Cold Case

The show starts with a family playing touch football and ends with somebody dying after tackle football. Football is a metaphor for being culturally accepted in America. Touch football is a metaphor of how Japanese Americans and Asians are perceived and tackle football is how other Americans are to be perceived. Ray Takahashi is a warrior willing to fight for his team but his American teammates reject him and his people reject him for trying to make the team. Who is killer? Arguments concerning justification of Japanese Americans in those camps. One fact: people of Japanese ancestry in Hawaii were not put into camps like the other 48. Why? Because Hawaii's economy would collapse. Why Japanese internment in the other 48? Rock, papers, and scissors.

This episode deals with the US reaction to the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbour in December 1941. All Japanese-Americans were interned in camps known as "War Relocation Camps", due to the possibility of a full blown Japanese invasion force hitting the west coast of the US. Over 60% of those imprisoned were actually US citizens! It brings up the ethical and moral issue of iternment of a race; as one of the iternees noticed, the name of one of the guards was Schulz, a good German name, so why wasn't he being interned? Also sad from the fact that the son of the main characters family, volunteers to fight for the US forces and is killed in battle but not necessarily entitled to the same honours and decorations awarded someone of non-Japanese origin.

The thing I love about Cold Case is that they can make amazing stories and characters in just one episode. This episode was a fine example. It was about a japanese family during world war two and showed how they were discriminated and placed in detention centers. The son was killed in the war and the father was murdered, leaving the wife and her young child alone. The characters were amazing. I really got into the father's character. I loved how they placed it in history and really put forth the japanese point of view. It turned out that the war changed Skip and he killed the father. I thought it was said. War does change people. Skip was a victum of war and he didn't deserve to go to jail after 60 plus years. Oh well. See, I get into these stories. Overall, amazing episode. Oh, and I loved the whole thing with the boss. It was great. Again, AMAZING episode.

Great episode really engaging and once again the show provides great atmosphere for a setting. I never would've expected an episode in Japanese internment camps or that aspect of WW2. The family and the hell they suffered was quite endearing it was easy to identify with them and their plight. The second story of the Boss's return to the squad was done well. A little trite that Lily could magically appeal to him to comeback but whatever works I suppose. As much as I would've liked to see Jeffries run the show i'm well pleased the Lieutenant is back. Nice engaging story with great setting and wonderful jobs on all the actors parts.

This is a story of an Japanese family born in America in the World War II whose father was murdered. Has other families like them, they were sent to an camp and they were kept there. Ray's son, Billy, he went to war and died in France like a hero, he sacrificed himself to save others.

The letter Billy wrote to his father after being there, Ray received it some time after Billy's death, was touching, he finally understood what his father meant, his vision of a country, of their country, how good it was and what it should be. That letter changed Ray after he and his family arrive to Philly. Now he had a new porpoise, he would give his boy the meddle he deserved, he was a hero. That's what got him killed, when he went for help. Skip, Billy's best friend, changed in war and so did his vision, his opinion. A jap was a jap...



At least, both Billy and Shinji's son got their meddles, they deserved.



this brings up the terrorist attack, the emigrants, the different races...

The internment of Japanese-Americans remains one of the more shameful actions in American history and it's good of the show to focus on this to stay away from such mistakes. The entire period was well done with the flashbacks and I loved the confontation between the victim and the guard ("Schmidt...what is that, German?") as well as the conflict with his son. But it does show how fearful people can be in a time of war and nice to tie it to today with the aged guard telling Vera "you wouldn't avoid sitting next to an Arab after 9/11?" The twists and turns were good leading to the ultimate reveal and shows how war and prejudice can twist even decent men around. The casting was top notch for the older versions of everyone especially the wife dealing with the pain years later. I do hope Stillman isn't serious about retirement as he shows here how he still fits in with the unit but the show still shows how much further it can go on. Not only with great drama and crime investigations but also by exploring the past and thus hopefully avoiding repeating it.

He was an American, born and raised but in the eyes of war he was an enemy. However, he could not bring himself to believe that his country could do that to him and his son. And when his son died fighting for that country, died in France a hero, all Ray wanted was for his country to acknowledge the sacrifice. Skip had faced the war too and in that moment of sacrifice all he saw was the Japanese kamikaze pilots who gave their lives taking the lives of his friends. War is a painful thing, it takes innocence and belief and turns it inside out. Ray and Skip wanted to believe in their vision of America and when push came to shove neither could get away from the ugliness of the war. Perhaps that it explains why it was only Stillman, a man who had witnessed the horror of Vietnam, who could understand what made Skip snap at a man he had once called a friend and now labelled an enemy. War is not only about hatred it is about discovering the blindness that hatred can bring.