I don't usually watch crime dramas, but "Father's Day," Episode of 2.14 of NCIS: New Orleans, stars some of my beefcake favorites: Lee Tergesen (Oz), Scott Bakula (Quantum Leap), Steve Weber (Wings), and Lucas Black (Southern Gothic). The premise: "Pride and Mayor Douglas are abducted from their Mardi Gras events." Is Pride named after Gay Pride? Nope, it's the last name of Scott Bakula's character (left).
Scene 1: A big Mardi Gras party full of heterosexual couples, the men in fancy tuxedos. Sleazoid Mayor (Steve Weber) takes the stage and says a few words while eyeing a lady in a red dress. He congratulates his chief of staff, Tom (James Dumont), for being married to such an incredibly hot woman. Pay attention to that necklace. It will become important later. He then follows the Lady in Red out into the hall, quoting Oscar Wilde: "I can resist anything except temptation." His staff groans: not another one! The hookup wants to have sex right there in the hallway.
Meanwhile, Pride (Scott Bakula) is told that he must go out back for a liquor delivery (he must own the place). He goes, not at all suspicious, and gets tranquilizer darted.
Scene 2: They both wake up tied to chairs while a mysterious Masked Figure peers at them. Sleazoid Mayor wonders if his hookup was an accomplice (ya think?). But Figure ain't talking.
Meanwhile, out on the street, everyone is waiting for Sleazoid Mayor to shake the hand of the Mardi Gras Parade King. Where is he? Agent LaSalle (Lucas Black) points out that Mardi Gras began in Alabama, not New Orleans, and gets yelled at.
Uh-oh, there's a drugged security guard (Chris McKenna, top photo) and a dead Marine inside the party venue (a hotel, not a bar). The Security Guard saw the Sleazoid Mayor's Hookup running past after he was darted. And the dead Marine was darted, too.
(NCIS is the Naval Crime Investigation Service, so they have to have a dead sailor or marine in there somewhere.)
Eventually they figure out that the Mayor and Pride have both been darted and kidnapped.
Scene 3: The victims try to bargain with the Masked Figure. Mayor: "I got a lot of rich friends. They can get you anything you want." Pride: "I'm a NCIS Agent!" (I thought he was a bar owner. Side gig?).
Mysterious Figure starts recording them, and tells them that they are here "To confess."
Scene 4: The tech guy found no terrorist chatter or threatening messages aimed at the Mayor or Pride. He starts working on a partial license plate number provided by an eyewitness. Meanwhile, the agents reason that it's Mardi Gras, the streets are clogged, so the kidnapper couldn't have gone far. They must be holding the guys near the party venue..
Left: Scott Bakula in underwear
Scene 5: Back at the party, rich white people are dancing ludicrously. The Agents grab the Mayor's Hookup (identifiable because she's the only Lady in Red). Why didn't she scram after hoodwinking the Mayor?
Her story: a guy said he was playing a prank on the Mayor, his old fraternity brother, and paid her $500 to get him alone. Wait -- how did she know for sure that the Mayor would choose her for his hookup? If he latched onto someone else, the whole plan would be ruined.
More underwear after the break
mask (then why did he wear it?). Pride recognizes him: Mike Spar (Lee Tergesen). His story: 25 years ago, his wife went to a frat party at this hotel, and the Mayor murdered her! Then Pride covered it up, telling Mike that Wife killed herself. And the Mayor's fraternity brothers, who testified that it was a suicide, have all gotten cushy jobs in his administration. Aha! I knew it would be a Dead Wife! Oldest and most over-used motive in the book! .
Pride claims that he just responded to a suicide call; he had nothing to do with any cover-up. Mayor claims that he was not at the party at all, but Mike has a picture of him there. Ulp! He's been lying about it, and paying off his frat brothers, for 25 years.
Scene 7: Meanwhile, the Agents get a call from the toxicology guy. He's running late because he's in his book club's crewe. They're dressed as literary figures: Mark Twain, Flannery O'Connor, William Faulkner, Truman Capote. Well, one of them was gay. He examined the dead Marine and concludes that the tranquilizer dart that killed him contained pentobarbitol (an anaesthetic used for lethal injections).
Only a few pharmacies stock pentobarbitol, so they crosslist pharmacy employees with the description of the kidnapper's car given by the eyewitness, and come up with Mike! Plus he went to college with the Mayor, and here's the report on his wife's suicide! His daughter has a place in town: maybe that's where he took the Mayor and Pride. Assemble a SWAT team! Nope, the kidnapper is not there.
Still 15 minutes left. Don't we know everything we need to know?
Scene 8: Pride wants to know why the Mayor lied about being at the party where Mike's Wife died. "We were doing a frat ritual. If anyone found out about it, I'd be destroyed!" Did it involve gay sex? A guy on Vice Principals was destroyed because he had gay sex. But he left early, and didn't see Mike's Wife.
There's a Young Mayor listed on IMDB, so I thought we'd get a flashback, but we don't. We do get a game-changer: Mike's motive is not actually his Dead Wife, but Dead Daughter. His daughter Stacey began investigating, and was so horrified by the cover-up that she died of a drug overdose. I don't see how this follows.
Scene 9: In the lab, the agents analyze photos from the Dead Wife's autopsy. Hey, a spiral fracture. That's not consistent with suicide. It usually happens during a fight. The Dead Wife was murdered after all! They also figure out, with some logic that evades me, that the kidnapper and victims are still in the hotel!
Left: Steve Weber and boyfriend.
Meanwhile Mike is jabbering about a rose necklace that Dead Wife always wore, but wasn't on her body. Mayor remembers that, a couple of years ago, one of his former frat buddies bragged about the necklace: "He said it represented what you could get away with if you know the right people." Come on, who would make that sort of blatant confession? Mayor won't say who it is until Mike releases them. I think he's making the whole thing up.
Scene 10: Agents examine a floor plan of the hotel. They start searching through the maze of abandoned tunnels, and arrive just as the Mayor points out the murderer on the old photograph, and Mike lets them go -- Mike is killed, Pride is upset: "He was just trying to be a good dad." Really?
The Mayor cleans up and returns to the party, and Pride celebrates Mardi Gras with his coworkers. Are you kidding? After that ordeal, I'd be staying in bed for a week! And they arrest the bad guy. Can you guess who it is?
Beefcake: None.Gay Characters: There's a bisexual character in Season 3, but she doesn't do anything romantic on the show, she just mentions a former flame.
New Orleans: Just in establishing shots.
Father's Day: Exonerating Mike for manslaughter, kidnapping, and assault because he wanted to get closure for his dead daughter? Ridiculous.
Old Friends: This was the main thing I liked about the episode. Maybe shows like this are meant for old people to get nostalgic about the past.
Lots of dicks and butts on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends
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