The Ledger

4.4 Great Barrier: The Viewer's Choice Episode

In this Criminal Intent episode (4.4), our favorite arch-villain Nicole Wallace/Elizabeth Hitchens re-emerges and may or may not be dead at the end of the episode. NBC allowed viewers to vote (via its website) on whether to allow Wallace to die or not.

The episode begins with a white man and an Asian-American woman discussing the how to make the woman sound and look more convincingly Japanese. They visit a clothing store and the woman tries on some outfits and some wigs. You get the impression they are trying to prepare her for an elaborate disguise.

We soon learn why: they visit a jewelry store and, applying the gestures and speech she we saw her practice, they dupe the jeweler into thinking she is a rich Japanese girl. They swipe some jewels while no one is looking, and escape to the subway. As they prepare to get away, a woman bumps into the man and he drops dead, almost mid-sentence. The Asian woman disappears, as does the bumping woman.

Goren and Eames arrive at the scene. Goren quickly notices a needle-puncture wound on the man's torso. They establish the victim's connection to the jewelry theft, which cost the store $750,000, and identify him as "Scott Talbert," an investment banker.

Goren and Eames visit the jewelry store and get a detailed description of the Asian woman and watch her on the security video. Goren concludes that she isn't really Japanese because (a) she reached for the door on her way out, and (b) she shrugged ("Japanese women don't shrug," says Goren.)

They learn that Talbert's business card, which they used to identify him, was a fake, but the trace to the card to a sort-of friend of his, who reveals that Talbert's real name is Zach Thaler. They go to Thaler's loft apartment and find the blinds are jammed open. Goren surmises this is because they were putting on a show for people across the street.

They visit the clothing store where the Asian girl bought her outfit. Evidence leads Goren to believe that the girl is a bike messenger and that she was parading around inside the store for the benefit of someone looking on from across the street. Goren surmises that there is a "sugar daddy" figure orcehstrating the Asian girl's movements.

In a way that wasn't exactly clear to me -- I guess via the hunch that the girl was a bike messenger -- they track down her parents, with whom she has a rocky relationship. They mention that their daughter, Ella, sent her grandparents a letter describing how someone in the family had an abortion. This letter served to further alienate Ella from her family, a fact which will become important later.

The parents also mention that Ella recently spoke with a Singaporan cousin. Goren surmises she is going to attempt to mimic a Singaporan girl, perhaps with the goal of robbing another jewelry store. They put out a bulletin to jewelry stores to look out for such a person, and this proves to be a smart move: Ella begins another jewelry heist, in the guise of a Singaporan girl, but aborts it after the jeweler gets suspicious.

Goren visits the scene of this almost-crime and concludes that, again, Ella was being watched by a handler from across the street. They visit the store across the street, and Goren begins to suspect that the handler is none other than his arch-nemesis, Nicole Wallace aka Elizabeth Hitchens, who has challenged him several times before and knows how to get inside his head like no one else. Last we knew, Wallace had been on trial, but we soon find out that she was acquitted.

They talk to Nicole's now-ex-husband (they were still married, last we knew), who still insists that Nicole is a good person, although you can tell even he is suspicious. He says they got divorced because he wanted kids but she is unable to conceive. Goren tells him that by divorcing her, the husband gave her a reason to harm him, and he now needs Goran and Eames to protect him. It's during this scene that we learn Nicole was acquitted at trial.

They track down Ella Miazaki, initially telling her they need to talk to her because of a missing persons report filed about her. When they notice scars on her arm that match the description from the clothing boutique witness, they arrest her.

They bring her in for questioning, and Goren tries to get her to understand the true nature of her partner/minder Nicole Wallace. He plays her an old videotape of his interrogation of Nicole Wallace, the famous "tit for tat" one where he answers a question about himself for every question she answers about herself. This is rather dumb, since most of what he plays back is him getting all emotional, but he does get the stuff about her talking about her abuse in there. I'm sure how this is supposed to be particularly effective, but before we get a chance to find out, Ella's lawyer shows up and the interrogation ends anyway.

