A New Take on The Pilot

[kytdunne]

maggiethecat said:

So I believe Dunbar ascribed his injury to "in the line of duty."

Yeah, that one works.

maggiethecat said:

But as for his anger at Terry? More about the lying -- especially when he just keeps doing it again and again -- than anything else. At least to me.

Yeah again.

Kyt

[bjobsessed]

Jim did shut Christie out and had been doing it for a long time as evidenced by her frustration when Jim comes home after his first day. That would include the past year.

His anger, frustration, determination and whatever else you want to throw in there could have been and most likely was directed towards gettin his job back. Otherwise, he wouldn't be where his is in a year. In that way he wouldn't have much time for Christie either. Not on a more personal intimate level anyway.

I never said anger had to be directed at anyone. Some people who are in that state are angry at everyone around them--not at any one person. They are also in a very big self-pity mode which can make them seem angry and unapproachable. They are angry at their situation which often translates into lashing out.

Again, in my experience, both personal and otherwise, it takes a very strong person to pick up and carry on without some period of mourning over what they've lost. Lynn Manning, who was the technical director for the show, was back working after eight months. Jim Dunbar--12 months. I recently read of one person who lost their sight five years ago and is still having a very difficult time adjusting.

Everyone is different. Sometimes it depends on personality and other times it depends largely on the support system available to the person in question.

I don't think Jim wasted too much time being angry or he wouldn't have been back on the job in a year. But, I also don't think that he got shot one day and woke up the next ready to fight for his job.

[inuvik]

Elizabeth Kuber-Ross' 5 stages of grief are appropriate to what BJO is talking about:

Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance.

It is widely acknowledged that one needs to go through these 5 stages. People move at different rates, and may go back a stage or two, and then move forward again. But eventually, for full healing, one needs to get to acceptance.

(Not meant to bring up the whole debate of whether Jim ever reached acceptance of his blindness!)

[maggiethecat]

kytdunne said:

maggiethecat said:

So I believe Dunbar ascribed his injury to "in the line of duty."

Yeah, that one works.

maggiethecat said:

But as for his anger at Terry? More about the lying -- especially when he just keeps doing it again and again -- than anything else. At least to me.

Yeah again.
Kyt

All this agreeing, Kyt? Makin' me nervous. I'll go back and find a new talking/chewing point. We need our brain candy.

Watch this space.

Mags

[maggiethecat]

kytdunne said:

Dunbar's made it perfectly clear that *he* doesn't need to hear what Terry says. So this time, Terry's able to corner Dunbar long enough to say what Terry needs to say for himself.

Gotta wonder just how much of a catalyst Dunbar was to Terry's final fall.

Kyt

Found it, Kyt -- the phrase that had lodged itself in my craw, if you will.

Are you saying -- or even implying -- that Dunbar is somehow culpable in Terry's meltdown? He does, albeit grudgingly, accept Terry's apology in The Pilot. "I just need for you to hear me say I'm sorry," Terry says. "Accepted," says Jim, pushed, literally, to the wall.



How much of Jim's weary tenseness toward Terry can we ascribe to the fact that, since he walked in the door that morning, he's had the intense conversation with Fisk, been -- along with his resentful new partner -- pulled off a major case, endured the ditzy Miss Chenowith, and had to fight to preserve the stolen car as a crime scene?

So. Where are we? After that bitter little scene, the next time the two men meet is in "Up on the Roof," where, initially, Dunbar only wants to deal with Terry on a professional level: "Let's just work the case." Is Dunbar's absence of any reference to their past as friends what pushes Terry to act so rashly?

Do you think that Dunbar ducking Terry's calls for a year, then treating Terry with icy politeness, pushed him to the brink? Isn't Terry's response to circumstance -- in the end -- Terry's call?

Missed you this weekend -- let's get chewy.

Mags

[kytdunne]

maggiethecat said:

kytdunne said:

Dunbar's made it perfectly clear that *he* doesn't need to hear what Terry says. So this time, Terry's able to corner Dunbar long enough to say what Terry needs to say for himself.

