Law & Order: Criminal Intent

Untethered

Season 7, Episode 9, Aired 12/6/07

Episode Summary

Goren investigates when his nephew, a prisoner who's bipolar, claims that inmates are being abused to the point of murder.

9.2

EPISODE RATING: Superb

145 votes

Your Rating: 10

"Perfect"
Your Rating: 9.5

"Superb"
Your Rating: 9

"Superb"
Your Rating: 8.5

"Great"
Your Rating: 8

"Great"
Your Rating: 7.5

"Good"
Your Rating: 7

"Good"
Your Rating: 6.5

"Fair"
Your Rating: 6

"Fair"
Your Rating: 5.5

"Mediocre"
Your Rating: 5

"Mediocre"
Your Rating: 4.5

"Poor"
Your Rating: 4

"Poor"
Your Rating: 3.5

"Bad"
Your Rating: 3

"Bad"
Your Rating: 2.5

"Terrible"
Your Rating: 2

"Terrible"
Your Rating: 1.5

"Abysmal"
Your Rating: 1

"Abysmal"

Rate It

Watch Online

Cast & Crew

See All EDIT

Vincent D'Onofrio

Det. Robert Goren
Kathryn Erbe

Det. Alexandra Eames
Eric Bogosian

Capt. Danny Ross

Fan Episode Reviews (14)

See All

I miss the old Goren. This new guy is less Sherlock Holmes and more Full Metal Jacket's Gomer Pyle! Stick to the formula, please!

3.5

"Bad"

By AztecQueen2000, Nov 01, 2011 Report Abuse

We start with a guy dying of dehydration in a prison mental ward. OK, good, ripped from the headlines start. Then we find out that Goren's nephew, who he never met, saw the death and put two and two together. OK, now we're straying from the formula. To add to the absurdity, Goren goes undercover as an inmate to find out how bad it is? What next; he'll spend his suspension in Australia chasing Nicole Wallace? Then, after he's sprung, he goes psycho on his brother and we're left with him searching fruitlessly through Times Square?
The formula for a successful L&O ep is as follows. Start with a ripped-from-the-headlines story. Add two detectives and their boss, who chase down all possible leads. For Criminal Intent, cross-cut to the criminals to add the cat-and-mouse element. Then, have the DA handle whatever legal maneuvers to resolve the story. For CI, Goren as Sherlock Holmes--brilliant, detached, relentless--worked. Goren as unstable and flouting orders from up top doesn't.moreless

DO YOU AGREE?
3 3
Hey! Another episode on the road to ruin. Dick Wolf DOESN'T CARE ANYMORE. -- SKIP THIS EPISODE!

3.0

"Bad"

By donelson, Nov 01, 2011 Report Abuse

This was terrible. A great detective sacrificed for some stupid writer's idea of "Gee: Different is always better - I can make a name for myself".

Hollywood Writers Guild: Die soon please.

In this episode, we see yet another attempt by the writers to IGNORE the detective genre that made Criminal Intent famous, and proceeds into never-never land with a soppy, misdirected, and sad case of writer stupidity.

Of course, D'Onofrio provides a terrific performance, as usual, and Goren's slide into self-loathing and insanity is very believable.

WHO CARES? We want the precise, witty and wonderful Goren and Eames back, solving the BEST mysteries on television, not some crappishnes evactuated from the bowels of a hack writer.

If you love the real Goren and Eames, SKIP THIS EPISODE !!!!moreless

DO YOU AGREE?
1 7
Goren is incomparably SUPERB in my opinion. He and Eames are my favorite team and Untethered was yet another demonstration of D'Onofrio's genius. I sat in rapt attention (as always) to his performance. BRAVO D'Onofrio!! Excellent actor and then some.-Ediemoreless

10

"Perfect"

By EdieAntoinett, Nov 01, 2011 Report Abuse

I first took note of Vincent D'Onofrio when he was cast in Homicide:Life On The Streets. I've been following him ever since.
The 7th and final season (sob) was a perfect vehicle for him to showcase his stellar talent and Untethered was an opportunity to enjoy still another facet of the genius that is Mr. D'Onofrio. Intense, and superb are two adjectives that come to mind. I just hate that nobody complemented this character except for Eames. That Chief of D's was a waste of writing power---and detracted from what could have been a better ending. Unfortunate.moreless

DO YOU AGREE?
0 0
Goren learns that his down-and-out brother has a son, who has ended up across the state line in a prison mental ward in which another inmate recently died. The terrified boy tells Goren the death was from "torture." Secretly, Goren goes undercover.moreless

3.0

"Bad"

By CrimeShowFan, Aug 16, 2011 Report Abuse

I am afraid that "UNTETHERED" is a prime example of what has gone wrong with an exceptional TV series.

