looks like a packing crate instead of the side of the building, as I'd always surmised. I think we know that Terry did indeed hear Jim yelling, "Terry, look at me! Terry, he's empty -- take the shot! (or whatever the exact wording was, and I'm sure you all have it on your mental hard drives).

Granted, the gunfire was constant, plus siren noises and yelling on the street . . . but I have always wondered if anyone else heard Jim's frantic pleas to Terry.

Just as I have always wondered how Terry explained away his "big Browning 9" being in Jim's hand when he fell.

One of the things I surmised from that and other eps was that when it was a police shooting or death the questions being asked seemed to alter and the emotions ran very high, perhaps getting in the way of cool objectivity. So it would not have surprised me if very few questions were asked of the cops left after the fall out. They had a bad guy, thankfully Dunbar had disposed of him, end of story. NYCops seem quite reluctant to find their own wanting.

[maggiethecat]

ashatan said:

One of the things I surmised from that and other eps was that when it was a police shooting or death the questions being asked seemed to alter and the emotions ran very high, perhaps getting in the way of cool objectivity. So it would not have surprised me if very few questions were asked of the cops left after the fall out. They had a bad guy, thankfully Dunbar had disposed of him, end of story. NYCops seem quite reluctant to find their own wanting.

Let me say right up front that the "cool objectivity" kicks in, if only eventually. I don't know how it works in Oz, of course, but the NYPD is about as "loosie-goosie" when it comes to protocol and procedures as is the Pentagon. In other words, not. IA -- Internal Affairs -- would have been all over this shooting, questioning cops, questioning witnesses, and putting all cops involved on desk duty until the particulars were sorted out. If you look back through the past threads about the shooting, here and in "Up on the Roof," you'll see that there has been much discussion about how the department would have handled Terry's "suspected" cowardice. The NYPD, for all their failings, does not cover up the misdeeds of their officers for long, as witness the Abner Louima case some five years back. (You can check it out online.) For example, there was a case last year where an NYPD cop fled the scene of a shootout -- leaving his partner to be grievously wounded -- and was subsequently bounced from the department. And, as Jim tells Christie at the end of "Up on the Roof," the story of Terry's misdeeds will not remain hidden for long. Cops gossip.

We do have several clues as to what the department thought of Terry, and what kind of cop he was: Why was a young virile detective paired with a "fat hump of a partner" like Glen Semple? Perhaps because it's accepted that, when an officer has been involved in a questionable shooting or incident, the department often assigns them to duty that is not as demanding, not on "the front lines." No, Terry isn't put on modified duty after the shootout at the bank . . . but is he working the kind of high profile cases he once worked with Jim? Probably not.

[mlm828]

maggiethecat said:

IA -- Internal Affairs -- would have been all over this shooting, questioning cops, questioning witnesses, and putting all cops involved on desk duty until the particulars were sorted out. If you look back through the past threads about the shooting, here and in "Up on the Roof," you'll see that there has been much discussion about how the department would have handled Terry's "suspected" cowardice. The NYPD, for all their failings, does not cover up the misdeeds of their officers for long, as witness the Abner Louima case some five years back. (You can check it out online.) For example, there was a case last year where an NYPD cop fled the scene of a shootout -- leaving his partner to be grievously wounded -- and was subsequently bounced from the department. And, as Jim tells Christie at the end of "Up on the Roof," the story of Terry's misdeeds will not remain hidden for long. Cops gossip.

We do have several clues as to what the department thought of Terry, and what kind of cop he was: Why was a young virile detective paired with a "fat hump of a partner" like Glen Semple? Perhaps because it's accepted that, when an officer has been involved in a questionable shooting or incident, the department often assigns them to duty that is not as demanding, not on "the front lines." No, Terry isn't put on modified duty after the shootout at the bank . . . but is he working the kind of high profile cases he once worked with Jim? Probably not.

Like many others, I have wondered how Terry managed to stay on the job after the events at the bank. The only explanation I have come up with is that the whole story was somehow not revealed during the investigation. This seems to be consistent with what we see in the series, for example, in "Up on the Roof," where the other 8th precinct detectives don't seem to know what happened at the bank.

But this just leads to another question: why didn't the facts come out? One possibility is that the other survivors weren't in a position to see or hear everything that happened, and Terry and Jim didn't tell the whole story.