Gotta wonder just how much of a catalyst Dunbar was to Terry's final fall.

Found it, Kyt -- the phrase that had lodged itself in my craw, if you will.

Are you saying -- or even implying -- that Dunbar is somehow culpable in Terry's meltdown?

No.

maggiethecat said:

He does, albeit grudgingly, accept Terry's apology in The Pilot. "I just need for you to hear me say I'm sorry," Terry says. "Accepted," says Jim, pushed, literally, to the wall.
...
Do you think that Dunbar ducking Terry's calls for a year, then treating Terry with icy politeness, pushed him to the brink? Isn't Terry's response to circumstance -- in the end -- Terry's call?

Just idle speculation.

In the end, it's on Terry. If he's not strong enough, he's not. But there was a potential for things to have gone differently if a year hadn't built up before he had to corner Dunbar before Dunbar would listen to him.

Can you imagine a more willing Dunbar hearing him out and actively talking with him months earlier? Maybe something like

"I blew it and it's killing me."

would have been possible.

Dunbar was so busy nursing his own wounds, he did not even know that Terry was wounded as well.

Kyt

[mlm828]

kytdunne said:

But there was a potential for things to have gone differently if a year hadn't built up before he had to corner Dunbar before Dunbar would listen to him.

Can you imagine a more willing Dunbar hearing him out and actively talking with him months earlier? Maybe something like

"I blew it and it's killing me."

would have been possible.

Dunbar was so busy nursing his own wounds, he did not even know that Terry was wounded as well.

I agree that the outcome might have been different, if Jim had been willing to talk to Terry earlier. However, at the end of "Up on the Roof," Jim tells us why that didn't happen, "I've been so pissed off [at Terry] the whole time." Arguably, he was so angry he didn't think about what Terry was going through or, if he did think about it, he didn't care. It was only after the events of "Up on the Roof" that Jim realized Terry "was wounded as well" and that he wouldn't want to trade places with him.

[hoosier]

In the Pilot, Terry said that he had called a few times but had obviously missed him to which Jim replied he hadn't been ready to talk yet. It seems that Terry made no effort to go to Jim's apartment. He could have taken the inititative and made the first move towards reconciliation or at least gotten it off his chest by apologizing to Jim face-to-face. It would have been harder for Jim (at least for me) to slam the door in his face than to hang up on him. But instead Terry waited until Jim was back at work and basically ambushed him in the squadroom. Unless Jim wanted to make some kind of scene, he was forced to listen to Terry or Terry would have the option of playing the 'rejected' partner for all to see.

[inuvik]

hoosier said:

In the Pilot, Terry said that he had called a few times but had obviously missed him to which Jim replied he hadn't been ready to talk yet. It seems that Terry made no effort to go to Jim's apartment. He could have taken the inititative and made the first move towards reconciliation or at least gotten it off his chest by apologizing to Jim face-to-face. It would have been harder for Jim (at least for me) to slam the door in his face than to hang up on him. But instead Terry waited until Jim was back at work and basically ambushed him in the squadroom. Unless Jim wanted to make some kind of scene, he was forced to listen to Terry or Terry would have the option of playing the 'rejected' partner for all to see.

I think Terry was correct in not going to Jim's house. If someone doesn't answer your calls, it means they don't want to deal with you. In that case, I think going to the person's house would be rude and invasive of their personal space. An option might have been for Terry to send a letter. He could then "spill it" and let Jim have the option to contact him or not. Jim is the injured party and has the right to not have contact if Jim doesn't yet feel ready.

[maggiethecat]

hoosier said:

In the Pilot, Terry said that he had called a few times but had obviously missed him to which Jim replied he hadn't been ready to talk yet. It seems that Terry made no effort to go to Jim's apartment.

Hmm. Seems to me that we have to operate on the information we're given, and anything else comes under the heading of speculation, right? Terry called, more than once, and Jim ducked his calls. That's all we know -- and all we need know -- for the ensuing scenes to work, and work very well indeed.

