Standoff Season 1 Episode 9

A couple of youngsters who have been bullied decide to pay back and take them hostage and want confessions but all goes different than planned as one of the boys has their own agenda and in the end, they are just kids with guns.





So, I thought the story was exciting. The whole thing how parents reacted and how noone never saws the problem. Ok, that one father did, but it was when they boys had been pushed to the limit.. What kind of treatment have they had to get to find the courage and will to kidnap and probably execute those class mates.. World is cruel..

A concerned father comes to the FBI asking to help his son, but he's too late. His son and his friends take three hostage and torture them on the internet. It all goes bad when one of the boys shoots another in an attempt to get punished. Interesting . . . I thought the boy's story was so sad; you couldn't help but feel bad for him. This episode has a good story and interesting guest cast members, but didn't do much with the stars of the show. Sure, we found out that Emily was bullied - who cares? Overall, good story.

This was actually a fantastic episode of Standoff, maybe one of the best so far. The ending really shows the importance of knowing to whom you are talking. Looking at the root of the conflict usually means addressing the interests of all parties. Addressing the interests, like concerns, hopes, expectations, assumptions, beliefs, fears and values, can usually help solve the problems.


On a less academic note, Ron Livingston did a fantastic job at the ending. We're so used to seeing him play a sympathetic and understanding character, seeing him turn so quickly like that was jolting, though not necessarily in a bad way. Ummmm... is it wrong to have found him kind of hot in that scene?

Okay don’t get me wrong, I LOVE standoff, I LOVE Emily and Matt, I LOVE Cheryl, Frank, Duff, and Lia and I LOVE the Hostage Situations they get themselves into each week. I sit waiting for each weeks episode to arrive to my p.c so I can watch it with baited breath, see the chemistry between the two main characters, see the synchronicity of the supporting cast and wait for the outcome to an episode that grabs me by the throat and shakes me like a rag doll until I scream no more.


BUT alias this episode didn’t have any of that and I was deeply disappointed, now some of you may disagree and I respect my fellow TV.com contributors for that, hey we live in a free work and can voice our own views and I respect them who think this episode was the best ever but I cannot see it.





Problem with this episode is that we didn’t get any character development, okay so we found that Emily was bullied at school, but was she??! was she just making that point to sympathise with the HT(s), then we had Matt being hard boiled ( bad cop ) well we already knew that, also the whole HT set up was lame, how can a college student disguise a website trace from the FBI, also at the end the FBI wouldn’t walk into a HT situation the way it was portrayed in this episode.





I don’t know maybe I’m just peeved that after the last couple of episodes we were on a role then we have a mediocre episode that’s put a dampener on my fire.





Personally I think a series should start with a great pilot, a mediocre second episode then pick up steam from there on it.

Now, I must admit I am a bit of a cynic, but I'd like to believe there's a sense of realism to it.


First of all, I'm in the balance of good/bad review, mainly because the story was well written and it left me on the edge of the seat...until about the last 10 minutes. I also applaud drama writers constantly trying out the "kidnap/hostage" situations in their episodes when they needed something that was budget-efficient, and this was one of those episodes (actual sets used are only 4: FBI Office, House, School, Truck) and at the same time, displaying some very prominant and young actors. It was intense, plot twists were prominant, character revelations about Matt and Emily are excellent and cute near the end. Here's the problem; this episode would've worked so much better in a 2-parter. Instead of just making this about one demented kid who clearly needs help (but I'm sure by the end he feels society hasn't given up on him, aww) they could've written a much longer series which revealed the characters. I'm NOT saying this should be a <i>Criminal Minds</I> rip-off, but "Underneathe every crisis lies a broken relationship", so why aren't we seeing more of the crisis of the characters? Besides Owen and Carry, we hardly see why these kids are so pissed off and ready to go to jail.





Here's where my cynicism actually comes in: In the real world, the ending would've been much more violent, if not newsworthy. Even if the ending were to happen, society would not change. The bullies would still remain bullies, because their parents are and have always been "proud of their strong will" and the geeks will remain tortured souls/geeks who statistically are more likely to become serial killers when they grow up. A cheesy music number to a cheesy ending ruined it for me. We all knew this should've ended with a realistic darker tone, as long as this show is still about realism.

