Things I Learned From Watching Cop Shows

[mrissa]

1. If someone close to you is brutally murdered and you feel the urge to ask the police, “Do I need a lawyer?”, YOU NEED A LAWYER. Possibly even if they are gently murdered.

2. All people in the British Isles get their exercise by running very close to the edge of cliffs. Nobody in the UK or Ireland goes to the gym or runs on pavement or in a forest or something. Always a cliff, usually with no guard rail.

3. It is totally normal for a very recent widow or widower to make sexual advances to a police officer or other investigating detective. No one finds this suspicious. They should, of course, because it nearly always turns out to be relevant to the case. But apparently there are tons of cases we don’t see in which, “My spouse died this morning, helloooooo Officer Friendly!” is one of the stages of grief that Kubler-Ross missed, because no one ever goes, “hmm, that’s weird, possibly I should consider why this is happening other than my incredible personal magnetism.”

4. When people say that poker is a game that relies on skill and the better player will win in the long-term, they mean that ten to twenty hands should do it. It’s best if you form an elaborate plan for catching murderers (or other criminals!) that relies on someone on your investigative team winning one particular hand at one particular moment, with no way to cheat with the deck or dealer. That should be fine.

5. Boxing, on the other hand, is something that boxers don’t spend years training to do well. You can throw a random tough person at boxing and have them win at a crucial moment to catch a bad guy. Tracking down evidence is usually secondary to this.

6. If you worry enough about doing the right thing, no one will care that you never actually do it.

Originally published at Novel Gazing Redux

Comments

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

It's very convenient for conversation of characters and speed of plotline that no one seems to know this. But also a bad precedent to set for people.

[ckd]

It's a great mindset to propagate...if you're the police (who investigate crimes) or a district attorney (who prosecute the offenders).

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

I agree. I want to scream at the TV sometimes.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

(This is what I get for posting early: I meant conservation of characters. Although the conversations are easier to follow with a limited number of known characters.)