Episode 17
Crime and Punishment (03-04-02)

Brief Synopsis: Jordan and Hoyt (Jerry O'Connell) investigate the death of woman who had a fetish for punishment.

Nigel and Lily got a line or two in, but for the most part sat this episode out.  The main focus was on Jordan case and Bug’s trouble with Garret.

Jordan and Woody: Weird.  That’s the first word that comes to mind.  There wasn’t anything special about this case.  It was just plain weird.  A bit entertaining at times.  What was most interesting was the interaction between Woody and Jordan.  Woody’s naive image came back in this episode.  He’s clearly smitten with Jordan.  Jordan—well I’m not sure what’s up with her.  She likes Woody.  I don’t doubt that, but I see this hesitation at times between them and I’m wondering if her ‘fear of commitment’ is popping up.  We know her track record isn’t too great.  And she just booted Tyler.  If she leads Woody on, she’s stuck with him or she’ll end up hurting him, because he won’t go running off like Tyler did.  In fact I can see Woody eagerly heading down the wedding aisle.  He seems to be the settling down and family type.  It’ll be interesting to see what happens.

Garret and Maggie: Can anyone see the road this is heading down?  Did you say disaster?  Yeah I agree.  Garret’s working late, forgetting about dates.  That’s just Garret, it’s part of what caused problems in his marriage in the beginning.  Now Maggie’s coming in and getting pushy.  It’s not going to last.  It’s just going to cause Garret more heartache.  But hey who am I to tell him that.  I’ll save the ‘I told you so’ for later, I know I’m going to be using it.

Bug and Garret:  The more interesting of the two stories.  We learned about Bug’s background through flashbacks from a case that happened a week ago.  Dr. Stiles (the shrink) gets called in.  He has discussions with Bug and Garret and slowly the story comes out.

We knew from previous episodes that Bug’s father came here to give his children a better life.  He gave up his job as a scientist to work two minimum wage jobs to put food on the table.  With two parents working responsibility fell on Bug to watch his younger brother.  We don’t know how old Bug was exactly, but he couldn’t have been that old maybe 12-13.  His brother was probably around the age of the young boy who Bug autopsy.  Little boys aren’t easy to watch.  They can slip out and disappear if you take your eyes off the m for two seconds.  Parents have a hard enough time watching them—having a young boy watch them…well it’s a recipe for disaster.

Bug took his eyes off his brother for five minutes and next thing he hears is squealing breaks and a horn.  Bug says his parents blamed him (and he’s angry over that).  I wonder if it was just their grief at the time or if they really blamed him.  It was their job to watch him.  And it sounds like they’re good parents doing their best, so I have a hard time seeing them ‘blame’ Bug for a death that was really an accident.  And if blame were to be placed it would have to fall on the parents shoulders. 

Either way it was nice to see Bug again get the focus of a story.

4 out of 5 Dead Bodies. Nice history on Bug and some great chemistry between Jordan and Woody.