Standoff Season 1 Episode 8

Sadly not the best episode.. it had many layers what was good but story was weak and confusion, had not much logic. Started very promising, as it usually is but in the middle point, it lost it. Maybe because they were not concentrating on the one case and it got mixed all the time what it is about - is it about the woman who had crush on Matt or was it about Matt and Emily's relationship.. and there were more possibilities..





Anyway, sadly it was watchable but not in no way equal to the previous episodes what have had better level.

The episode starts off right away with Matt talking to a victim to attempt to control the situation and take down her captor. After she is saved, a stalker turns up and Matt and Emlyn have to help her. When they fail, she takes matter into her own hands and confronts her stalker. I thought the story was interesting, but the victim was really annoying. It was interesting seeing Matt with a different personality, but then he started getting annoying. I just thought the characters were overdone and the writing was too dramatic. Overall, good story and character development, but over the top and annoying at times.

This episode centre’s around Matt and a female hostage survivor who Matt spends over 40 minutes talking to her to keep her claim and confront the HT before the FBI can storm her apartment, it all ends with the HT killing himself but the trauma of the situation cause’s the young women to seek comfort in Matt especially when she makes a claim that she has a stalker, Emily wonders if the girl is making it all up just to get attention and possibly more from Matt, Matt on the other hand is bound to seek the stalker and put a stop to the situation, it turns out that she doe’s have a stalker after all but not before she cracks and take’s matters into her own hands by becoming the HT with the stalker as her hostage. It’s up to Matt again to try and talk her down but with little success, in steps Emily who realises that something happened to the girl when she was the hostage. I started watching this series because of Ron Livingston ( Matt ) who I enjoyed in Office Space and Band of Brothers, but its Rosemarie DeWitt ( Emily ) who is now drawing my interest with each passing episode, I believe she is the better hostage negotiator and the more claimer in situations, okay I’m not saying Matt is not a good HN but sometimes I get the feeling he is going to flip and say something stupid like “ well go right a head, shoot the hostages and yourself, see if I care “.





When I first saw the trailers for this show I thought ummm interesting concept for a TV series, but how are they going to make a different episode week in week out that covers the theme of hostage negotiation but at the same time wont become stale and repetitive.





Well the producers and storywriters of Standoff have pulled it off, and when I think an episode cannot get any better along comes another exceptional episode with sterling performances from all the cast.

I started watching this show because I saw a trailer with some real good looking actor(IMO) named Ron Livingston standing in an intersection with a phone in his ear saying something that made me drop my salad fork and say, "ok, I'll watch that show." Well it's the eighth episode and I can't wait to see how BOTH Ron and Rosemarie as Matt and Emily are negotiating life. The writers have earned a smug grin again this week, they are doing what many critics said would be more than challenging to do, write great stories around a romance in progress. My personal review of the show goes like this: 1.......just 5 more minutes.....ok, that was 40 minutes ago now....








We had perhaps the most manipulative and agenda oriented mental/victim/HT portrayed in SO yet this season, in this episode. She is the product of some terrible life experiences, Emily calls them broken relationships,we could call them bad decisions, we could say it was a bad environment............but the bottom line was the writers went the extra mile with this character. There was enough information/background on her that as a viewer you could feel remorse for her, hate her(if the crush on Matt was your focus), honestly feel that you wanted Emily to reach out and help her with some free analysis, or nod your head at the end and say, I knew she was no good. (If you are a CSI fan then you knew all along she was no good, the blood spatter on her shirt after the first HT situation gave it away that she probably shot him too.) The emotions for the HT was well played out by this actress. The wrap-up on this show was by far the best we have seen. The entire episode seemed to have a perfect balance of tearing into Matt and Emily's relationship and disecting a crisis, several actually. Lehman is doing what she seems to be born to do, analysis and teaching, a slightly humble Matt feels the need to test the waters after miscalculating exactly where his boundery lines are, and they seem to agree that the six packs at Matt house are calling their names. Very, very good wrap up.