In The Pilot, the writers of Blind Justice skillfully imparted an amazing amount of information in a very short amount of time. If Terry had ever gone so far as to show up at Jim's apartment -- or pursue the matter beyond phone calls -- I believe the writers would have found a way to let us know. And they didn't.

It's dramatically more satisfying, I believe, to have the two men meet in the squad room that day for the first time in a year. Watch the way Dunbar's face stiffens when he hears Terry's voice. This is a confrontation he's been avoiding -- for obvious reasons -- as long as he could. Again, more dramatic, more complex, and more interesting.

[mlm828]

Not only has Jim been avoiding Terry for a year, he keeps trying to avoid him when Terry shows up at the 8th Precinct on Jim's first day back at work. He tries to avoid Terry again by saying something to the effect that he's busy working a case and has to go. He even starts to turn away, but Terry stops him. I think the writers made it clear that Jim finally talked to Terry only because it was literally unavoidable.

[hoosier]

[quote author=maggiethecat board=1 thread=1137455941 post=113875203-

It's dramatically more satisfying, I believe, to have the two men meet in the squad room that day for the first time in a year. Watch the way Dunbar's face stiffens when he hears Terry's voice. This is a confrontation he's been avoiding -- for obvious reasons -- as long as he could. Again, more dramatic, more complex, and more interesting.[/quote]

I agree that it was more satisfying to have the confrontation take place in the squad room on Jim's first day at work and his reactions (the stiff face, the crossed arms with his back literally against the wall) said more than words. I just thought that if Terry had been really sincere in wanting to apologize to Jim he would have made more of an effort than just "call a coupla times". It seems to me that he was ducking the issue and now that Jim was back to work there was the chance that they could run into each other and he felt that he couldn't avoid it anymore. That and the fact that Jim would be at the precinct and available.

[bjobsessed]

What if Terry had been more aggressive in meeting Jim that first year? Obviously not the next day, but eventually. This may have force both men to deal with their feelings toward each other and what happened sooner rather than later. How do you think that would have changed both men? I'm not really talking for show purposes because it doesn't have the same dramatic effect at all if issues are resolved or even partially resolved. Tension is part of what makes a show interesting and there would have been less if Jim and Terry had begun to deal with the issues between them.

Just curious on what everyone thinks.

[hoosier]

Of course all this is conjecture since the writers didn't fill us in on what went on in the year between the shooting and Jim's reinstatement and ABC denied us the pleasure of a second season I hadn't meant to infer that Terry should have gone to Jim's apartment because as Inuvik pointed out it would have been rude and invasive. Its just that he seems to have done nothing outside of making a few calls. Apparently he never even spoke to Christie and that would have been just as inappropriate to put her in the middle as a go-between. It just makes me wonder how sincere Terry was in wanting to apologize or take some of the responsibility or if he was just wanting to get the whole thing off his chest.

They's been partners for 3 years and friends. You would think they would have known each other pretty well by then. I'm sure Terry believed that Jim blamed him. How would you apologize for not having your partner's back? But when it came down to it, Terry didn't apologize, he made excuses--"that wasn't me" and "I was pinned down" and Jim cut him off cold with his "we both know what went on". Was Terry in the habit of such evasive bahavior? Making excuses instead of owning up to his actions? His "I NEED to tell you" kind of says that its all about Terry and his feelings rather than an acknowledgement of his failure.

Terry seems to have been able to function as a detective during that year. He seemingly didn't take a leave or was put on some kind of leave by the department and he obviously didn't seek any conseling according to his comment on UOTR that he would get help. If he froze once, wouldn't he have been afraid that he would do so again? Wouldn't it have been at the back of his mind -- would be able to have his partner's back--even Semple's???

Since Jim refused to speak with Terry maybe he was prepared to just let it go. Then when Jim was reinstated, there was the chance they might run into each other on the job. He had the opportunity to go to the precinct and meet him and get him to at least listen to his apology. From his reaction in UOTR, Terry seems to have felt that there was the chance he and Jim could be friends again since he had cleared the air so to speak.

