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Cold Case Season 2 Episode 19

Strange Fruit

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8.9

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Episode Summary

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AIRED: 4/3/05

The unsolved 1963 murder of a black teenager, whose body was discovered by the then-young Will Jeffries, is reopened.

FAN RECAP

Fan Episode Reviews (3)

classic

10

By facebookfan, Oct 01, 2009

Haunted by a childhood memory, Jefferies asks Lilly to reopen the 1963 case of an African-American teenage found beaten to death (by Jefferies). This episode is one of the best and saddest ever. The plot, music and acting were brilliant. The racism faced less than 50 years, and around 100 years after the Civil War (when blacks were supposed to be supported and treated as equals by everyone, which, sadly, they were not due to segregation-legal, in fact, up to the 1950s and 1960s) inflicted an equally devestating slavery on them. Though society today is (for the most part) colorblind, it is sad to see than less than 2 generations ago hatred and suppression of blacks was common, even in the North (though not as bad, I think, as in the South). Overall a perfect 10 episode that truely makes you think (and cry, of course).moreless
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Deeply saddening and brilliantly acted

8.5

By karlmeszaros, May 25, 2009

I thought this was a very well done show, but it left me feeling sadder than usual. Cold Case never really has a happy ending (well there was the one exception) because the dead person is dead. They can't find them like on Without A Trace.

I guess what saddens me so much is how prevalent and real that mindset was back then. What's worse is that it's still around today in many parts of the world in different forms.

In this case, a brilliant young black man is beaten to death for no other reason but because he spoke out against a horrific crime that is also far too prevalent in our culture today. It leaves me wondering how many beautiful souls never got the change to live out their lives and offer their gifts to the family of earth because of such senseless anger, violence, arrogance and plain cruelty. This episode shows us one such person, but there are thousands and thousands of others too.

The playing of Martin Luther King's I Have A Dream speech at the conclusion of the episode was simply brilliant. We are all poorer for the senseless acts of violence and it is a great thing when a TV show reminds us that we have yet work to do.moreless
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Beautiful plot and acting.

10

By all_kill_ari, Jan 01, 2006

One of the few to make me cry, this has been another fantastic installment in this tearjerker series. A realistic and believable storyline that could have been based on real life is the basis of this episode\'s appeal. Showing the racial violence and hatred of the era in it\'s most common form, this episode featured an excellent plot, with plenty of twists and turns and many shocking revelations. The perpetrator\'s family were the main event, especially his child, a superb actor who could make you believe anything. Alongside this, the episode was pieced together amazingly, with the segments fitting together perfectly. Not a single mistake.moreless
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Cast & Crew: STARS

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Jeremy Ratchford	Det. Nick Vera
Thom Barry	Det. Will Jeffries
John Finn	Lt. John Stillman
Kathryn Morris	Det. Lilly Rush
Danny Pino	Scotty Valens

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Cast & Crew: RECURRING AND GUESTS

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Paul James	Zeke Williams	Guest Star
Dallas McKinney	Kid #1	Guest Star
Cyndi Martino	Mary Williams (1963)	Guest Star

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Trivia, Notes, Quotes and Allusions

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TRIVIA (4)
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- Nitpick: In episode 2-22: Best Friends (2005), Jeffries says he's 60 years old. In another episode a year later, he's 61. This means Jeffries was born in 1945, making him 18 in 1963. The young Jeffries in this episode isn't obviously 18 years old.
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- Det. Jeffries discovered the victim's body when he was a boy and therefore he "sees" the victim at the end.
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- This is the second episode to feature a younger/past version of a main cast member, a 12-year-old Will Jeffries (played by DJ Wyatt). The first time was young Stillman in episode 1-12: Glued (played by Anthony John Crane), where he was the original cop on the case.
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- Goof: In this episode, Zeke wrote a note in 1963 with his chess move, the Ruy Lopez opening, on it. The note reads "Nf3 Nc6", which stands for knight to f3, knight to c6 in the algebraic chess notation. However, during the 1960's, American chess players, especially amateurs like these, used the descriptive chess notation system, in which the same move should have been written as "NQB3 NKB3". The algebraic notation didn't become dominant until the beginning on the 1970's.
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QUOTES (1)
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- Miss O'Hara: Back then, they said rape was when a lady changed her mind.
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NOTES (4)
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- International Episode Titles:
  Czech Republic: Divné ovoce (Strange Fruit)
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- Zeke Williams was murdered on August 27, 1963.
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- International Airdates:
  - Denmark: April 27, 2005 on TV3+
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- Music Featured in This Episode:
  - One Fine Day by The Chiffons
  - Walk Like a Man by Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons
  - (Love Is Like a) Heat Wave by Martha & The Vandellas
  - Just One Look by Doris Troy
  - Rainbow by Gene Chandler
  - Till Death Do Us Part from Opus 1 Music Library
  - Strange Fruit by Nina Simone
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ALLUSIONS (3)
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- Some elements in this episode are very similar to the recently re-opened case of Emmett Till, a black 14-year-old who was kidnapped and murdered in 1955 after whistling at, or openly flirting with, a white woman, a grocery shop owner named Carolyn Bryant.
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- Title: Strange Fruit
  The episode is named after a poem by Abel Meeropol (written under the pseudonym of Lewis Allan in the mid-1930's) and later performed as a song by Billie Holiday in 1939. Nina Simone's version, recorded in 1965, is heard as the closing song of the episode. The "strange fruit" in the song lyrics refer to the hanged bodies of African-American men who were the victims of lynching brought on by racism:
  Southern trees bear a strange fruit,
  blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
  black body swinging in the Southern breeze,
  strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.
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- Zeke's winning chess move, the Ruy Lopez Opening, is named after a 16th century Spanish priest, Rúy López de Segura, who studied chess moves.
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