Forever: The Wolves of Deep Brooklyn

January 6, 2015 8:05 PM - Season 1, Episode 12

Henry and Jo investigate the death of a financial investment expert who turns out to be the son of one of Abe's friends; Henry recalls his anxiety over letting Abe go to Vietnam.
posted by oh yeah! (4 comments total)

Still no death, two close calls.

There's a weird thing about how the show creates suspense and tension - it can't just be about putting Henry in dangerous situations, since we kind of want Henry to fail in desperate situations, so he dies and we get more hijinks. The tension has to come from the possibility of someone (usually Jo) finding out - someone seeing him die. So what the show does a lot is put Henry in the sort of danger that he can't escape on his own, and then put Jo nearby - but then diffuse the tension by having Jo save him, so they can keep the 'will she found out' mystery for another day.

Essentially, the setup of the show makes Henry play the damsel in distress to Jo a lot.
posted by dinty_moore at 6:02 AM on January 7, 2015 [2 favorites]

I think I've said it before, but, I love the way that the "will Jo find out/will Henry tell her" is the dramatic engine of their relationship, rather than the "will they/won't they hook up" engine. The procedural aspects of the show are nothing special (I found it pretty funny when Henry was berating Abe about his 'fruit of the poisoned tree' findings from the humidor, wouldn't Henry have broken the chain of evidence in the first place by letting the key out of the police's custody?), but the dynamics between Jo & Henry, and Henry & Abe are something different.

I couldn't really buy Young Abe being so idealistic about going into service when it meant going to Vietnam, but maybe it was supposed to be in the beginning of the war?
posted by oh yeah! at 7:16 PM on January 7, 2015 [1 favorite]

My take on Young Abe Going to War is that at that point Abe has never had a sense of agency, because Henry has always done the risky things. (It's not clear if Young Abe knows about Dad's superpower yet, but it will surely have had an impact on his parenting style.) I think Abe is itching to prove that he is a capable adult who can work in the face of danger and make a difference in the world. Serving his country is just a convenient excuse.
posted by localroger at 4:09 PM on January 8, 2015

He did know - he had that line about how his father perceived time differently from the rest of people. I liked the opening MD's exasperation with their hijinks.
posted by viggorlijah at 11:21 PM on January 8, 2015 [1 favorite]