Best crime TV questions of all time

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Margaritaville - S13-E3

Question: Can someone explain the subplot with the Margaritaville and Stan going to a bunch of places trying to return it? It's really confusing. And this sounds stupid, but in a recession, wouldn't spending money be bad?

Answer: Essentially Stan was trying to return the blender that his dad, Randy, had bought because he knew his parents couldn't afford the extra debt. The blender, which represented mortgage-backed securities, had been bought on payment plan, meaning Randy had to make monthly payments, with interest, on something that wasn't essential. The episode represented the recession that was occurring at the time, including the housing bubble and mortgage crisis going on, so there's a lot going on. However, the payment plan (which is to say the debt) had been sold to another company by the store that sold Randy the blender. (To explain why, because of the recession, the store needed cash on hand, and they would only be getting a little money each month, if Randy paid his bill. So the store sells the debt to a company who gives the store the money upfront. Think of the J.G. Wentworth commercials, "I have a structured settlement, but I need cash now".) Because the store sold the debt, in ridiculous fashion, Stan had to return the blender to the company that bought the debt, although they too sold the debt to another company. Finally he gets to the U.S. treasury who tells him his blender is worth $90 trillion (again a ridiculous exaggeration) meaning that the debt owed is greater than the product is worth and to deride the way government agencies set up their budgets (which requires much more complex economic lessons). Kyle's whole point was people shouldn't fear the economy or see it as a vengeful being, but continue to spend and live as they normally do. Economically speaking, not spending money during a recession creates a longer lasting recession, and to solve a recession, people should spend money, although people and businesses shouldn't acquire debt during a recession because interest rates are higher. But on a personal level, individuals are fearful of losing their jobs during a recession, so they save money in case that should happen. But again, this is complex economics lesson.

Bishop73

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Question: Is there an episode in which someone gets impaled by an icicle? I seem to recall the team not being able to find the murder weapon, and then someone realized that it had melted. This could also be CSI: New York.

Answer: The episode on CSI:NY was called "Love Runs Cold" and first aired on October 4, 2006 (Season 3, Episode 3) and involves the investigation of a model found stabbed to death by an ice dagger.

OneHappyHusky

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Arrow picture

Pilot - S1-E1

Question: What is the song the kicks in when Tommy says, "Have you noticed how hot your sister has gotten?", and then plays on when Tommy and Oliver are driving around in the SLR?

Friso94

Chosen answer: "C'mon Doll" by My Goodness.

Bishop73

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Caballo sin Nombre - S3-E2

Question: When Saul buys Jesse's house from his parents, he said that he showed their lawyer, Mr. Gardner, "all the pertinent financials", meaning $875,000 in cash available to buy the house. Jesse only had $450,000 and that money was not in any account. How did Saul show Mr. Gardner that he had $875,000 in cash?

dweezel7

Answer: Saul is a criminal himself. It's not past his capabilities to forge some documents to show the 857k is available.

Ssiscool

Forged documents by Saul is most likely the correct answer.

The_Iceman

Answer: Saul has a stash of cash himself, hidden in his office. It's possible he used some of that instead as part of the scheme instead of having to go through the effort of falsifying documents.

Phaneron

Answer: In all likelihood, he sold some more meth.

Captain Defenestrator

At the time, they were not producing enough Meth to get that much money in the time frame of the events.

Ssiscool

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Answer: In the show, he was already a Lieutenant. A promotion would put him in the next rank up, which for the L.A.P.D. would be Captain. However, some of a Captain's duties would be overseeing other officers and ensuring they're compliant with policies, regulations, and standards. It would also most likely take him out of the field. This is something Columbo has no desire for as he rarely goes to police HQ's. Nor does he show interest in compliance and standards (for example, not going to his semi-annual evaluation at the firing range). However, he could still be assigned to a higher pay grade based on expertise, which is a form of promotion that does not include rank advancement. This would be going from Lieutenant I to Lieutenant II. I don't believe in the show it's ever started what his pay grade is. Although, in s02e01 (I believe) he mentions making $11K a year. Whether or not this was a true statement on his part, if you could find pay scale information for an LAPD Lieutenant in the 70's, it could give you an idea of his pay grade.

Bishop73

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Question: The crew takes a private jet to most locations but always have the same black S.U.V.s. How do the vehicles get there as fast as the crew?

