Now this is one of the most interesting episodes of_The Dead Zone_ that I've seen so far. I mean watching this show in 2019 (and I kinda do regret skipping it at the time) is very interesting because of how different things are now then they were back then. One of the oddest things about show so far is how much people hate Johnny Smith the Psychic. Last episode someone told him he shouldn't be allowed to walk the streets. That's some violent vitriol. It occurred to me after this episode and the next that Johnny might be one of the few white characters who can approach understanding what being black is like. Speaking being black. Blackness is one of the interesting aspect of this episode, and not just because one of the jurors dropped the n-word on basic cable but because he did it while at the same time espousing what would be known now as "respectability politics".
The premise of this episode is simple. Johnny Smith the man with ESP gets jury duty. In a modern show this would be a more extravagant affair in part because of technology and in part because of how characters are written nowadays. Typically these cases goes one of two ways. And innocent guy who has evidence stacked saying he's guilty or a guilty guy who has evidence stacked saying he's innocent. In this case we have the former. So everyone votes Guilty except Johnny.
Now my man the black father juror is very frustrated because he believes it is his solemn duty to follow the rules and that (if I read farther into this than the show makes explicit) white people will leave us alone if we can prove that we're willing to self police ourselves. No need to kill our children when we will turn in the bad ones ourselves. Now that's an extrapolation but it's also why that character doesn't work anymore. He's interesting and compelling and I like the actor but his entire motivation rests on ignoring other fundamental assumptions about the justice in America. Police lie, Black kids can be innocent of murder, jury nullification is a thing. The point being that that character is a character lost in time and I'm not even sure he's from 2002. I mean certainly we were not as aware back then as we are now but that specific character who wants to punish the boy for his own good even if it mean punishing him with 25 years in prison (15 with good behaviour but no one talks about how hard it is to get good behaviour when you fit a certain demographic). There's a lot to unpack in this episode. It's the sort of thing that makes me want to research who wrote it. How many black people were involved in the creation of this character.
The rest of the episode is standard Dead Zone things. Such as Johnny revealing that there's evidence that one of the witnesses changed his statement and that the original statement fits the idea that there was another party present at the moment of the crime. Johnny validates this vision he had with the actual original witness statement. But between his presentation of the information and the Johnny fan who proudly claims that he witnessed Johnny do an esp thing. Everyone looks on with suspicion. Honestly the other interesting thing is that everyone want to bully the jurors but Johnny is the one who defends their right to disagree with the new facts. I liked that.
This whole episode makes jury duty look heavy and complicatied and that a lot of work goes on into it. This makes me question other shows about the other branches of justice. Lawyer shows are about court. Cops shows are about arresting. Jury shows are about jury but in each case they completely ignore every other branch. Even this episode requires incompetent lawyers to make pitiful defenses and ignore evidence analysis just so the jury can solve the crime by themselves. It's a thing. it's weird. But the episode was fun.
Review by wolfkinBlockedParent2019-08-14T18:18:21Z
Now this is one of the most interesting episodes of_The Dead Zone_ that I've seen so far. I mean watching this show in 2019 (and I kinda do regret skipping it at the time) is very interesting because of how different things are now then they were back then. One of the oddest things about show so far is how much people hate Johnny Smith the Psychic. Last episode someone told him he shouldn't be allowed to walk the streets. That's some violent vitriol. It occurred to me after this episode and the next that Johnny might be one of the few white characters who can approach understanding what being black is like. Speaking being black. Blackness is one of the interesting aspect of this episode, and not just because one of the jurors dropped the n-word on basic cable but because he did it while at the same time espousing what would be known now as "respectability politics".
The premise of this episode is simple. Johnny Smith the man with ESP gets jury duty. In a modern show this would be a more extravagant affair in part because of technology and in part because of how characters are written nowadays. Typically these cases goes one of two ways. And innocent guy who has evidence stacked saying he's guilty or a guilty guy who has evidence stacked saying he's innocent. In this case we have the former. So everyone votes Guilty except Johnny.
Now my man the black father juror is very frustrated because he believes it is his solemn duty to follow the rules and that (if I read farther into this than the show makes explicit) white people will leave us alone if we can prove that we're willing to self police ourselves. No need to kill our children when we will turn in the bad ones ourselves. Now that's an extrapolation but it's also why that character doesn't work anymore. He's interesting and compelling and I like the actor but his entire motivation rests on ignoring other fundamental assumptions about the justice in America. Police lie, Black kids can be innocent of murder, jury nullification is a thing. The point being that that character is a character lost in time and I'm not even sure he's from 2002. I mean certainly we were not as aware back then as we are now but that specific character who wants to punish the boy for his own good even if it mean punishing him with 25 years in prison (15 with good behaviour but no one talks about how hard it is to get good behaviour when you fit a certain demographic). There's a lot to unpack in this episode. It's the sort of thing that makes me want to research who wrote it. How many black people were involved in the creation of this character.
The rest of the episode is standard Dead Zone things. Such as Johnny revealing that there's evidence that one of the witnesses changed his statement and that the original statement fits the idea that there was another party present at the moment of the crime. Johnny validates this vision he had with the actual original witness statement. But between his presentation of the information and the Johnny fan who proudly claims that he witnessed Johnny do an esp thing. Everyone looks on with suspicion. Honestly the other interesting thing is that everyone want to bully the jurors but Johnny is the one who defends their right to disagree with the new facts. I liked that.
This whole episode makes jury duty look heavy and complicatied and that a lot of work goes on into it. This makes me question other shows about the other branches of justice. Lawyer shows are about court. Cops shows are about arresting. Jury shows are about jury but in each case they completely ignore every other branch. Even this episode requires incompetent lawyers to make pitiful defenses and ignore evidence analysis just so the jury can solve the crime by themselves. It's a thing. it's weird. But the episode was fun.