If Terry had been honest from the beginning? How long had Jim been obsessing over Terry's action/inaction? Since the Pilot anyway because Christie asked him if he was "finally through with him". Meeting Terry had certainly brought it back to the forefront of his mind. If Terry had been honest, he might have gotten an honest answer from Jim. But I don't think their friendship would have survived either way.

[maggiethecat]

Okay, Kyt, here we go again . . . without the presence of Ted the avatar (what happened, and I'm also not seeing all of your illuminating screencaps of Terry at the bank?!)

kytdunne said:

I'll buy that Dunbar was meant to be set up as a Good Cop with enough balls and determination that we get a glimpse into why this blind guy wants to go back to such a job, and more, why we should invest some time in finding out if he makes it. I didn't find him particularly sympathetic. Antagonistic would've been closer to my mark. But understanding the stress he was under, I was intrigued enough to see if I would/could like the guy enough to care how he did.

I believe we see -- deliberately -- very little of the "antagonistic" Dunbar in The Pilot, so I am once again intrigued by how we all interpret the same material differently. He's shown as smart, determined, stalwart, funny, etc., and, despite his admitted philandering, set up strongly and definitively as The Hero. Where was Dunbar -- apart from the gun on your hip confrontation with Russo -- antagonistic? Lynn Bodner's crime scene, where he suggests Karen hold back evidence so as not to have the case pulled "for punk ass reasons?"



Not sure that qualifies. It's not unreasonable given the circs. We already know from the way he's handled the stolen car that here is a fiercely uncompromising guy who not only thinks "outside the box," but can bring a fresh perspective to a case the squad has gone stale on. He also wants to prove his worth, and his skills, sooner rather than later -- and Karen, no easy sell at this point (or any other) falls in line. Again, where's the antagonism? Call me curious.

kytdunne said:

He seemed a bit well-dressed for a cop, but didn't pay much attention until I learned the wife was in fashion, then chalked it up to her. Did think it was 50/50 whether or not it was a good idea that he didn't want to have the wife drop him off at work (dependency flags potentially going up for coworkers).

Again, to me this is more than pride: it is indicative of Dunbar's character. Ever heard the old slam re someone who's badly clad? "He looks like he dressed in the dark." Not to state the obvious (!), but Dunbar does dress in the dark . . . and, it seems to me, in no way wishes to look as though he does. His well groomed appearance is all about wanting to look professional and on top of his game. Not different. Less disabled. Normal . . . whatever that is. We don't learn until the second ep that Christie's in the fashion biz, so going by The Pilot alone, I read all that sartorial splendor as a man who wanted to look good because there were so many strikes again him, so many elements over which he had no control: his appearance, however, was within his control, and as such made a statement. As it made a statement that he showed up for work on his own, and wasn't driven to work by his sighted wife.

maggiethecat said:

He is both restrained and open in his first talk with Fisk, but will not back down. He even gives his new boss an out: “If it turns out I can’t (do my job), I’ll leave.” We’re meant to like him for that, and I did.

kytdunne said:

Dunbar was realistic enough to recognize that he may not be able to do the job (without Bettancourt, he couldn't have), but also competent enough to believe he could. Nice contrast and that's where the interest in wanting to like the character came in. But like him for it? No.
Kyt

Not like him for his demeanor in Fisk's office, Kyt? Again I wonder, for I would argue that here, in this seminal scene Dunbar is at his most likeable.



He's restrained, when he could have been confrontational and hostile, and he gives Fisk an easy out. He takes the blows -- "No one wants to go out on the street with you." -- and doesn't lash out. In fact, I would argue that Dunbar is more restrained in this scene than in the rest of The Pilot. He's listening here, and I will be the first to admit that he does not always listen.

So this is where I really started to like the guy. Which, considering how carefully crafted the writing in this series was, had to be intended. Just as I think Dunbar was set up sympathetically throughout his first brutal day back on the job -- getting slammed by Fisk, Karen's resentment, Russo and Selway's doubt and suspicions, being pulled off a major case, the confrontation with Terry -- so we would want to just smack Christie for hitting him with her self-absorbed angst when he came home that night.



Over to you, Kyt . . .