RGW

Chosen answer: Black SUVs are common police, military and dignitary vehicles around the world. It is not too much to assume they could be rented or owned by the police forces in the areas.

kristenlouise3

Other people have explained it but fore more information, federal cars would most likely be brought to the airport from the nearest agency, so they can drive out to their locations especially in rural situations.

Answer: There is only one BAU (or that's the impression the show gives, in reality there's 5 teams within the BAU), and they're based out of Quantico. However, the FBI has 56 field offices, each with their own vehicles leased from the over 200,000 vehicles that make up the Federal motor fleet. There are long term leases to federal agencies on these cars, in addition to there always being vehicles being made available to lease on an ad hoc basis for assignments. Plus, local and state police likely also have their own unmarked fleets, but due to the vehicles being mostly the same make/model/color in most episodes, they'd likely be borrowed from the nearest field office or other local federal office or ad hoc leased from the fleet for the assignment.

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Answer: Because he is a great cop and gets the job done better than anyone.

Answer: Also, if you watch Season 1 of Chicago Fire it gives a little history of Voight before he goes to jail when he was actually a "dirty cop" and Antonio Dawson is actually the one who takes him down. I found it interesting and was surprised by his character back then.

Answer: And cuz he's only dirty to the bad guys. He takes care of the victims.

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Question: Having never seen the show, do any episodes show Charlie's face at all? Not just some of his face.

Answer: No, Charlie's face was never fully seen. In addition, Charlie was voiced by John Forsythe and he never even came to the set. Whenever we do see Charlie, it's a body double and not Forsythe.

Bishop73

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Answer: Inspector Grim later told Inspector Fowler that "a credit card belonging to you has been used to hire a car which was subsequently deployed in a drug deal", which implies the cards were taken prior to the morning briefing. As Fowler had been out before work to buy a present for the Queen, it's plausible he lost his card (s) then.

Neil Jones

Inspector Fowler stated that his wallet was stolen from him at the morning briefing.

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Question: I'm trying to find out in which episode this happens. Reed and Malloy are driving when they get a call to be on the lookout for a red convertible. In the rear window of their squad car you see the exact car described in the radio call. It passes them, then is seen in front, but neither of them comment on it and it's not referenced later. Not sure if it was a poor choice of stock footage or a gag, but what episode does it happen in?

Answer: This is from Season 1, "The Long Walk." After Malloy and Reed responded to a "211 in progress", the partners later search the area and question a man walking his dogs, and it's this man who tells them the young guy they're looking for drove off in a red convertible, so Reed radios in the added information and clears them. Later, when the partners are driving along, Reed brings up the topic of the criminal's convertible, and while they're discussing it we can see through the squad car's rear window that a red convertible with its black top up changes lanes, and in Malloy's closeup just as they're talking about how the criminal's convertible was likely stolen, we see the red convertible passing Malloy to his left. That's all we see of this red convertible.

Super Grover

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Chosen answer: The "H" stands for Hector. The "M" is never explained in the series.

dgemba dgemba

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24 (2001)

Chosen answer: Nobody knew, not even the writers, until at least halfway through the season when they were writing the end. They wanted to keep all options open.

Nick N.

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Father Knows Best - S1-E9

Question: The DNA test is a match, but later in the 2-3rd season we discover that Harry (foster father) had an affair with the real mother. Is Harry the real father and takes him but not his brother in because of that or not?

Answer: No, Harry is not the real father. While he did have an affair with Dexter's biological mother (Laura Moser), this was when she was his C.I. Dexter was already born at that point.

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Question: Why does Foyle wear an overcoat at all times of the year? I know that the English summer is temperate, but always a long, floppy overcoat?

Macxlii

Answer: He doesn't actually wear it all the time even in summer. In some episodes in the summer he simply wears his suit with jacket.

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Chosen answer: Probably to broaden the scope of the show's plot and give the audience a chance to see the characters in a different setting, People act differently at home from the way they do at their workplace. By the ninth season, the characters would have become overly familiar and predictable. It gives the writers a chance to do something different with them.

raywest

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Veronica Mars picture

Not Pictured - S2-E22

Question: 1. At Neptune High graduation, the colors are green and gold. In season 1, wasn't there red involved with the cheerleader uniforms? 2. Why is Dick Casablancas watching the seniors graduate, and then in season 3, he has graduated and is off to Hearst College with the rest of the gang?

