Body of Proof: “Your Number’s Up”

Posted: December 7, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Body of Proof | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

 Grade: B

Airdate: 12/6/11

This week’s episode of Body of Proof was a little different from most episodes. A lot during season one the show would make one certain character the focus of an episode and something major would happen to them. This one was different because that happened to three supporting characters and Megan (Dana Delany) appeared far less than usual.

The episode started with money flying out of an apartment window and quickly being gathered up by a group of boys playing football on the street below. One boy finds blood on the money and the team is called in. Sam (Sonja Sohn) tells everyone that about $50,000 come flying out the window, which didn’t seem to fit the neighborhood or the guy’s apartment. I was a little impressed because I thought for a moment that Body of Proof actually killed a non-rich person.

The victim’s name was Walter Brown, so it took a little time for him to be identified.  Finally the team finds out that he worked at a metal plant on the docks and his former co-workers tell the team that he had recently won $50 million in the lottery. Wow another dead rich guy in Philly, I’m so surprised Body of Proof.

Around this part of the episode it split into multiple different story lines that were all kind of important. Ethan (Geoffrey Arend) spends a lot of time working an a case by himself. He is trying to get certified by some board, that part wasn’t explained very well. Kate (Jeri Ryan) wants him to talk to the family of the victim, a college student who died after routine surgery. He freezes up and Kate has to come in and safe him. He spends most of the episode trying to find the case of death and eventually gets another victim from the same hospital.

Lacey’s (Mary Mouser) story line started in a very awkward scene early in the episode. Megan gave her a credit card to use for emergency and Lacey used it to buy a $300 hat. Megan takes the hat back and makes Lacey work for the money by scanning in files at the office. Lacey runs into the college student’s younger sister who is crying in the break room. Lacey does a better job dealing with her than Ethan did.

Peter (Nicholas Bishop), Bud (John Carroll Lynch) and Dani (Nathalie Kelley) have their own story lines that aren’t very important, mainly because there are so many others in this episode. Peter gets a letter with the names of his birth parents. I had totally forgotten around that story line. We doesn’t want to open it but does at the end of the episode. Bud’s wife is pregnant. That pretty much sums up his whole story line. Dani is back to floating around as the office slut; coming on to Ethan and then blowing him off to make out with Peter.

Anyway back to the murder, Megan, Bud and Sam go through the usual twists and ever-changing list of suspects; the event planner, the bitter cousin, the guy from Dinner Impossible. For a while we think it is the victim’s former best friend, who kept claiming that something was wrong with Walter. Everyone just thought the money changed him. Megan ended up finding out that he had a tumor on this kidney, which was making his hormones go all wacky. It turns out that the best friend was there when Walter died, but he ended up falling onto his own knife.

The supporting character story line were all wrapped up in the last few minutes. Ethan ends up finding out that a virus was infecting people in the ER at the hospital and Kate was able to stop the spreading. Ethan and Lacey have a conversation about how hard it is to deal with the victim’s families. They both end up talking to the college student’s family again and succeeding this time.

Overall the episode was all right. There was still awkward family moments between Megan and Lacey and horrible music throughout. The major problem I’ve been having with this season is Bud. We need to meet his wife if they are going to keep talking about the pregnancy. Put her in a life-threatening situation, make her a murder suspect, have a co-worker of her’s murdered or just have her walk into the police station and say hi because we haven’t met her yet.

Watch “Your Number’s Up”

Body of Proof: “Gross Anatomy”

Posted: December 2, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Body of Proof | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

 Grade: C

Airdate: 11/29/11

This was a pretty average episode of Body of Proof. There was overly eccentric supporting character, awkward family moments and other WTF romance.

The episode started with a medical school class having a funeral-type service for their cadavers. One student opens her body bag and finds that it isn’t her cadaver but a body of 20-year-old girl. Megan (Dana Delany) and the team are called in to investigate. Megan invites the class back to observe the autopsy. The adventure quickly ends after two boys in the class know more about the victim than they should. This is also when we meet eccentric bit character number one; genius medical student Dora.

Bud (John Carroll Lynch) and Sam (Sonja Sohn) question but the boys. This is when all the twists start. They I.D. the victim but find that it is a fake name, the professor is known for having a thing for blondes, etc. Dora, who is the only student Megan allows to stick around, notices a tattoo on the girls back covered up by another tattoo is for a local Irish band. Enter overly eccentric character number two, Rowan. Rowan is the victims on-and-off boyfriend who tells the sob story of their difficult childhood in Ireland. If he was going to be around for a few episode than the huge back story would have been fine, but it was a little too much for such a small part.