But there is also the fact that Jim shot the bank robber with Terry's gun. Wouldn't this fact inevitably come out? If so, how could it be explained without revealing Terry's failure to act? If it didn't come out, why not? Was the investigation less thorough, because there was really no question about who shot the suspect and the justification for the shooting? Based on my limited knowledge of these matters, those are the issues which are usually the focus of the investigation of an officer-involved shooting. In this instance, there was no question who shot the suspect, unlike other cases in which multiple officers fire their guns and it isn't known who fired the fatal shot. And there was little question about justification, since the suspect was firing an assault rifle at anything or anyone that moved. I don't know if this is a plausible explanation, but it's a theory. Whatever the explanation, I doubt Terry would still have been on the job -- in any capacity -- if the investigation had uncovered the whole story.

[kytdunne]

mlm828 said:

Whatever the explanation, I doubt Terry would still have been on the job -- in any capacity -- if the investigation had uncovered the whole story.

What, precisely, did Terry do that was in opposition to his duty as an officer, that he could be legally fired for it?

Even if the entire story was completely known, he can not be reasonably expected to abandon cover to walk unprotected into the firing range of an armed gunman (not even at his partner's demands).

Kyt

[maggiethecat]

kytdunne said:

What, precisely, did Terry do that was in opposition to his duty as an officer, that he could be legally fired for it?
Even if the entire story was completely known, he can not be reasonably expected to abandon cover to walk unprotected into the firing range of an armed gunman (not even at his partner's demands).
Kyt

Hey, Kyt! I have always assumed that Terry had the shot from cover, that all he needed to do was stand and turn and fire, and that was what Jim was yelling at him to do. The screencaps you posted showing that Terry's cover was nothing more than a large packing crate did make his situation more critical . . . but Jim's "demands" are specific. He assesses the situation swiftly, and instructs Terry accordingly.




"Terry, he's empty, take the shot" says to me that, from where Dunbar's was positioned, he believed Terry had a clear shot when he didn't without leaving cover. The "Terry, look at me," is necessary when Terry doesn't respond. It's only when Dunbar realizes that Terry has frozen that he acts. Again, I never got the sense that Jim expected Terry to leave cover. You've got a clear shot, I don't, you do it. And Terry didn't.

(Would it have killed the film editors to put in one overhead shot so we could get the triangulation? )

As for which, if any, of Terry's actions that day would have caused him to be fired . . . uh . . . it's all pretty much grey area. The case last year of NYPD officer who was suspended for what amounted to cowardice was entirely different (of course). Sorry I misspoke yesterday -- I now remember that he fled the scene of a shootout, abandoning his partner, who had been wounded, and that was cause for his being suspended while the case was being investigated by IAD.)

Can you be fired for perceived cowardice? (Sounds like the British Army c. 1895.) Conduct unbecoming an officer? Failure to act? I don't know the dept. statutes or language in this case.

Whether or not Terry committed an "official" offense at the bank (call it a sin of omission?), I don't believe it would have been enough to have gotten him fired. (Even after he shot himself and deliberately pinned it on another man he was allowed to retire on reduced pension.) I think he would have been quietly reassigned to another precinct while the media focused on Hero Cop Kills Gunman. (Or -- and this is entirely theory -- Terry could have asked for a transfer to another house so he wouldn't have to listen to the guys talkin' about Dunbar all . . . day . . . long, and could essentially make a fresh start.)

As for the gun? As evidenced by their dialogue, Jim and Terry are the only ones who knew "what happened that day" -- which tells me that the gun was handled in a way that didn't raise suspicions within the department. What happened immediately after Dunbar took out the gunman? Mass confusion, I imagine: officer down, gunman down, ambulances, EMTs, and every cop who'd been on the perimeter rushing in. All Terry had to do, really, was say that he handed off his gun to Jim because Jim was out of ammo and had a better shot. Or that Jim grabbed the gun from him and played Wyatt Earp -- from what we know of the Old Dunbar, that would have been an easy sell.

[mlm828]

I wasn't thinking that Terry would necessarily have been fired. Rather, if the whole story were known, it might have been impossible for him to stay on the job.

On a related issue, I think enough was known or suspected about Terry's conduct that he didn't stay in the precinct where he and Jim had worked. Or perhaps he transferred because of guilt. We know, from Jim's "believe it" speech to Galloway, that he worked at the "34" at one time. And the script excerpt maggie read suggests he was at the "25" at the time of the shooting. If this is correct, Terry must have transferred to the "77" sometime after the incident.

[anna]

maggiethecat said:

"Terry, he's empty, take the shot" says to me that, from where Dunbar's was positioned, he believed Terry had a clear shot when he didn't without leaving cover.

I'm asking here, because I'm not entirely certain. I thought that, at this particular point, it did not matter whether anyone had or did not have cover. The gunman was out of ammunition and had not had time to go for another weapon. Anyone could have stood up and shot him. If Dunbar had not emptied his own gun, he could have easily shot him. Terry also could have easily stood, turned, and shot him at no risk - although he would have had to take Dunbar's word for that, not an easy thing to do in that situation.

