L&O season 3: Episode 5
May. 9th, 2026 06:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sabotabbyThis one is. Uh. It's mediocre as a plot but absolutely horrific and irresponsible in the context of the case it's based on. Worse, it knows that and hangs a lampshade on it. But it also has some redeeming qualities, so read on if you can deal with the real case involving the murder of a child.
The episode starts with a possible abuse scenario; dad is drinking on the playground with a bud, mom catches them and gets angry, dad tries to get the kid to leave, the kid somehow breaks his arm. Then we see the grandfather being questioned by the mom's lawyer. Then a carpet-buying scene, then the interesting bit.
In my favourite scene of the entire thing, they cast Don McKellar as Reg Hartt, in what is both the most Toronto and the funniest stunt casting I've ever seen, and the episode is worth watching for the two scenes he's in. Like they're ludicrous, and I can only imagine McKellar pointing out to the writers that the scene makes no sense and they are like, do you want to play Reg Hartt or not? and he said yes obviously because it's extremely funny.
I will explain to you why it makes no sense, and that is that Don/Reg is throwing a 24-hour film festival with a bunch of young filmmakers, and he has a DVD that no one will cop to making, and so he plays it. The video is two guys fighting and one overpowers the other and stuffs him in a vat of hydrochloric acid. Everyone immediately realizes that this is real and freaks out.
Now, obviously this is unrealistic because you wouldn't have an event like this without screening the films first. Also there is no way someone could look at footage like this and assume it's real. Do I care? No, for the same reason that Don McKellar didn't. The rest of the episode is deeply upsetting and also makes no sense so it has gotten all of its stars because of this scene and the one that follows, where Don/Reg explains, unconvincingly, why he knows it's real.
Anyway, now they have a murder but no victim or murderer, but they manage to find out it happened near a school because you can hear the announcements, from outside of the school, in the video. Again, this makes no sense as if you could hear kids being called to the office outside of schools, it would create a massive kidnapping problem. Just go with it. The victim is the dad. The mom and friend claim that the dad was abusing the kid and broke his arm. The mom and friend are also having an affair. The grandfather, who initially looks good for it, is actually the only decent person, realizes that his daughter is lying about the abuse, and hired a lawyer to try to fight to get shared custody for his son-in-law because the mom was planning to move to Chicago with the friend, who's a wealthy venture capitalist. The friend was in the same D&D club as the hitman that he hired to kill the dad. The friend is a suspect because he's a Cubs fan and not a Jays fan, which, sure. That tracks actually.
The chain of events appears to be: Mom fakes the abuse, convinces her boyfriend that the dad is abusing the kid, so he hires a hitman but ostensibly just to scare him. But the hitman actually killed him and sent the video to Don/Reg to blackmail him into giving him more money. Except! Plot twist. It's the hitman in the vat of acid, and the dad, who is innocent of all the abuse, had overpowered him and killed him in self-defence, and then returned to the house to kidnap the kid. He takes the kid to a remote location at the top of a cliff but the cops figure it out in time and convince him to release the kid and surrender. The cops discuss also charging the mom, but then both of the kid's parents would be in jail.
This obviously makes no sense, like why would you pay $40K to hire a rando high school friend from your D&D group just to threaten a guy? Why buy actual hydrochloric acid if you're just hired to scare someone? Why, if there's been an attempt on your life and you killed someone in self-defence, go to the elaborate lengths of dressing up like the hitman and sending the video to a film festival? Why wouldn't the cops just arrest everyone involved other than the grandfather, since each of them obviously did something criminal?
None of it makes any sense and I suspect it's because the actual case is so incredibly upsetting that it's impossible to make an entertaining TV episode out if it. (TW: the kid in the story died, and the mother did nothing wrong.)
The episode starts with a possible abuse scenario; dad is drinking on the playground with a bud, mom catches them and gets angry, dad tries to get the kid to leave, the kid somehow breaks his arm. Then we see the grandfather being questioned by the mom's lawyer. Then a carpet-buying scene, then the interesting bit.
In my favourite scene of the entire thing, they cast Don McKellar as Reg Hartt, in what is both the most Toronto and the funniest stunt casting I've ever seen, and the episode is worth watching for the two scenes he's in. Like they're ludicrous, and I can only imagine McKellar pointing out to the writers that the scene makes no sense and they are like, do you want to play Reg Hartt or not? and he said yes obviously because it's extremely funny.