Megan eventually figures out that the victim has a 6-month-old baby, who is missing. After more suspects and twists, it turns out that the victim had an agreement with one of the boys in the class’s brother to give up the baby for illegal adoption. She backed out and he killed. There wasn’t a flashback in this episode, but the actor did a very good of telling what happened. So, it worked. The baby ended up being Rowan’s and Bud returns the baby to him near the end of the episode.

That brings me to the daddy issues section of this episode. First is Bud struggling with the idea of becoming a father. I think they keep bring it up to remind us that the story line is happening. I hope his wife comes in at some point because we haven’t met her yet. The second is about transport girl Dani (Nathalie Kelley). Dani has kind of been floating around like the office slut for the past couple episode but nothing has really been done with her character. Finally that changed. Peter (Nicholas Bishop) overhears a phone call between her and her dad. She tells him that he was abusive to her and her mom but found Jesus in jail and now whats to reconnect with Dani because he is afraid she is going to hell.

Dani and Peter have a few connects in this episode. Kate (Jeri Ryan) actually warns him not bring his personally life into the office because it didn’t go so well for her. But, Peter ignores that and the episode ends with him kissing Dani in the elevator. I’m interested to see Megan and Ethan’s (Geoffery Arend) reaction to this, mainly because I though it was going to be Ethan and Dani.

 

Body of Proof: “Second Chances” and “Hard Knocks”

Posted: November 5, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Body of Proof | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

 Grade: “Second Chances”-B-, “Hard Knocks”-B-

Airdates: 10/25/11, 11/1/11

Second Chances

I’m glad I’m doing these two episodes of Body of Proof in the same post because in terms of relationships and emotional stuff they could have been a two-part episode.

This episode starts out with a girl being  drug through the woods and then killed. The show is being pretty constant with episodes starting with the murder, which is the norm but I liked that Body of Proof didn’t and showed the murder at the end. Megan (Dana Delany) and Peter (Nicholas Bishop) start investigating but can’t determine the cause of death even though she has several injuries.

They find someone else’s blood on her, but it is from a girl in jail. Bud (John Carroll Lynch) goes and talks to the girl, who says that the victim, Bryn Walker, worked at a horse farm that has a prisoners’ program. The team goes to the horse farm and thinks she died from falling of a horse and getting her foot stuck.

Megan is talking about the case while Lacey (Mary Mouser) is at her office. Lacey knows a lot about horses and helps Megan and Peter with the case. Lacey hangs around a lot because her dad Todd (Jeffery Nordling) is making her go to Boston with his girlfriend/Megan’s boss Kate (Jeri Ryan). Lacey doesn’t want to go and Megan doesn’t want her to. Kate tries to be as helpful as possible to not piss off Megan. Todd has a few screaming scenes with Megan about Lacey.

One of the times Lacey is at the crime scene she is alone with Bud and they start talking about Megan. Lacey makes an I wish I got to spend more time with my mom comment. Bud tells Megan and then she talks to Lacey about it. Kate ends up talking to Todd and tells him that she thinks it would be best if Lacey didn’t come. Megan realizes that Kate said something and thanks her for it.

The murder solving wasn’t anything special. They through a list of different suspects, have long evidence finding scenes and run into a bunch of twists before catching the bad guy, who is the victim’s boyfriend.

Todd and Megan sit down with Lacey and tell her she is going to start spending more time with Megan and doesn’t have to go to Boston.

Watch “Second Chances”

Hard Knocks

Lacey starts spending more time with Megan starts very quickly because she is at her apartment in the opening scene. Megan is getting ready for a date with FBI Agent Derek Ames. I’m glad they decided to continue this story line. She ends up missing the date because she is called to a crime scene. The victim is a high-school kid named Jake, who died outside a barn where a rave was held the night before.

On the murder side of the episode, Megan spends a lot of time trying to find a case of death and Bud and Sam (Sonja Sohn) interview the normal twisty lists of suspects.

Early in the episode Todd tells Lacey that he wants to move to California because he got an offer to teach at Berkeley. Obviously Lacey isn’t very happy about this and once she tells Megan all hell breaks loss, especially because she tells Megan after walking in on her and Derek about to do it. There are upwards of three screaming scenes between Megan and Todd throughout the episode. Kate is also in a weird place because Todd wants her to go too. Kate pretty much said she isn’t going to.

