NYSOM: Sweeping Statements...

Cowards die many times before their deaths;

The valiant never taste of death but once. Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,

It seems to me most strange that men should fear;

Seeing that death, a necessary end

Will come when it come... - William Shakespeare

It's not that I'm afraid to die, 

I just don't want to be there when it happens. - Woody Allen

Here in the US, as we brace ourselves for more unpredictable weather and cheer our teams against the sporting odds, we also enter a period of extra play on TV in what the networks like to call ‘Sweeps’ month: drama series run pivotal episodes, arrange major guest-stars or push the proverbial boat out a bit further. Creatively it’s potentially interesting but when all is said and done its main reason is a great rallying show-and-tell for advertisers… the equivalent of Macy’s pimping up their window displays and offering a twofer on Jimmy Choos to entice you in. 

But while I’d personally kill for nothing less than a spa-treatment to die for, I can’t help noticing that this year’s sweeps didn’t need a broom so much as a scalpel, a coroner and a raft of CSI forensic squads. Two shows I regularly TiVo decided to literally go in for the kill. Even before Black Friday, the day we rush to the stores to grab cheap deals after giving thanks for what we already have, things were looking ironic and dark.

Proceed with care. Spoilers for recent episodes ensue...

The first crime scene was Person of Interest, the big-brother-is-watching show that feels like The Equalizer on post-Millennium steroids and which is rapidly becoming this girl’s go-to show for tall, dark and brooding.

Cometh the 'Sweeps' and the teasers and promotions not only promised death, destruction and drama, the actual trilogy of episodes delivered them on all fronts.  We were teased that the central team would lose one of their own (and despite some misdirection towards Detective Lionel Fusco played by the often under-rated Kevin Chapman) it was fairly obvious that it would be Taraji P. Henson’s character who bit the bullet - which is a real shame on many levels and yet dramatic catnip on another. Detective Joss Carter has long since been the heart of the show, not only the thin blue line between the vigilante elements and all-out chaos, but a woman of colour in an industry that still rarely places them front and center. For all the stoic, angsty appeal of the otherwise boring conversationalist John Reese (Jim Caviezel) and his prim, uptight, upright and damaged ‘boss’ Finch (LOST’s Michael Emerson), it was Henson’s Carter that humanised it – the heart to go with the requisite muscle and brain. Henson must already be sifting through well-deserved job-offers.

So it was a huge risk to kill off the character mid-season in ‘The Crossing’ felled by the villainous corrupt police-officers known as HR.  But the following episode, ‘The Devil’s Share’, the final episode before the show’s mini-hiatus, was one of the show’s best ever outings (indeed, I’ve not seen an episode so well constructed and performed all year). Bottom-line:  you have to ‘pity the mister that gets between me and my sister’. In the wake of Carter’s murder, all members of our main cast are 'off the reservation' with several of them having no moral qualms about putting corrupt killer cop Simmons (Robert John Burke) in the ground for good, legally or not. Big screen movies often have big lugs like Stallone and Arnold dispensing fire-sale quips and bullets as if they’re about to go out of fashion but it’s rare a television show is so unambiguous about cold and hard revenge. Then again, POI is often the OMG! of hour-longs, more akin to a fairly brutal and Kevlar-free Batman than any normal street-level procedural.  With each ‘act’ of The Devil’s Share framed by a flashback to almost ‘confessional’ scenarios for each of the players, it felt like a huge amount of care and attention had been put into plotting the pace, delivering the goods on every level and detail. None other than the original and soulful Man in Black, Johnny Cash, provided the soundtrack for a drama well-lived and fought for.

On the other hand, over on The Mentalist, another a much longer arc concluded in fatal fashion... 

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