I will explain to you why it makes no sense, and that is that Don/Reg is throwing a 24-hour film festival with a bunch of young filmmakers, and he has a DVD that no one will cop to making, and so he plays it. The video is two guys fighting and one overpowers the other and stuffs him in a vat of hydrochloric acid. Everyone immediately realizes that this is real and freaks out.
Now, obviously this is unrealistic because you wouldn't have an event like this without screening the films first. Also there is no way someone could look at footage like this and assume it's real. Do I care? No, for the same reason that Don McKellar didn't. The rest of the episode is deeply upsetting and also makes no sense so it has gotten all of its stars because of this scene and the one that follows, where Don/Reg explains, unconvincingly, why he knows it's real.
Anyway, now they have a murder but no victim or murderer, but they manage to find out it happened near a school because you can hear the announcements, from outside of the school, in the video. Again, this makes no sense as if you could hear kids being called to the office outside of schools, it would create a massive kidnapping problem. Just go with it. The victim is the dad. The mom and friend claim that the dad was abusing the kid and broke his arm. The mom and friend are also having an affair. The grandfather, who initially looks good for it, is actually the only decent person, realizes that his daughter is lying about the abuse, and hired a lawyer to try to fight to get shared custody for his son-in-law because the mom was planning to move to Chicago with the friend, who's a wealthy venture capitalist. The friend was in the same D&D club as the hitman that he hired to kill the dad. The friend is a suspect because he's a Cubs fan and not a Jays fan, which, sure. That tracks actually.
The chain of events appears to be: Mom fakes the abuse, convinces her boyfriend that the dad is abusing the kid, so he hires a hitman but ostensibly just to scare him. But the hitman actually killed him and sent the video to Don/Reg to blackmail him into giving him more money. Except! Plot twist. It's the hitman in the vat of acid, and the dad, who is innocent of all the abuse, had overpowered him and killed him in self-defence, and then returned to the house to kidnap the kid. He takes the kid to a remote location at the top of a cliff but the cops figure it out in time and convince him to release the kid and surrender. The cops discuss also charging the mom, but then both of the kid's parents would be in jail.
This obviously makes no sense, like why would you pay $40K to hire a rando high school friend from your D&D group just to threaten a guy? Why buy actual hydrochloric acid if you're just hired to scare someone? Why, if there's been an attempt on your life and you killed someone in self-defence, go to the elaborate lengths of dressing up like the hitman and sending the video to a film festival? Why wouldn't the cops just arrest everyone involved other than the grandfather, since each of them obviously did something criminal?
None of it makes any sense and I suspect it's because the actual case is so incredibly upsetting that it's impossible to make an entertaining TV episode out if it. (TW: the kid in the story died, and the mother did nothing wrong.)
Plot: Zero stars, absolute garbage. (While for sure some women lie about abuse, it is in a tiny minority of cases, and stories like this perpetuate the myth that it's common. Bateman even says that this harms other women who are then not believed. So why air a story like this, especially because it's based off a case where the woman did everything she could to save her child's life and the husband murdered the kid. Also the plot makes no sense.)
Characters: * (Nothing new.)
Toronto: ***** The only stars this episode is getting, and that's for the stunt casting of one Toronto cinematic icon playing another one. Whoever cast is responsible for the only good thing about this episode. Please give us a Reg Hartt biopic starring Don McKellar, I would watch the shit out of that. No notes. Also I believe that the scene at the end is filmed at Rattlesnake Point in Milton, where I regularly go hiking.
Murder Count: Murder count is now up to 5 (if you can call it murder). I made a mistake or the cops did last episode and the TPS website is now showing 5 murders this year, so we're at 100% of the annual murders in the city represented.
no subject
Date: 2026-05-09 11:33 pm (UTC)I think it's amazing someone thought of that and I'm so sorry it was this episode!
no subject
Date: 2026-05-09 11:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2026-05-10 04:10 am (UTC)Maybe they can get a show of their own.
(I tried to relate the plot of this episode and it was like trying to narrate a string bag. I am really very sure that if I stuff someone in a vat of acid in self-defense, I am still legally responsible for stuffing them in that vat of acid!)
no subject
Date: 2026-05-09 11:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2026-05-09 11:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2026-05-10 01:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2026-05-10 01:21 am (UTC)