Derek makes an appearance every couple of scenes and helps the team on the case. It takes them a while to figure out the cause of death, which ended up being a punch to the heart. After interview about have to school and thinking it was the victim’s dad for a while they land on a girl was the victim’s tutor who punched him because he didn’t like her. I really hope the show doesn’t try to do high school again, they didn’t do it very well. This episode and the other one had the murder being reenacted at the end.

Around the end of the episode, Megan is at her apartment with Derek and apologies for not wanting to do much because she is thinking about Lacey. There is a knock on the door and Megan runs to get it thinking it is going to be Lacey, but its Todd. He can’t find Lacey and she isn’t answering her phone. Both of them freak out and yell at the other. Lacey was hiding inside Megan’s apartment and eventually comes out. Todd still isn’t sure what he is going to do, but Megan asks Lacey who she would choose. The episode ends with her looking at Megan and saying, “Who do you think?”

Overall, it was a pretty good episode even through it didn’t focus on the murder that much.

Watch “Hard Knocks”

Body of Proof: “Point of Origin”

Posted: October 20, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Body of Proof | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

 Grade: B

Airdate: 10/18/11

Body of Proof seems to be slowly informing us of the past of the main characters one by one. First is was Megan(Dana Delany), whose father commit suicide when she was 12. Then it was Sam (Sonja Sohn), who is from a bad neighbor where a mobster killed her brother. This episode it was Peter’s (Nicholas Bishop) turn.

The episode starts with Peter driving down a darkened street to horrible music, which usually isn’t a problem for the show. Anyway, he arrives at a house that is on fire. He runs inside and saves a woman just before part of the house explodes. Megan, Sam and Bud (John Carroll Lynch) arrive at the scene. Peter is taken to the hospital with a badly bruised shoulder and the woman, Jenna, is in critical condition. The three of them meet Ray, Philly’s best arson investigator, and his prodigy Skip. Megan clashes with them, like she does with all law enforcement. Another person, Ben, was in the house and died during the fire.

Back at the office Megan and Kate(Jeri Ryan) have a few girl fight moments. Bud, Ethan (Geoffery Arend) and Curtis (Windell Middlebrooks) all just found out that Kate is dating Megan’s ex-husband Todd, which has been going on for at least four episodes. Peter spends the first part of the episode at the hospital with Jenna. He and Megan find out that Jenna was adopted and trying to reconnect with her birth-father. He didn’t want anything to do with her and Peter got pretty pissed about this. We’ve been told that Peter was a foster kid, but this is the first time we found out that he didn’t know his birth-parents and was adopted.

On top of that, being injured and not being able to save Ben, Peter gets another layer of guilt half way through the episode when Jenna dies. Dana Delany acted this scene very well because her facial expression only told us that she was really worried about Peter and that he might be more than a partner. Megan finds out that Jenna died from poison that she was given while in the hospital.

After suspecting Jenna’s boyfriend, her birth-father  and her birth-sister, the team lands on Ray. He corners Megan in the office when no one else is around. She tries to tell him that she know he did it because of a weapon he had. But he doesn’t have it anymore. He gave it to Skip a few months ago. Skip is at a crime scene with Peter and he starts to figure out that he was the killer. Megan, Bud, Sam and Ray arrive just in time to save Peter. This was not a good episode for Peter.

Megan and Kate’s relationship slowly improves throughout the episode. Kate tells Megan she is sorry but she is going to have to get over it because she is still going to date Todd. Megan is still mad, but Kate defends her against Bud at one point.  At the end of the episode Megan makes a few jokes about the relationship and actually gives Kate advice of where to take Todd.

The episode ends with Peter at the agency that Jenna used to find her birth-parents saying that he wants to find his. The episode was good but it was great. The show is still having some long evidence finding scenes, but few awkward moments, so it’s improving.

Watch “Point of Origin”

Body of Proof: “Lazarus Man”

Posted: October 18, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Body of Proof | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

 Grade: C+

Airdate: 10/11/11

This was not a bad episode of Body of Proof, but there was really nothing special about it. Megan’s (Dana Delany) family did not make an appearance, which made this episode less awkward than most. But to make up for Megan’s lacking family, we got family stuff for some other characters.

