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It's all about ME, or, Thing 2 and the Strangest of the Law and Order series
I’ve been a long time Law and Order watcher. Not so much a fan in a well, fannish way, as it is a comfortable blanket for me. I’d get home, make dinner, turn on A&E, and watch the same damn episodes of Law & Order again and again and again. They just never get old. And Chris Noth doesn’t hurt.
When Special Victims Unit first aired, I gave it a shot, but it wasn’t my thing. For me, Law and Order has always been more about the cases and the facts and the twists then the people. SVU was about the people, and the terrible, godawful things they do to one another. Usually horrific sexual things, and the combination was just a little too… something… for me.
And then came Criminal Intent.
It didn’t really sink in at first just how strange a show this is, but a pattern has emerged. Law & Order may be about the cases, and SVU about the sex, but Criminal Intent? Is all about the Ego. In Law & Order The Original, the variety of killer is wide. Wives and husbands who have lived too long with one another finally snap. Children defend themselves. People kill out of greed, or to protect a secret. There are mercy killings, and there are accidental deaths. It’s all about the various types of humanity out there, and the various ways they end up hurting one another, intentionally or otherwise. There are an array motives, and they are not always ill-intended. They may be mentally ill. It may honestly be self-defense. There are bad people, and there people who have been driven to do bad things.
This is not the case in Criminal Intent. Although there is the occasional deviation from the norm, for the most part, there is a single type of criminal represented in CI. You could call them sociopaths – but strangely enough, that term turns out to be too broad for the selection we’ve been presented with. Let’s call this type of criminal the ego-criminal. Ego-criminals have a set of defining characteristics. They have one reason, and only one reason, for everything they do – themselves. The crimes they undertake are crimes of selfishness. All they can see is what they want, and they’ll do anything to get it. Often, it’s how they appear to the world that drives them. Appearance is damn important in the Criminal Intent Universe, as is intelligence, and superiority. These criminals have a high estimation of themselves, and their ability to manipulate the people around them. What the ego-criminal has to do to other people to accomplish their needs or maintain their appearance – incidental. There is no sense of guilt, no sense of shame. These people lack a conscience. They’re utterly self-involved. Occasionally, the self-involvement takes the form of living on through their children. Children are often the excuse in this universe to commit a crime, as the ego-criminal damn well intends their family to do better, by any means necessary. If another person matters, it’s only because the ego-criminal worries about how that person perceives them. Looking good is worth killing for.
Here’s a sampling of this show, now only a season and a half old.
--An artist who forges paintings cannot come to grips with the fact that she has no real talent of her own, and will do whatever necessary to appear talented, including killing her college roommate and an art appraiser who discovers her forgeries.
--A lawyer who has been embezzling, taking drugs, lying, and cheating on his wife with no less than five women, starts his way on a killing spree through his girlfriends to hide his infidelity from his wife.
--a private male nurse manipulates the death of his employer, after having slept with both the man’s wife, and the man’s son, all as part of an elaborate attempt to get his kids into a fancy school
--a man living a double life is willing to kill his own children, rather than have them find out he’s not the perfect father they believe him to be.
--a psychiatrist arranges for a hit on a man accused of molesting his own daughter – even though he knows the man to be innocent -- in order to impress his girlfriend.
--an female ex-cop orchestrates the murder of an entire family to cover up the fact that she is shaking down local drug dealers for money, in order to send her daughters to private school.
--a father, who has been faking his son’s test results to make him appear to be a genius, kills a social worker who he fears will write a report that will keep his son out of a prestigious school.
--an assistant district attorney sets up his wife with his own attempted murder, because he is jealous of her success, and his own lack of distinction in the legal arena.
--a pharmacist is so determined to look good in the eyes of his community and church that he pledges a million to the church – and then waters down cancer drugs in order to make the money to keep the commitment, resulting in the deaths of dozens.
--a mother has her daughter-in-law murdered rather than let her divorce her son and ruin the family name.