2. Dead dogs and Boiled Bunnies- (doesn't Cheryl have some of the best dang lines in this show??) When a tiny percentage of the population lives in a personal crisis mode, then worlds collide everyday, all day. I really enjoyed the various hats that Cheryl had to wear in 'Heroine' just to decipher who was having the crisis at the moment. The driver of the bus holding 20 hostages is a CNU crisis, the issue on immigration needed to be left in the hand of other authorities, there may be enough evidence to open a stalking case-but it is not the priority of her unit, and finally...........Matt getting a restraining order filed against him.....is a personal crisis that she hands over to his partner(hmmm.. analyze that.) Ah, then there is Frank. When Matt and Frank have their exchange during the final HT scenerio, Frank asks Matt how he got there so fast. There is a look exchanged that said a thousand words. Frank seems to fully understand that it is no surpise to him that Matt is slightly involved in a previous work related situation. A couple of beers with Frank would educate us all on Mr. Flannery. I thought the nod to Lehman that he gave with his shouted order to "Control him" was interesting also. Just how thick is Flannery's personnel file???? Frank and Cheryl know!!!











3. "I see a family resemblance except for a hole in the chest."











I propose that Matt is living in a crisis mode all his own, and he either does not realize it or he needs chaos to function. I know, it made me raise my eye brows to a bit, but tell me if you don't see that in him? He enjoys control, he doesn't hesitate to use his fists to make his point and I am definetly getting a feeling that he is patronizing Emily's and his relationship. Our double speak or parallel was given to us again through Emily and this time her letter analysis; "he see's himself as a gaurdian." She said it even better in the listing of a stalkers traits when she says that a "savior syndrome/complex" is common. Now, it's been a long time since I took those college pysc classes, but I distinctly remember the definition of the savior complex. Matt's got one. (design, even you can't argue that point). I'll buy into the story line we have been given about him so far(loss of mother, no connection with siblings)as being the major contributor to his flaw. We have no idea what happened in the first 12 hours of that first standoff tonight with the girl, but Matt was beyond attached to that situation. I said situation, not the girl, but cripes, his lines were crossed, drawn with pen, pencil and crayon, wide and narrow and just plain blurry. What is giving me the validity that Matt probably does have feelings deeper then the surface with Emily is a couple three things. He reads her with out talking to her, there is alot of "what?" being said to each other. Whether it's the actors chemistry that is complimenting that, or the slight voice inflection that is heard when Matt is tyring to talk to Emily (heard this in several episodes), or the use of "Em" tonight instead of Emily.......it is all helping to validate Emily's reason for wading into the guy called Flannery. 4. "It's all about making a connection."





"I don't want to talk to a FBI shrink". Hmmmmmmmmmm, really Agent Flannery???? We finally get one of the lines we have been waiting for in SO with these two in this episode. Emily says, "then talk to ME." Emily get the "Saint of Patience" award for the 2006 season of SO. You could call it the professional standards award I guess too, because she is all about business in Heroine. Even if you are'nt taken with Lehman you gotta respect her attempt to continue to reach out to this "victim" and try to help her, after she has drawn some honest conclusions about her mental status and motives. I am going to attribute her patience with Matt in this episode as a nod to her conficende in what they have got in their off duty life. It's nice to see that a writer or two is putting some of those training credits listed on the character biography page to use for Lehman. Lingusitic, Handwriting Analysis, Polygraph school certifications hmmmmmmmmmm impressive. And all to show that when she conducts and investigation, it's gonna be tough to get anything by her. Matt is just plain out witted in this crisis analysis of a victim turn HT. His reaction in the background as he stands against the railing and Emily takes over as primary and ends the standoff pretty much let's the viewer know that he understands gut instinct is not always right. To sum it up, I really like the human side of this show. I can't be the only viewer who is open about saying I'm not taking this as a run of the mill cop show. It is the contined weaving of a great balance of crisis negotiation and relationship investigation that makes me tune into this show. I find the leads in this drama intoxicating, and once again I think that Dewitt was major part of the "100 proof" in this episode.

I think this show\'s storyline are getting better and better! It\'s sad that it doesn\'t seem to be popular! I like this episode! I like how the started with saving the girl first, then the girl ended up taking someone hostage and threatening to kill him. I was quite convince she was faking it to get Matt\'s attention but I was wrong. I also liked how Emily knew instantly that she was rape and was taking it out on the stalker. That computer nerd was definitely creepy.. normally those kinda nerds are harmless without their computers but the way he smashed that other guy? woah.





I think Matt got carried away and got a little too involved probably because he knew the woman had a crush on him. He even accused Emily multiple times just because he thought she was jealous! I think Emily handled the situation really well, she was very professional about it, continuing to investigate, help the girl.. even when she took over the negotiation.. she did it really well. I really hope this show will have a future and wont be axed immediately after american idol comes back!