This episode started with the murder again, which has been the trend for the past couple episodes. All we see is a guy stumbling through the woods and then he falls down and dies. He is brought to the morgue by the new transportation girl, hot biker chick Dani. She and Ethan(Geoffrey Arend)  have a little thing. The guy, Alex Grant,  apparently died from a drug overdose, but Ethan finds a bullet wound. He goes to tell Megan and then the body disappears. He turns up, not dead, in the break room. As he is being taken to the hospital, Bud (John Carroll Lynch) and Sam (Sonja Sohn) track down his roommate Paul. They find him, but he is dead. This was a new type of start for BOP, it doesn’t usually do chase and action packed openings. It was good, but felt a little out of place.

Bud and Sam go to Alex and Paul’s apartment looking for evidence. Everyone who is confused why Paul, who works for a councilwoman, would room with heroin addict Alex. Later on the team finds where Paul was killed, which is the school construction site the councilwoman was sponsoring. Both Paul and Alex’s blood are found at the scene. After thinking Alex was the killer for a bit Megan finds out that he donated bone marrow to Paul.

Alex feels bad because he thinks Paul was killed because of something he did. Bud and Sam find out that Alex owed money to a mobster from Sam’s old neighbor. Sam knows the guy, who name is Mikey and I think he had something to do with her brother’s murderer that happened in the neighbor. Sam almost attacks the guy when he says something about her brother until Bud pulls her off. So finally we are getting a little bit about Sam’s past.

It turns about Paul was murdered by the councilwoman’s chief of staff because he found out that the school was on contaminated ground. Alex decides to turn his life around because of what happened to Paul.

Peter’s (Nicholas Bishop) sisters come to visit at the start of the episode, so we switch from Megan’s family to Peter’s. They also comment on this. Anyway, Peter’s old girlfriend Lizzie DeMarco is back in town and his sisters want him to call her. Megan keeps asking/teasing Peter about her. The episode ends with Peter and Megan drinking at a bar after both turning down people. They have a little sweet, joking moment about their partnership.

I’m not sure if the show is trying to start a romance between the two of them. I would call this a Bones similarity but almost every boy-girl cop partnership does this; Booth and Bones, Tony and Ziva, Jack and Renee. The only show that is seems to be able to pull off not making them get together is Law and Order: SVU, so I was waiting for this to happen.

The next episode was originally going to be the season finale of season one, so I’m interested to see this.

Watch “Lararus Man”

Body of Proof: “Hunting Party” and “Missing”

Posted: October 9, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Body of Proof | Tags: , , , , , , | Leave a comment

 Grade: “Hunting Party”: B, “Missing”: B+

Hunting Party

Airdate: 9/27/11

This episode of Body of Proof did some things differently. For the first time we saw the murder happen and we are given a pool of suspects. Multi-millionaire Martin Loeb is hunting with his wife, two teenage kids and business manager. They are all trying to shot a deer, but someone purposely shots the wife Julie. Apparently only rich people get killed in Philly.

The scene switches to Megan (Dana Delany) and her daughter Lacey (Mary Mouser) having coffee. Lacey said she wants to hang out with Megan more. Megan is happy about this because her boss Kate (Jeri Ryan) is dating her ex-husband Todd (Jeffrey Nordling). Megan and the team are called to the crime scene. Shortly after getting the body back to the lab, Megan discovers that Julie was pregnant. She ends up pissing off Martin Loeb somewhere in here and Kate takes her off the case. Of course, that doesn’t really work, because the rest of the team, including Peter (Nicholas Bishop), are still on the case.

Bud (John Carroll Lynch) and Sam (Sonja Sohn) interview the kids, the business manager and the ex-wife and start to think that Julie was killed so her child wouldn’t have been added to Martin’s will. Kate and the team find out that the baby isn’t Martin’s. Martin knew that because Julie was going to sperm banks trying to get pregnant. But she ended up sleeping with her gay friend, who was killed and his case was given to Megan halfway through the episode.

After sorting through a bunch of twists, the business manager, Alan, is arrested. Megan and Martin are watching as he confesses to Bud. When Alan walks into the station, Martin instantly shots him. Megan quickly try to do something, but it was too late. This little ordeal had a pretty good shock factor, but it was almost a little too out of the ordinary. We didn’t get the killer explaining the death flashback again. I think the show has stopped that but I liked it because it was something different.