A group of geeks hold three bullies hostage. The dad of the leader finds his plans, and takes them to the F.B.I. Matt and Emily try to find the kids before something happens. Then, they learn what the kids have done. They run a camera through the computer so everyone can watch them hold the kids hostage. One of the geeks truns on the others, now holding six people hostage. The kid shoots a bully as he tries to leave. After Emily can't negotiate him out, Matt uses roughness. He tells the kid it's his fault his mom died. The kid is then caught. This episode was great because it dealt with what happens when you bully people. A+!

Well, when a show generates posts like I am reading, then the writers have done their jobs. The toughest job the entertainment industry faces is delving into reality, and I'm not talking about who gets voted off the island either, that ain't real life. I like the way Standoff approached this subject. They didn't put a whole school into a hostage situation and they stayed true to why crisis negotiation even exsists. We will boil it down to one line. It's not a line written for Lehman's character to teach in class, it is pretty much the truth folks. HT's are the products of broken relationships. When a person loses someone, then that relationship break is forever, and often tough for someone to deal with, toughest when one is young. This episode ended in a place that it should. Nice touch at the end of this episode. The bottom line is the show went to the bottom line. There isn't alot of highlights to illustrate when kids take other kids hostages and this show doesn't try to. Was it tough to watch in places, yeah, but I don't mind being taken to a place that I'm uncomfortable in- if there is an outlet presented. I like the brief but to the point chat with Ron and Rosemarie at the end. The producers knew this was an episode that you end with a message. It's plain and simple, nothing has to go this far if a person makes a choice to change it. Well done.





Do you have the OMG moments in episodes of Standoff? Kudos to the writers again. You know you have a viewer's full attention when we react to something we don't want to have happen. When is the last time that you watched a show that had you shifting in your seat as much as the plot took unexpected turns?? That happened again for me tonight and it all ends with my feet on the floor and the recliner down and an audible "ohhhh, I get it." It's good writing when you go down three paths in one hour. You see it would have been easy to paint these kids as problems of society, but Standoff isn't going to be that predictable. We are taken inside of the word "why" and not just "ok, here's bad guys they just are that way."





Bullets? Who's got the bullets???


I like the cross section of Americana being shown in this episode. All likeable individuals, with families and beleivable ties to each other. All walks of life here in this one, jock, beauty queen, one accepted to MIT, new kid in town and one kid who is having to live the adult life at a young age. At 17 he suffers the broken relationship and there it is.....the one with the bullets. This is as close to straight line procedural negotiation as Standoff has shown us this season. It was hard hitting and gutted out in an hour. Flannery went where I venture to say 99 percent of us don't want to go, but...sometimes taking a chance to save six, means taking on one. Did we get our Matt and Emily fix??


Well, yes and some will say no. I like the dialog in this one, Emily opens up a part of her past and even Matt is taken back. It really looks as though he doesn't know what to say. And now we have some foundation laid to HER not talking to HIM. This could be the completetion of some set up for the problems they have to tackle in this relationship. We are finally getting some history on Emily and I am liking that. Now, if you were looking for fluff, you won't leave this episode satisfied. I got a feeling that gutting this one out in the learning process of what Matt and Emily are all about will have a payoff well worth waiting for. We are getting the picture drawn for us, be patient folks. Speaking of patience, I now understand why Emily is more forgiving of Matt's often cutting dialog with her. She is used to it to some degree, but she is an adult now and took the time to understand people, not just bullies, but herself.





Would Matt and Emily have like each other in high school?, probably not. The beauty of growing up is getting the whole picture, understanding depth and not just what you want to hear or see, it's about dealing with loss, bullies, hurt and broken relationships. I agree with Emily, I'm glad they met in LA as Bureau agents.

I have watched this show off and on since it came on. But this one really touched me. It was well written and extremely well acted, the young guest stars did a great job. But this episode did disturb me to my core, it absolutely broke my heart. Why are kids so MEAN, to each other and the Parents refuse to see, that their children are such bullies, that they could hurt some one so much that they would want to strike back at them in such a manner. Even though the story ended with the kids getting arrested, as the parents were portrayed, and if this was real life, you know that they would sue the parents of the "bullied"/kidnappers, never really having their kids take any responsibility for what they did to create that situation. What breaks my heart is it keeps happening everyday and this episode really struck a cord with me, I was thinking about it long after I finished watching, perhaps because I have two teenagers of my own and I pray everyday for their safety and that they will not fall into either of these extremes. I did think that it was great that the father of the lead kidnapper was the one that went to the police and tried to prevent what eventually did happen. If only more real parents would be that brave.