Answer: 1. No, the pep squad uniform was green and yellow. 2. He failed one of the classes, the one where they were trying to launch an egg from various heights without cracking the egg. He was pairing with Angie Dahl, who told the teacher that he didn't do anything in the project. The teacher then asked him to pick the project he worked on, and he couldn't do it because he didn't help. Then the teacher told him, "See you in summer school." He couldn't graduate with everyone else because he needed to attend summer school in order to pass that class and graduate. It's assumed that he did, in fact, attend summer school, despite all the mess that happened in the season 2 finale.

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FBI (2018)

Answer: Felix Serrano was the biological son of Antonio Vargas, the leader of Durango Cartel. Miguel Rojas (has 2 priors in cocaine distribution, and he launders money), was a Lieutenant with the Durango Cartel, and he worked with Felix Serrano. As for the motive, Miguel shot Felix (his actual target) because they had a falling out, which was presumably drug related, and the four other men at the poker table were just collateral damage (Miguel attempted to make it look like robbery). Later, when Miguel was in Antonio's car wired up with the FBI body cam, Antonio states, "Felix said that things were not going well between the two of you." So Antonio knew Miguel murdered his son Felix. At the end of the episode, after Rina's press conference, note one of the reporters even asks, "What was the motive for the 5 murders?"

Super Grover

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Question: Kind of a long question but please bear with me. In one episode, Catherine and Vince have to rescue a boy who was being chased by a man who murdered his father. The boy claims to have a letter from his father detailing a crime that occurred and how he was killed for betraying the man. The end of the episode has the boy reading the letter out loud in court. The judge asks to see it and after a quick look over, he gives it to the man who was after the boy. When the man looks at it, there's nothing on the paper but squiggly lines. The judge then has the man arrested for murder. Why would the judge do this? There were no witnesses. All they had was the word of a boy and a piece of paper with nothing but wavy lines on it. No real evidence was presented to the judge at all.

Answer: (Episode 1x19 "Everything is Everything") It's not a regular court or judge, it's a Gypsy "kris" (court) to determine a new judgement for the boy, Tony, and it's headed by Milo, who is the Gypsy King. Milo had two sons, elder Eric (Tony's dead father) and Vick (Tony's uncle), who framed Eric for theft from the family business, and it was Milo (he didn't know the truth) who held the earlier "kris" which declared Eric, his wife and son, Tony, to be "marime" as if they're all dead and had them banished from the community. Then Tony's parents were in a fatal car accident in Chicago, and before Eric died he told Tony the truth about how and why Vick framed him. Now at the new "kris" Tony has the chance to speak to prove his father's innocence, and tells everyone that Vick lied and stole the money, then framed his father because Eric had been next in line to be the Gypsy King. Milo tells Tony that his word isn't enough for a verdict and he must show proof. Tony tells his grandfather that Eric gave him a letter, while on his deathbed, in order to clear his name and punish the guilty. When Tony pretends to read the letter (remember, we learned Tony can't read), he starts out as if the letter was written to his father, Eric, and cleverly pretends that it was written by Vick's accomplice from the theft (Vick's friend sitting behind him, who also works at the body shop), admitting to the frame-up. As Tony keeps "reading" we see Vick turn around to his accomplice and say, "You fool!" for the letter's admission of guilt, and then the accomplice replies loudly, "I didn't write no letter... You said nobody could prove nothin'!" for everyone to hear. So after the truth has come out, Milo shows Vick the letter which only has squiggly lines on it, just so Vick understands that even though the letter wasn't real, he and his accomplice still admitted their guilt for the theft, and now they will be "marime" as if they're dead and banished from the community. Vick did not murder Tony's father, and he's not arrested.

Super Grover

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Chosen answer: The rings represent what is called the "Emotional Spectrum". Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, and Violet. Where Green is the representation of will, the Star Sapphires are given violet rings, which represent the emotion of love.

MasterOfAll

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Question: How is it that Stevie is so old when Nancy gets out of prison? He was an infant when she went in and she did 3 years.

Answer: It's not uncommon for TV shows to suddenly "age up" baby/toddler characters in order for them to have more narrative purpose. Other examples of shows I can think of that did this are "Step by Step," "Last Man Standing," "Boy Meets World," and possibly "Dexter."

Phaneron

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