Watch “Hunting Party”

Missing

Airdate: 10/4/11

This episode opened with the murder again. A woman is running toward a man who is kidnapping a 5-year-old boy. She is then hit by his truck. Megan and Peter arrive on the scene and Bud fills them in a what happened. Sam wasn’t in this episode. Body of Proof seems to do this a lot of establish the other detective, which I don’t think is needed. Anyway, Megan and the team work as quickly as possible to try  to get evidence from the body, which is Helen, the boy’s nanny.

FBI agent Derek Ames is also assigned to the case because of the missing kid. He seems to hit it off with Megan pretty quickly. About halfway through the episode she is choosing Derek to go investigate stuff with her and leaves a slightly jealous Peter at the lab. While Megan is out investigating with Derek, Bud brings the main suspect, the nanny’s boyfriend, to the station. They are kind of fighting on the way in because the guy pulled a knife on Bud. Bud takes him into the interrogation room, locks the door and unplugs the camera. A few minutes later Peter calls Megan she needs to come to the station because the guy is dead.

Bud is taken off the case and the rest of the team is working under more pressure because their only lead is dead and the kid is still missing. Megan and Kate suppress their annoyance with one another and work to together rather well. They are able to find enough evidence to lead them to an accomplish, who is one of the other nanny’s from the neighbor. The team ends up saving the kid and Megan find out that Bud didn’t kill the suspect guy, a blood vessel broke in his brain because he had an infection.

Megan has some stuff with her mom, Joan, who is running for to be a judge. Their mother-daughter relationship is still really awkward, but there was some sweet stuff said. Also, Derek and Megan had to say good-bye at the end of this episode. He asked her on a date but she jokingly let him down. I’m not 100 percent sure what the show is trying to do here, but I think Derek will be back.

Watch “Missing”

Body of Proof: “Love Thy Neighbor”

Posted: September 22, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Body of Proof | Leave a comment

  Grade: B

Airdate: 9/20/11

This season of Body of Proof started just as the other one ended; a little awkward, full of twists and progressively getting better. Of course, that might be because this episode and the next four were all supposed to be part of season one. Season one ended rather abruptly but this episode made a pretty good season premiere.

In the opening scene Dr. Megan Hunt (Dana Delaney) is walking up to her ex-husband Todd’s (Jeffery Nordling) house to take their daughter Lacey (Mary Mouser) to school. They are having the normal awkward broken family moment when Kate (Jeri Ryan), Megan’s boss/Todd’s girlfriend, walks out of the house. We found out in the last episode of season one that Todd and Kate are sleeping together. The situation is made even more awkward and Lacey tells Megan that Kate has been spending a lot of time at the house. She adds a comment that the house has “thin walls” so she had trouble studying. Lacey was talking about the T.V. downstairs but Megan that she meant sex and that starts the sex theme for this episode.

Megan and her partner Peter (Nicholas Bishop) are called to the scene of a murder that was staged to be a car accident. The two of them with the help of deceives Bud (John Carroll Lynch) and Sam (Sonja Sohn) identify the guy as Daniel Davidson, who lived in a wealthy suburban about two minutes away. One thing I have noticed a lot of the victims on this show are upscale rich people. Anyway, the team goes to the suburban to tell the guy’s wife and quickly the whole neighbor becomes suspects. Usually crime shows that set in suburban are the same because the neighbors are always in some kind of competition and someone is sleeping with someone’s husband.

The neighborhood in this episode took the latter part to the extreme. All the neighbors are in an agreement that their spouse can sleep with as many other people on the street as they want to. That aspect brings up the sex life of all the other characters. Everyone knows that Megan is mad at Kate for sleeping with Todd. A few people think she is jealous. Peter becomes a player in this episode and gets the number of a few women in the neighbor.

The victims wife is a suspect for a while because she and another neighbor Kevin were in love, according to Kevin. This is where the twists, such as HIV, a hitman, an investment scam and poison, come in. In the end, Kevin was the one who killed David, but it was because he discovered the meth lab Kevin had in his back yard. Kevin gives a tearful confession to the team saying that selling meth was the only thing he had after he lost his family and his job. One thing I was disappointed about was that the murder wasn’t being show in a flashback while the person was confessing. I liked that and Body of Proof was one of the only shows that did it.

Tensions are still high between Megan and Kate. They had a few fights that were more about Lacey than Todd. The episode ends with a Desperate Housewives joke and a cute moment between Megan and Lacey. It felt like there could have been a passage of time between this episode and the last. And this one was better than the last so, hopefully the show just keeps getting better.

Watch “Love Thy Neighbor”