December 23, 2003
Marathon
A young murder suspect confesses to Briscoe during his arrest, but no one can corroborate Briscoe's story. The suspect also manages to get several pieces of evidence excluded from his trial, driving everyone in the squad crazy. Most of the episode (10.6) revolves around Briscoe becoming increasingly frustrated with those around him, especially Ed Greene and S. Epatha, because they seem not believe his story of the confession. Ed and Briscoe even get into a shouting match at one point, and S. Epatha has to break them up. Briscoe goes as far as to say he wants a new partner and implies he's jealous of all the attention Ed's been getting since he joined the squad.
Something about Briscoe's anger feels not quite right. The motivations for it, I think, are not established well enough, so we keep waiting to find out what else is bothering Briscoe. There's' some implication he feels defensive about his age, but that still isn't enough to explain his angry temperament. The whole episode plays like the writers wanted to add some internal conflict to the series, but they couldn't figure out how to pull it off correctly.
In terms of back story revelations, we learn that Ed Green used to serve on an anti-gang unit and that he speaks Spanish well. Also, McCoy says of Briscoe that he's "kicked the ball onto the fairway a few times," meaning that he's taken some liberties to ensure that a case goes to trial. Of course, the same thing can be said of McCoy himself.
Posted by adm at December 23, 2003 10:34 PM