I grew up with 1970s crime shows. So many years went by without any good ones that I stopped watching current TV shows until CSI brought me back a few years ago. I came late to Law & Order: Criminal Intent, running across it only in middle-season re-runs on a local station (no cable). I found the Goren character to be one of the most original, interesting, impressive, and well-acted TV crime-solvers I had seen in years. And I liked the sharp, spunky, natural, grounded Eames. The show was a nice, professional mix of police procedural and mystery. The cast was uniformly good, the tone serious, the presentation authentic and well-paced, and the writing intelligent.

But as the episodes cycled through to the late seasons, the Goren character suffered. His sharp observations dwindled, his lines became flat, ordinary, and inarticulate, he seemed to lose focus and have less and less to do, he began to look sloppy, and he succumbed to exaggerated, cliche personality problems that interfered with his work. It did not help that the show's writing sometimes became heavy-handed in its treatment of social issues, overly reliant on trumped-up confrontations, and excessively negative and bleak, seemingly just for the sake of it.

A story that can bring together the detective's professional and personal lives can be powerful -- "ENDGAME" was a clever, intense example. But the effort to do so should not so overwhelm the series that it crowds out regular story lines (which appear to be increasingly few and mediocre) and does lasting damage to the character.

"UNTETHERED" was a hasty, obscure, cobbled-together narration of events and manifestations that never came together or made a clear point. It tried to give the impression of deep meaning but never delivered. There was too little effort at focused, insightful storytelling. The normal trappings of gritty tone, settings, and performances, and a nice job drawing the nephew's character and his interaction with Goren, only made all the more glaring the overall lack of vision and failure to develop, connect, and resolve the story lines -- bad relationship with brother (left with a clumsy fistfight), existence of nephew (left with Goren wandering Times Square), prison abuse (left -- after a confusing, unpleasant depiction of Goren in jail and an anticlimactic end to his stay when Ross and Eames simply bail him out of trouble -- with yet another cliche scene in which knuckleheaded police brass chew out the do-gooding detective).

Because the show had too little interesting to say about any of the plot lines, the story came off as little more than a contrivance to inject the disparate subplots, jam Goren into a trying situation, and push his behavior toward ever more dysfunctional extremes -- with damage to the credibility of the other regulars, too.

The writers not only seem intent on destroying a fine crime-show character by wallowing in increasingly maudlin psychological forays for no good reason (the feeling after many seasons that they may have "done it all" in terms of crime stories -- the recent "Smile" episode about fatal product substitutions did seem recycled -- is simply no excuse for disabling, unpleasant meanderings into Goren's psyche that have no valid point). The writers also fail to recognize that even if they persist in obsessing on character frailties, rather than effective story-telling, more must be done to convey what is going on inside Goren's head than simply having him look sloppy, mumble, shamble around, and occasionally strike out like a wounded animal.

I agree with the other reviews that were disappointed with this episode, and I hope the show rights itself very soon. NBC dropping the series from its regular schedule after six seasons is already a wake-up call. That a series of such high quality over so many years is still in production is a great blessing. Please do not blow it.moreless

DO YOU AGREE?
5 10
Awesome!

10

"Perfect"

By Fitzycent, Jun 19, 2011 Report Abuse

What an amazing episode, Goren's Drug addict brother shows back up and drops the "I have a son" bomb on him. Then drops the "oh yeah and my son is in a mental ward now and needs your help" bomb on him.

Honestly, when Captain Ross told him to go on medical leave I thought he was in on it. Det. Goren was awesome pretending to be a whack job. The thing with the peas and throwing the brick through the window was so cool! The scence when he was on truth syruim was so cool. You didn't know who's side the shrink was on.

Haven't seen Vincent D'Onofrio act that crazy since Full Metal Jacket. Give the man an Emmy and get it over withmoreless

DO YOU AGREE?
2 2

Write a Review

Trivia, Notes, Quotes and Allusions

See All

Trivia
- Help by adding trivia to this episode. Add trivia
Notes
ADD NOTES
- Original International Air Dates: Czech Republic May 5, 2010 on TV Nova Edit
- When this episode was originally broadcast on NBC, a special promotion commercial aired following the teaser featuring Det. Goren 'buying' the brick from the homeless man threatening people with it. Viewers were invited to log on to NBC's website and predict an answer to the question... What Does Det Goren Do with the Brick? A. Beat up his brother B. Break a window C. Smash his lunch 5 people answering correctly won 2009 Nissan Muranos. Edit
- Special billing was given to Tony Goldwyn (with) in this episode. Edit
Quotes
ADD QUOTES
- Goren: (to his brother) I'm done with you. You can't contact me anymore, ever again. You understand. If I hear that you are on a bridge ready to jump I, I, I listen for the splash. Edit
- Robert Goren: You think that I wasn't playing insane; that I am insane. Kenny Moran: You ever asked yourself that question? Robert Goren: Yes, sir. And I believe asking the question proves that I am sane. Edit
- Danny Ross: The New York State village justice system. Amateur hour. You got mechanics, crossing guards, people with no legal training ruling on cases from their rec rooms. Edit
Allusions
- Help by adding allusions to this episode. Add allusions