Bookend Moments

[housemouse]

It just dawned on me that there is another one of those bookend moments in Dance with Me . The bathroom discussion! Remember how in the Pilot , the man in the cell with his "hey, blind dude" and how he kept asking Jim how he went to the bathroom, did his 'little doggy' go in with him and did he 'do it standin' up, must ruin a lot of shoes that way'. Then here, in Dance with Me, Pete asks Jim the same question and Jim explains how its 'not rocket science' !

This post by hoosier made me think we need a thread dedicated to all the "bookend moments" on the show. Since I haven't noticed any, someone else will have to take it from here.

[maggiethecat]

Hmmm. Just off the top of my head:

The Pilot: The two close-ups of Ron Eldard's eyes, sighted, and blind . . .



. . . that frame the shoot-out at the bank.

Seoul Man: The first perp running by Jim in the opening scene . . .



. . . and the second perp running by Marty toward the end of the episode.

[shmeep]

What a great topic! The series as a whole is full of bookend moments. The one that comes to mind at the moment is really a three-part bookend moment, if there is such a thing.

Jim storming into the locker room to confront Marty about moving the furniture, then Marty storming into the locker room to confront Jim about being...well...Jim, and finally, Marty confronting Jim in the locker room--respectfully but firmly--about the gun, telling him he's earned his place in the squad but that this one issue is the one causing problems. I love the progression of these scenes and the growth we are shown of both characters.

[mlm828]

Here are two more from the Pilot.

On Jim's first day, Fisk grabs Jim's arm and drags him into Karen's desk. I couldn't find a screencap of the actual collision, but here is Marty's reaction:



The next day, Fisk calls Karen and Jim into his office, and Karen is amazed when Jim neatly sidesteps the file cart next to her desk:

[hoosier]

One I am very sure someone has mentioned is the bookend concerning Terry and the bank and Greg and Middleton. I just happened to watch Past Imperfect this morning--my Tuesday "fix". Jim can not forgive Terry for what happened at the bank in the Pilot , but he is able to forgive Greg, urging him to "absolutely let it go" and how there was no need to carry that guilt around. At the end when they are in the bar, Jim tells Greg how he remembers how Greg kept telling jokes so they all wouldn't be so afraid as their unit went into combat. He said THAT was how he remembered Greg, the good upstanding guy.

[bump]

I caught onto this about a month after Blind Justice had ended but in "Dance With Me" Christie tells Jim that he'd be a regular Fred Astaire [at the dance class]



In Fancy Footwork, we saw Jim imagining himself as Fred Astaire (from the movie "Top Hat" I believe):

[maggiethecat]

"Cheek to Cheek," the Irving Berlin standard to which Jim and Christie danced, is indeed from the Astaire/Rogers RKO classic, Top Hat.

But I would argue that it's not so much of a true "bookend moment" as it is the writers getting stuck in a ballroom dancing rut for the last three episodes!

[hoosier]

Another bookend concerns Karen and her change of heart. In the Pilot, she wants to "rethink" her partnership with Jim because she doesn't want to "be held back" By Under the Gun, she tells Jim she will be his partner "no matter what" when he consults her about the possibility of his giving up his gun. She also tells him that how he solves crimes sometimes leaves her "impressed".

[mlm828]

hoosier said:

Another bookend concerns Karen and her change of heart. In the Pilot, she wants to "rethink" her partnership with Jim because she doesn't want to "be held back" By Under the Gun, she tells Jim she will be his partner "no matter what" when he consults her about the possibility of his giving up his gun. She also tells him that how he solves crimes sometimes leaves her "impressed".

There is a similar pair of moments involving Lt. Fisk. In this scene in the Pilot, he asks Jim to stay in the squad and tells him no one wants to go out on the street with him.



In "Fancy Footwork," when Jim tells Fisk he's considering giving up his gun, Fisk tells him, "You know, you can do this job without a gun."

[bjobsessed]

Thanks for all your great screencaps. I save them all. That adds up to a lot of BJ pics.

[hoosier]

How could we have forgotten the biggest bookend of all--Jim and his gun! Duh In the Pilot, he tells Fisk that he has signed a waiver so he can carry on. It was to be a belly gun to be used up close and he was not to pull it in public. Besides the badge, a cop's gun is his/her most visible symbol. In Fancy Footwork, Jim turns in his gun, signing yet another waiver I am sure. Though reluctant to give it up, he has come to realize that it is no longer necessary for him to carry one to do his job and, more importantly, it no longer defines who he is.

[maggiethecat]

From Marlon's Brando, perhaps my favorite "bookend," because it's small and subtle and works on both a symbolic and dramatic level.

When Karen and Jim go to talk to Nancy Dressler, Karen asks Jim to "play up the blindness" to put Condell's disfigured victim at ease. Jim "gives it a shot," using his cane awkwardly, as though he'd just discovered it in his jacket that morning, stumbling into a chair, asking her if he's facing her when he clearly knows he is. And it's the cane as much as Dunbar's ingenious performance that puts Nancy at ease.



Later, when Jim and Karen burst into Condell's apartment, Jim, confronted by Mark Watt, a thoroughly nasty and condescending piece of work ("You're blind?" he sneers. "Oh my God."), uses the folded cane as a club, smashing it across the man's legs.



The white cane of the blind, used in one episode as both a symbol of pity and as a weapon. Helluva bookend . . . and neatly used to underscore Dunbar's mounting frustration about his abilities to do the job.

[maggiethecat]

Bookend moments. Hmmm. You know, I think I may have just started this (at least in my own feverish brain) by first referring to the twin shots of Dunbar's eyes in my recap of The Pilot as "bookends."

But once I started noticing these clever examples of parallel construction, I couldn't stop. To me, a "bookend moment" occurs when a device or image is repeated, but with a difference the second time. Those stunning close-ups of Dunbar's eyes framing the shootout nightmare. The two remarkable and telling ways in which Jim uses his cane in Marlon's Brando. Jim being dragged into Karen's desk, and then deftly sidestepping it the following day. The first and last scenes in Fisk's office.

Jim only pulls his gun twice in the entire series, right? Once on Randy Lyman, and a second time when entering the Korean grocery store. Is this a true bookend moment? Maybe not. The second time Jim doesn't draw on a specific person -- he just holds the gun low against his hip for all of thirty seconds. (Which the Chief of Ds chose to interpret as "waving about." Go figure.)

But if we include that all-important flashback to the bank?

Here he is, cool under pressure, determined beyond all reason, striding purposefully toward the Kevlar-clad gunman . . .



. . . and later, in Lyman's kitchen, when he's pulled himself together and knows damned well he's aimed straight at the man. The same steelly resolve, the same icy determination, but this time with an obvious twist, the twist that drives home the point.



Bookend moment? Works for me.

[Eyphur]

maggiethecat said:

Jim only pulls his gun twice in the entire series, right? Once on Randy Lyman, and a second time when entering the Korean grocery store.

Actually he pulled his gun out in Marlon Condell's Apartment when Marlon pulled his gun out, although there wasn't anything in there to really draw our attention to Jim's gun being out.

Not the best screencap nut you get the idea.

[bjobsessed]

Doesn't he also pull his gun out again in Marlon's Brando when he comes home to his apartment and finds the door open? Again, he's not pointing it at anything, but it's out none the less.