Some of these ego-criminals fear they’ll get caught, but none of them particularly show any signs they feel what they’ve done is wrong. Often, their crimes are a result of their attempts to hide the fact that they’re presenting a false image to the world. They want the world to be impressed by them. Sometimes they wish to appear important to their family. Sometimes it’s the community. In the case of the men, it’s often how women perceive them that matters.
All of the ego-criminals presented in Criminal Intent have a high estimation of their own intelligence. These aren’t petty criminals out stabbing someone in an alleyway for drugs. These are people who have practiced deceit, and the manipulation of those around them, for a very long time. They’ve gone about their double lives, for years, or in some case decades, without being caught.
So who catches them? A detective who is every bit as self-involved as the criminals he’s tracking. At first, I thought I was watching the mother-of-all Mary Sues, big as life on screen. Detective Goren knows psychology, forensics, strange facts about New Zealand, opera, weather patterns, you name it. He can out-lawyer the staff D.A., and the rest of the squad basically bobs and curtseys in his presence. The F.B.I. defers to his judgment. His captain is, as far as I can tell, a dunce, happy to sign off on whatever his lead detective does (probably because he knows without this guy, his talentless department is going to go right down the drain). His partner is a perky blond thing who was popular and happy and so well-adjusted in high school you’d want to smack her, if it weren’t obvious she’s just a puppet, there to nod and follow Goren’s lead. She’s grown adept over the course of the series in watching him closely, and in picking up her cue when he wants her to act a certain way to help him obtain information.
In other words, the supporting cast are morons, but intentionally so. They have yet to contribute to solving a crime on this show in any meaningful way. I’m amazed by it – or I was at first. Law and Order has always been about an ensemble cast. SVU got even more into the personal lives of the main characters. Criminal Intent – is all about Goren. A single detective is this show’s focus. The criminals are smart, but Goren is smarter. And let’s be clear – Goren isn’t catching these criminals each week out of some sense of duty, of justice, some yearning to serve society. Goren is there to serve Goren’s ego. If Goren can catch this most difficult of prey, the super-intelligent criminal, well, then, what does that say about Goren?
You’ll see, occasionally, one of Goren’s prey turn on him, point out his weaknesses, his flaws. Goren doesn’t take it well. He’s a master of manipulation and observation, and he can’t have these pissant egotists upstaging him. He cannot stand to have someone analyze him they way he does them, every single week. When the female ex-cop tells him all about his own lifestyle, his indulgence in expensive things – you can see it in his eyes. It just became personal.
I said at first I found Goren to be a Mary Sue. No longer. You can’t be both a Mary Sue and a sociopath, and I’m now convinced he’s just as twisted as the criminals he’s tracking each week. He’s surrounded himself with people who help make him look good. He’s got his partner trained. He’s out there catching the toughest, wiliest, most intelligent criminals New York has to offer, and every time he does so, he looks better and better. These are his trophies, in his own strange little Ego world. He’d be a serial killer himself if he didn’t have this outlet, I’m convinced. And for this reason, the show became enjoyable to watch. This detective is as much a sociopath as the criminals he’s arresting each week. His public image is all important to him, and he’s found his means of acquiring public approval and applause, while engaging in behavior that would otherwise be considered reprehensible. He’s beguiled those around him into seeing virtue in his actions, while allowing him to hunt people with personalities eerily similar to his own.
Someday, I hope they wrap this series up with a case that leads them to Goren’s Secret Closet Full of Trophies, and shows just how much he’s PLAYED these people.
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(Anonymous) 2003-01-13 08:30 pm (UTC)(link)no subject
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Very, very cool! Makes me wish I wasn't already watching Too Much Television....
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FWIW, though, SVU has become much better over the last couple seasons; I didn't care for it at all at the beginning, either, but I catch it whenever I can, now. If the sex crimes don't turn you off of it, I'd recommend giving it a second chance.