Deputy Moretti pole dances on Longmire

The second Longmire episode was the case of a girl found dead by the side of the road, figuring out who she was and whether she was murdered.

Aside from the awesome pole dancing scene pictured above with Vic, this was a quiet episode, in tune with the pilot. There’s a death, but it’s not a murder. Well, all right, I take that back — she fell accidentally, but died while trying to escape what could be a felony kidnapping. Anyway, the point is, that they didn’t find what I expected which was that Hannah’s father bashed her head with a rock for defiling the family or something like that. I like that about the show, as I said about the pilot, the cases try not to strain the credibility of life in a rural area. I’m sure we’ll get to a serial killer eventually, since crime shows do, but at least for now, I enjoy the ‘smaller’ cases. I appreciate  Walt’s point that they’re still important to someone and deserve respect, as when he didn’t want to dump Hannah’s body in the back of the truck. It’s a nice reminder that stories don’t have to be big to matter.

Like the pilot, this episode also dealt with an outsider community: this time a group of Mennonites. But, it was more than the aspect of outsider-ness, it was about the various levels of control the patriarch exerted on his family. Sadly it was enough control that it got his daughter killed and his son in very deep trouble with the law. Walt saw the parallel that he was trying to control his own daughter, as well, by prying into her love  life, and he backed off, unwilling to risk losing her for the short-term satisfaction of finding out who she’s dating. It was the right thing to do, but obviously it can’t last – he’s going to find out, and depending on how long it’s been going on, will demonstrate how truly out of touch he was before the pilot.

I bemoan that the sheriff’s daughter is banging his deputy and electoral rival, because that’s not going to blow up in anyone’s face at all. But on the other hand, he’s dumb as a box of rocks and he’s hot, so congratulations, Cady, for hitting that. She gets the best line of the episode while attempting to fend off Henry’s interrogation into her private life – “[He’s] one hundred twenty years older. He’s a vampire. And he’s amazing.” This isn’t the type of show where it would be true, but for a moment I thought about how funny it would be if it were. Then it got funnier when I realized Cassidy Freeman guest-starred on The Vampire Diaries and Bailey Chase (Connally) on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Well-played, Show.

Brief Thoughts and Questions:

• Walt, do you really not know Cady and Branch are getting it on? You figured out she has someone by the lock on the door and you don’t know your own deputy is seeing your daughter? Or do you not want to know?
• What secret is Walt keeping from Cady, and is it about her mother?
• Where did Vic learn those stripper pole moves? Do exotic dancers really make more money than rural sheriffs?  Which begs the real question of why Vic is a deputy sheriff in rural Wyoming in the first place.
• Where did Walt learn German and why? Which makes me in turn wonder how much he’s traveled.
• Mennonite or not, I would be furious at my husband if he concealed the death of my daughter from me. I don’t know what I would do in her place, but I wouldn’t be that calm with him after.
• I was right in the presumption that commercials are terrible for this show. It felt like there was an ad break every two scenes. I know funding is important, but good heavens, way to cut into the momentum.

Clacked by Liz Tamura
on Jun 11, 2012 @ 09:21 EST5EDT