The Great 38 Rewatch-- #GreybarHotel
#GreybarHotel -- Prisoners Of Love?
I completely understand why this episode is on the list. It was on mine. However, that does not mean that I completely love this one. In fact, I think you could say that I have a love/ hate relationship with it.
Episodes in which a character goes into a prison undercover or falsely accused of a crime are always a bit of a risk. It should be believable not sensational, and when the character is a woman it should definitely not be exploited. In my opinion, they succeeded. They showed a strict atmosphere but since it was not a "super max" prison, it didn't have the fearsome that concerned me when I saw the previews.
In case you've forgotten the plot (and it was a bit weak so it would be understandable), Abbott's team is doing a favor for the CIA. In this convoluted tale, the spy agency believed that a high end car theft ring was supplying stolen cars to foreign buyers who were using the transactions to cover the exchange of information regarding terrorism and terrorist cells operating within and out of the U.S. Since the CIA is not supposed to conduct operations within the U.S., they asked their domestic partner, the FBI, for assistance. When the the Marie the crazy girlfriend of the ringleader, Cole, is arrested while stealing an expensive sports car and refuses to give them any information about him, Abbott and his team go to "plan B" which is to send an agent into the prison to gain the trust of the girlfriend, as well as, the location of the boyfriend. While Lisbon is able to gain some information, it's not enough and Jane comes up with the idea to have the two women break out of prison and meet up with the car theft gang and arrest them all. Of course, things don't go completely to plan and Jane is barely able to rescue Lisbon before she is shot and both of them escape the same fate when Abbott and the team shows up to save the day after following Jane's energy drink bottle strewn path.
There were some sweet moments that can bring a smile to the face of most Jisbon shippers.
Jane giving Lisbon advice on how to maneuver through prison and making sure to wear flip flops in the shower was adorable.
The split scene showing Lisbon looking lonely in her jail bunk while Jane didn't even attempt to go to bed in the Airstream or Lisbon's house because he knew he couldn't sleep with her not beside him.
The phone conversation between Jane and Lisbon when she's complaining about how hard it is to get Marie to open up to her and Jane compares Lisbon's cellmate to the way Lisbon was with him for a long time and his advice to her to get the woman to lower her guard was to do what he did which was to lower his.
When she follows his advice we get a great insight into what Lisbon is feeling about Jane and how she fears that he still might leave her. It's a very personal moment for her that none of us realized was filled with so much foreshadowing.
Another terrific moment was when Lisbon told Jane she was very pleased to see him wearing a vest again and telling him that she had always liked his vests. Like her gift of socks, from this moment forward, we will always see him in the vest again. (I guess that sort of proves that the vest beats the turtleneck every time, right?)
All that being said, I think I speak for many when I have to scratch my head regarding the moments after agents show up to rescue Jane and Lisbon. Yes, I know that Lisbon had said she wanted to keep their relationship private for the time being but this was silly writing to me. I find it hard to believe that after almost witnessing the death of the person you love you would be able to stop from hugging that person. Nope. I don't believe it. It was a moment of extreme relief, joy, and gratitude. In other cases, at moments like this they had shared a hug and it would not have been beyond the norm here. What was weird was handing her an energy drink instead. Or perhaps I'm wrong and nothing says love like making sure your partner has enough minerals and electrolytes?
I've thought about this a lot and my theory is that while Bruno told us that we picked up season seven only two weeks after season six ended he didn't understand that it never felt that way to us. We had the reality of waiting over SIX MONTHS for season seven to begin. We needed to see Jane and Lisbon acted in a more secure relationship. At least that's my opinion.
The final scene of the episode also seemed unnecessary. Again, in my opinion, it could have waited until the following week and we could have had a scene of Jane and Lisbon outside the office, maybe sharing the salad that Teresa had been craving. But no, they decided to use the last moment to show us that Erica Flynn was making a return. It really wasn't something that I needed to make me tune in the next week but I guess it was important for them to make it seem as if everything was linked.
Tuesday, May 2nd, at 5pm DST eastern time zone USA we will be watching #GreybarHotel and sharing more thoughts regarding some of the interesting aspects of this episode. (Like how high did you jump when Abbott shouted, or how nice it was to see Stella Baker continue the Baker family tradition of nepotism. LOL ) I hope you can join us and tweet your feelings about the story. If you've never done so before, don't let that stop you now. You can tweet and lurk as you like.
Hope to see you there.
Cheers! tivarocks!