But guess who else shows up with the lawyer...Nicole Wallace herself! She taunts them a little, but then says she wants a truce. She seems a little rattled, and then calms down by kissing Ella. (Yes, on the lips.) As they leave, Goren says of Nicole's rattled state, "She lost something...I smell blood in the water."

The camera follows Ella and Nicole home. Ella is mad because during interrogation, Goren showed her the letter about the abortion. Nicole wrote it, not Ella. But Nicole gets Ella to forgive her, and they cuddle and Ella calls her "Mommy". Gross!

Eames and Goren keep tabs on Ella, and make notes on all the messenger service deliveries. They note that she keeps visiting an office near Nicole's ex-husband's financial manager's office. They go there, and find a frequently inoperable, stuffy elevator. When the ex-husband shows up, they determine that Ella bumped into him on the way over, and switched his asthma inhaler for an empty one. Since the ex-husband needs to use his inhaler when the elevator breaks, he would have died of an asthma attack if Ella had executed the plan of jamming the elevator. Seems like an awfully roundabout way to kill someone, but whatever. Anyway, the ex-husband finally begins to realize that maybe Nicole Wallace, who just about arranged his death, maybe isn't such a great person after all.

Goren begins to develop a theory that Nicole didn't see a fertility specialist because such a doctor would have discovered something she didn't want anyone to know: that she had had a child. Goren does some telephone investigation and surmises that shortly before Nicole left her native Australia all those years ago, she killed her 3-year-old daughter, or was at least present when she died. At the time, Nicole said the child had drowned at the beach.

Nicole is brought in for questioning as a "material witness" since her girlfriend, Ella, is a suspect in the jewelry heist. The topic turns to fertility, during which she discusses Eames' pregnancy. Eames says she was carrying the child for her sister...so she was a surrogate mom. I guess this had been revealed before, but I must have missed that episode.

Anyway, Eames leaves, leaving Goren and Wallace alone. We know what a tinderbox that can turn into. But Goren knows Wallace is scared, and he has the upper hand. He gradually unveils his idea about Wallace killing her own baby because she suspected that the girl (again, only a 3-y-o) was flirting with her father. Goren connects this to Wallace's own abuse at the hands of her father. She starts to get emotional, but once again the lawyer arrives before the truth comes out. Goren is convinced she did it, though.

Wallace disappears after leaving the police station, and Goren decides he needs to talk to Ella again. He brings her in and shows her the evidence that Wallace killed her own baby years ago. He shows her pictures of the child's skeleton, which was found buried somewhere, not drowned. He suggests the drowning story was made up. Ella agrees to cooperate, which turns out to be a fatal decision.

She sets up a meeting at Pier 30, and Goren & Co. go along, listening in with surveillance equipment. They hear a commotion and rush in, and find blood all over the place, and broken shards of glass. It looks like Ella and Nicole fell out from a second- or third-story window and drowned.

Medical Examiner Rodgers, a familiar face from the other L&O shows, says that Nicole lost at least a quart of her own blood, so she can't be alive. Unfortunately, though, they haven't found her body. They did find Ella, though, which is in front of them as they talk.

So is Nicole Wallace alive or dead? During the episode, you could go to NBC.com and vote for an ending. This is strange, though: instead of voting throughout the episode for which ending would show on TV, they just showed the ending where Nicole's body is not found, and then a voice over says, "You just saw one ending. Now go to NBC.com and see another ending, then vote for which one you like more." I guess this means that whichever one gets more votes in the "real" ending, even though everyone just saw what may be a completely different ending that the "real" one.

Very confusing.

Anyway, in the ending you didn't see, Goren shoots Nicole twice in the heart, and Nicole and Ella crash through the window. We next see Ella and Nicole dead at the ME's office. As Eames and Rodgers leave, Goren looks at Nicole's body, and says, "sparkling little girl," referring at once to Nicole's daughter, and of course, to Nicole herself, before she became a murderer.

Like I said in my previous post, I hope the viewers decide to keep Nicole alive. Besides Goren, she is the best thing on the show.

Posted by adm at October 17, 2004 11:13 PM

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