IPRA - VICTIM'S SON'S TESTIMONY

So the guy's son (early 20's) was there when his dad got killed, but he kind of refuses to talk about it because it's very upsetting and it happened not so long ago. Oh, and horribly enough for a coincidental ripped from the headlines story, the shooter's name is Zimmerman. It's so weird when this show accidentally does that, which it regularly does, but this is just... Ugh. Normally I would go into a whole thing about IA and why these IPRA things are important, but it's just too much of a bummer this week. Although I have to say, Al Sharpton has almost perfected his transit of going so crazy that he comes out the other side looking more sane than anybody else, in a continually shortening orbit: His suggestion that white people start wearing hoodies more often, in protest, actually brought tears to my eyes.

Mike: "Pastor Roc, you're black. Make him behave."
Roc: "Son, the best way you can honor your dad is by answering these desultory, snotty questions about the time a second ago when your father was gunned to death for no reason right in front of you."
Kid: "Good point."
(Roll call; all pass...)
Alicia: "Robbie..."
(Male Gaze!)
Alicia: "Ahem. The officers told us there was an express train going by, and that's why your dad didn't hear them shouting they were cops..."

She drops easily into the rhythms of her best jury work, leading-without-leading, asking yes or no questions in a soft, firm voice, and nobody can withstand Alicia's soft-firm-voice voice, so he speaks up: There was a train stopped on a closer track that blocked out the express train's noise. They would have heard the explanation just fine, if it had happened. But it didn't.

For once, I'm not confused by the episode's case, because that's a tale as old as time: Too-fast reaction from a cop, jobs on the line (and up the line), you tell a little lie to make it go away, nobody inquires further because that's the price of safe streets.

So -- this episode is full of jumps in time, it's one of the hallmarks of this show that makes it so eminently watchable is that the music and the edits keep rushing you forward, but here there's also a persistent irony every time it happens in this episode, which is really gorgeous -- from the crying son breaking down about how nobody believes him about the train noise, headlong into everybody laughing as they wrap up for the day. Entrenched patriarchy has done its job for the day! Time for some scotch! Yikes.