User Reviews

This episode did a great job of exploring the risks to autistic kids. Autistic kids are a lot of work and require constant attention. The resentment of the stepfather about this was shown at just the right moment, and having suspicion put onto a registered sex offender was the obvious mistake that one would expect to be made and dragged out at length in real life. Granted, I could guess what was going on as soon as I found out about the dead girl's life, but so what? This episode was about educating the viewing public more than mere entertainment. Autistic kids are at constant risk of being wished away, and can get killed for that. One thing I kept asking myself was, is Bill really a sex offender, or was he framed for that also, with his life ruined as a result? That too can happen. As for Provenza not figuring out who murdered that girl, so what? Someone had to be the dense one to illustrate the point. My guess is that he felt really stupid for not figuring it out, appalled about the evil stepfather, and not much pity for any registered sex offender. If Bill is a real sex offender, too bad for him that he had a horrible time.

What should have been a riveting episode of MAJOR CRIMES concerning wrongful accusations and a step-parent unable to cope with a special needs child turned into an all-too-obvious plot line wherein the culprit(s) were obvious from their first 5 minutes on screen. SPOILER ALERT*** When an attempted suicide jumper gets pulled back, only to reveal that he has the dead body of a teen-age girl in the back of his pick-up truck, and we immediately find out he is a registered sex offender, anyone with a third grade education understands that the "jumper" is not the murderer. But Provenza, dolt that he is at jumping to conclusions, relentlessly pursues a line of investigation designed to intimidate, threaten, and ultimately persecute and prosecute this man. Even when the evidence mounts in favor of the suspect's innocence, Provenza, a senior detective whose detecting abilities should be called into serious question, continues his attack on the suspect, ultimately driving that suspect to attempt suicide by stabbing himself in the neck with a pen given to him to write his confession. And to top it all off, even at the end of the episode, when the guilty party is discovered, Provenza makes no attempt to apologize for his attitude and behavior and unprofessional approach to his job, but the writers do not even see fit to have Provenza get his wrists slapped for such sloppy police work. Weak weak weak all the way around. In light of the problems with police forces in Missouri and New York and elsewhere, you would think the writers of this show might be a little more precise, practical, and professional when it comes to detectives working a major crime. If the Provenza's of this world win out, U.S. prisons will have a lot more innocent people in them than they do now.