Lara's Review - Don't Leave Me this Way

Where do I begin? I think this episode will rate among my favourites for not only the season but also the series, and the more I watch it the more I love it. There was so much that happened in this episode, but even more that didn’t. This season has been an arc format, each episode is a piece of the Crossing Jordan jigsaw, I thought this episode might be the final piece of the puzzle, instead it made me realise that the jigsaw is a whole lot bigger than just this season, and the stories that were told will carry into next.

So this brings me back to the first question, where do I begin?

I felt that this episode stayed within the cannon of Crossing Jordan, I feel that stylistically we saw a new way of telling the story; the case was carried out through flashbacks and ‘actual’ time. This enabled the filmmakers to create a stylistic contrast, but I will look at this further, later, I want to try to make this as methodical as possible.

The season finale was probably one of the worst kept secrets in Hollywood. There was so much known about the story that there was little in the element of surprise, and despite avoiding as many spoilers as I could, one couldn’t help but know (particularly concerning JD’s death), yet I still couldn’t believe how much was told in the episode, as well as how quickly the 42 minutes passed, yes I did want to throw things at my computer screen when the closing credits came!

I will try and work from the bottom up, beginning with the Lily/Bug/Brandau story. I am glad it came to a conclusion, not the conclusion I would have chosen, but it was one fitting to the character arcs that have developed over season five, and previously. I have never particularly liked the Lily/Brandau relationship, I never felt the chemistry between the characters on screen, but I couldn’t help but feel a huge amount of empathy for Brandau as Lily told him the wedding was off. Kathryn Hahn played Lily beautifully throughout the episode, you could see the character torn between not only love for two men, but also between obligation to a man and her obligation to a friend.

I never thought I would be convinced by the Lily/Bug romance again, I thought that it was something that had died in season two. But, when Bug asks Lily why she couldn’t marry Brandau and she replies “he’s not you”, it was the emotional equivalent of the line in Jerry Maguire, “you had me at Hello”. That was the moment the writers convinced me that the Lily/Bug romance is anything but dead.

Both Ravi Kapoor and Kathryn Hahn have played this story so beautifully over the season, I can look back at episodes and see it slowly developing, without fanfare or importance, it was an undercurrent which provided a back drop for their individual character arcs.

The death of JD is going to be an interesting story to play out, and while there are hints of repetition with the story, from “O’Brother…” (Season 3), particularly with Jordan blacking out, there are some major differences in the storylines. The writers managed to counteract the ‘accusation’ of recycling an old story by having Jordan say ‘it has happened to me before’, it is subtle but it prevents the viewer from getting frustrated with the story.

And while the actual case of JD’s death is significant, I feel that the character’s stories are the most significant. It is not about who killed JD, though I do want to know, it is about what the situation has done to Jordan and the people around her.

It was mentioned in news articles, or on the coffeerooms board, that Jordan was going to be pulled back into a ‘season one mentality’. My first thought when I read this was, how were the writers going to have Jordan undergo a mental and emotional regression, without under cutting the sincerity of the maturity the character has undergone in the past season.

The final scene made me realise that I have nothing to be concerned about. The scene contained hints of the final scene from Secrets & Lies, where we see Jordan running through the rain leaving Boston, in this episode we see a different Jordan. In season one she was running away from something, this episode it is to something, and the mentality of the character is different, so while there is a throw back to the emotions of season one, there are new emotions Jordan now works from. It is a difficult feeling for me to explain, I feel as if Jordan is in limbo, and some of the bricks that she has pulled down over season five have now been put back up. There was an intense amount of raw emotion in the final scene that paves a new set of character arcs to explore in season six.

Jill Hennessy was nothing short of awesome in this episode, and I will state this again, film acting is all about the eyes, the power she possesses when the camera focuses in on her eyes is intense and the Jordan’s story in this episode was played out entirely through her eyes.

While some maybe disappointed with the Jordan/Woody story in this episode, I think it fit so well, Woody did not swoop in and save Jordan, it further illustrated the distance between the two characters. Woody took a stand and it cost him his relationship with Lu. Woody, like all the men in Jordan’s life (Nigel, Garret, Bug) will do anything to help her, but this episode placed Woody in a position, where unlike Nigel, Bug and Garret, who immediately went to work attempting to clear Jordan’s name, Woody didn’t know if he was able to help Jordan in the ways he has before, and it is not until Jordan asks him to help that he knows he is allowed to. It is after this moment that the dynamic of Jordan and Woody begins to be renewed, Jordan pushes the boundaries and Woody follows, pushing his own boundaries.

This episode leaves the Jordan/Woody relationship as ambiguous as ever, and if it ever does get resolved, fans will have to wait and speculate for next season. There were hints throughout the episode that there is still a connection between the two, and still much unresolved, but it did not leave the audiences feeling frustrated, there was to much going on throughout the episode and the hints were enough to keep the viewer satisfied with the knowledge that the possibility of the Jordan/Woody relationship is still on the table.

I liked this episode for more than the story, the way the story was told was magic on screen. I love filmmaking, and the way this episode was made was beautiful, there was a fluidity to each scene, despite that it went from past to present, it was seamless. The crew did an awesome job creating reality against a background of fantasy. Allan mentioned in his “What I Like About” that the production was designed to look like a 1950’s technicolour movie, as I watched the episode I did feel transported into the fantasy of that era, there was something surreal and romantic about the filmmaking of the 50’s and the production design of this episode put a modern twist on it.

The lighting design and the colour pallets used created the mood throughout the episode, the saturation of the colours, or the ‘greying’ of the colours, the low lighting and the use of shadows helped tell the multiple stories in the episode. There was an incredible use of blue used in different hues, blue is usually a calming and clinical colour, in this episode it seemed to be used to create a multitude of emotions, as well as heighten tension (particularly in the scene when Lu is going through the morgue looking for Jordan). Some hue of blue was used in almost every scene, it was the colour of the episode.

The music was interesting this episode, it is usually used to enhance some part of the story, whether it is tension or emotion. In this episode it was used two-fold it provided the comic relief in the episode, a role that is usually reserved for Nigel and Bug. There was a lot of drama in the episode trough the dialogue and the unspoken actions of the various characters, and the use of Unbreak My Heart and Don’t Leave Me This Way in the flashback scenes provided necessary comic relief before diving back into the crux of the drama in the episode. The comic relief was then contrasted by the traditional score, which created the tension in the ‘real’ time scene. The dual role of the music provided a new way of telling the story in the episode, I don’t think this use of music would work in any other episode, but for this one it worked.

Allan Arkush did great job in directing this episode, there were a number of essential character beats hit in the episode and the emotional beats in the moments between Jordan and Woody, Lu and Woody, and Bug and Lily were hit perfectly. And while there were a lot of different scenes in the episode the direction and the editing meant that the audience did not feel short changed, like they were missing anything, each episode felt complete, they were each finished with a moment between two characters or a gaze which in itself further told the story.

Before I finish this review, I don’t know how many picked up on it, but when Jordan was having her mug shot taken, there was a homage to Crossing Jordan’s 100^th episode in the number – CJ5 100 2006 – I saw it and smiled, it is a perfect way to pay credit to the episode, the show and the cast and crew.

This will be one of those episodes I will be able to watch over and over, there is was beautifully filmed and acted. I enjoyed the story, and although a lot was pre-known the emotion of the episode could not be spoiled. And while the episode answered some questions and tied up some of the story arc’s for the season, it asked more. Looking forward to season 6.