Lara's Review - Death Toll

As I write this I am still unsure of my feelings towards this episode. I know I didn’t dislike it and while I didn’t love it, I did find it intriguing, this is probably an odd thing to say, so let me see if I can explain it.

I know there have been many comments regarding the similarities between Death Toll and One Twelve, beyond a terrorist bomb, I didn’t see it, I felt that the meanings behind the episodes were very different.

While this episode still had those elements that make Crossing Jordan a great show, the perspective of the audience was different from previous episodes. I feel that the audience traditionally identifies with the protagonist of an episode, it is usually Jordan, but can be Macy (Dead or Alive), Lily (Locard’s Exchange), Woody (Sunset Division), Bug (John Doe), Nigel (Forget Me Not) etc. In Death Toll the audience was prevented from doing this, the audience was placed as an objective observer, the interchange of scenes between Stiles office with the various main characters, the morgue, and the bomb-site encouraged the audience to maintain the unattached position. We were separate participants rather than channelled participants through a character, we felt sad because we observed the characters being sad, not because we identified with the story. I feel that this is what made the episode powerful.

The episode was emotional, and the audience was able to get emotional, but they were not able to identify with a single character, instead they were given the opportunity observe how the characters reacted to the event individually, rather than from the perspective of the character.

This episode provided an opportunity for writers, producers, and directors to canonise the main characters for future episodes, leading up to the season five finale. The characters conversations with Stiles were a way of providing the audience with a retrospective of where the characters have come from, how they have changed, and where they are going. The perfect example of this is with Jordan, her conversation with Stiles revealed how much she has changed over five seasons. Jordan is ready to let down her walls, she is ready to open up to love and letting someone love her back, I look forward to the writers exploring this in more depth.

I loved the interactions between Bug and Stiles in this episode. As I watched, I was more convinced about Bug’s move away from Lily, Bug describes himself as changed, as he undergoes a ‘sleepy transformation’, he is more aware of himself and how, although in many ways he is happy with his new perspective of life, he sometimes wishes he could retreat back into his previously limited world.

I was very impressed with Kathryn Hahn in this episode. Her portrayal of Lily is amazingly touching. I feel that this episode highlighted Lily’s struggles between her personal and professional feelings, as she wonders if she is ‘to good at her job’ and has become emotionally detached from her work. This internal conflict is something that has been building under the surface and I do think it is one of the many things that will come to a head as the season reaches its climax.

I thought Lu was interesting in this episode, as her past is gradually revealed and she moves from a two dimensional character to a three, I am beginning to like her more. While some have criticised Lu’s back-story as being misplaced in terms of the episode I do not feel this way, rather I feel that her having a powerful emotional reaction to seeing the children was in line with how many people would react if they have experienced a personal tragedy. Lu’s reaction wasn’t to the event of the bombing, it was to one of the children looking similar to her niece, the emotions she had effectively ran away from began to bubble to the surface, this is what drove her to pull away from the case.

Ok, now I have to talk about the Kiss, it was extremely uncomfortable to watch, but I would guess that it was intended to be that way. After an emotionally charged event peoples impulses and boundaries are very jumbled, the kiss between Woody and Lu was a result of this, but the unfortunate draw back was the two characters talked about it with Stiles afterwards, therefore I feel that the power in the kiss was diminished. The events of Loves Me Not remain powerful because it hasn’t been discussed beyond Jordan and Woody, and even then not to great extent. In Death Toll, the discussion of the kiss with a third party took away from the power behind it, but it does leave the door open for more.

The various character revelations and insights that occurred in Death Toll made it a very powerful episode. While the case storyline was pushed to the background I feel that it was to provide a backdrop to the scenes with Stiles, rather than a ‘who dunnit’ story it wasn’t about the mystery of the story, which I felt One Twelve was, Death Toll was about the reactions of the characters to the events. Terrorism is a ‘hot’ issue at the moment, and one way of sorting our feelings towards it is to do it in an abstract form such as melodrama. Unless you have been affected by a tragedy you cannot know exactly how it feels, and even then, people react in different ways. I feel that this is what happened in Death Toll, it was exploring the reactions and emotions of the characters in hindsight, as they look back on how they dealt with the incident, and they sort their feelings and emotions. This is how the writers chose to explore terrorism, rather than focusing on solely on the incident.

In terms of filmmaking, I thought this was one of Crossing Jordan’s best. The art direction was amazing as they created a bombsite, and the makeup was great. The editing technique throughout the episode maintained the audiences alienation from the characters, each scene was cut just before the audience could get to emotionally invested in a single character. The directing maintained the fast pace of the storyline in the flashbacks, but slowed down during the scenes with Stiles so that the crux of the episode could be delivered in these scenes rather than in the flashbacks.

Overall, I did like the episode, love it, maybe, found it intriguing, absolutely. I like episodes where the audience is left on the outer, where they are asked to have their own emotional perspective, rather than one of the characters. I feel that these can often be the most powerful episodes. The screening of this episode came at an interesting time in my life, as I have recently completed extensive research into terrorism. To watch a show that focused on the hindsight emotional reactions rather than the incident itself was interesting and revealing. I feel that within Death Toll there were beats that will prove very significant as the season heads to its climax, Jordan’s revelations in this episode, I feel, are key.

So all in all an interesting and poignant episode.