Dunbar got into trouble because, during the time that it took him to yell at Terry, run over, get Terry's gun, and get into position, the gunman had pulled out his other weapon.

[mlm828]

anna said:

I thought that, at this particular point, it did not matter whether anyone had or did not have cover. The gunman was out of ammunition and had not had time to go for another weapon. Anyone could have stood up and shot him. If Dunbar had not emptied his own gun, he could have easily shot him. Terry also could have easily stood, turned, and shot him at no risk - although he would have had to take Dunbar's word for that, not an easy thing to do in that situation.

Dunbar got into trouble because, during the time that it took him to yell at Terry, run over, get Terry's gun, and get into position, the gunman had pulled out his other weapon.

Very good points, anna. I think Terry would have known the gunman's weapon was empty, because he tried to fire it, and it clicked. Then he threw it away. As far as I can tell, Terry could have seen this from his vantage point. So for a moment anyway -- at least long enough for Terry to fire his gun -- the gunman was effectively unarmed. Of course, they couldn't assume he didn't have another weapon. However, as you point out, it took time for him to throw away the empty assault rifle and pull out the handgun he used to shoot Jim, and Terry could have shot him during this interval.

[Duchess of Lashes]

maggiethecat said:

Hey, Kyt! I have always assumed that Terry had the shot from cover, that all he needed to do was stand and turn and fire, and that was what Jim was yelling at him to do. The screencaps you posted showing that Terry's cover was nothing more than a large packing crate did make his situation more critical . . . but Jim's "demands" are specific. He assesses the situation swiftly, and instructs Terry accordingly.




"Terry, he's empty, take the shot" says to me that, from where Dunbar's was positioned, he believed Terry had a clear shot when he didn't without leaving cover. The "Terry, look at me," is necessary when Terry doesn't respond. It's only when Dunbar realizes that Terry has frozen that he acts. Again, I never got the sense that Jim expected Terry to leave cover. You've got a clear shot, I don't, you do it. And Terry didn't.

Terry's cover is hardly a large packing crate - he is crouched behind what looks like a steel electrical box, as evidenced in the screen cap below. He appears no less vunerable here than Jim was firing from behind a car door. Add to that it appears there is a police car between his location and where Jim was standing, and he would have had a couple of good choices for cover had he just stood, turned and taken that shot. But he didn't - he was frozen in fear, huddled behind that box, unable to move.

[mlm828]

After reading LL's post above, I watched the shoot-out scene, and it made me wonder. Why did Jim step out in the open to fire at the gunman? By the time he stepped out into the open, Jim must have known the gunman had another gun; he pulled it out as Jim was running to Terry's position. Could Jim have fired at the gunman from behind the electrical box? If not, then Terry couldn't have fired at the gunman without leaving cover, either. Of course, regardless of whether Terry had to leave cover, he still had the opportunity to fire before the gunman pulled out his handgun.

[maggiethecat]

mlm828 said:

I wasn't thinking that Terry would necessarily have been fired. Rather, if the whole story were known, it might have been impossible for him to stay on the job.

Oops! My bad. I agree that it probably would have become impossible for Terry to stay on the job because of trust issues, real or imagined -- in much the same way that he couldn't have stayed if the truth behind the "accidental shooting" scenario had come out. (Which, as Jim tells Christie, he's fairly certain it will. Impossible to discuss Terry without referencing UOOR, but they are so interwoven.)

It was never mentioned in the show, so, as anna says, it's not canon, but it's NYPD lore that cops tend to avoid other cops who have been involved in shootings as "bad luck," like there's some sort of "There but for the grace of God go I" whammy attached. I imagine that some of that might have clung to Terry, like the way the smell of cordite hangs in the air. And, even though no one else in the squad has enough of the facts to ask directly, they all sense that something is not quite kosher. Well, of course -- every time Terry shows up or his name is mentioned, Dunbar's face turns to stone. You'd have to be -- you should pardon the expression -- blind to miss it.

And now I have to go read all the other terrific stuff that's been posted today . . . !

[maggiethecat]

mlm828 said:

After reading LL's post above, I watched the shoot-out scene, and it made me wonder. Why did Jim step out in the open to fire at the gunman?

Great question (and thank you, longlashes, for once again providing a wonderfully illuminating screencap!). I wonder . . . could it have something to do with handgun versus semi-automatic, and the need, with a handgun -- even a powerful one -- to get closer to the target for accuracy? Dunbar knows he's only going to get one split-second opportunity to take this guy out, and he has to be in the best position whatever the risk.