Season 5, Episode 8 "Kavanaugh"  

Air date:  2-28-06

This episode is called "Kavanaugh," and that's exactly what it's all about.  I don't think any other episode in the series is just directly named for a character like this, so take that as some hint of the purity of focus.  Indeed, the relentlessness by which Kavanaugh dramatically seizes that focus leads me to conclude that this IAD Lt Kavanaugh may be the most determinedly narcisstic character in the entire history of the series.

Now, Kavanaugh probably hasn't broken any laws.  That much is an EXTREME point with him, as will become clear in the amazing final scene with his ex-wife Sadie.  But we'll get back to that.

But for a measure of his sense of self-importance, consider his meetings with Antwon Mitchell that frame this episode.  Last week, IAD Lt Kavanaugh was sniffing after jailhouse connections between Aceveda, Mackey and the convict Mitchell, real interested in the late gangbanger convict Juan, who he correctly suspects Antwon had killed on behalf of a cop he had assaulted.  Obviously, you can't have cops even tacitly just having people killed- even deserving bangers like Juan.  Fair enough.

Yet by the end of this week's show, Kavanaugh himself is ready to absolutely feed first Lem, and then the rest of the Strike Team to Antwon Mitchell to be killed because he's so mad simply about them watching the video monitor of his private moment with his ex-wife.  He absolutely immediately after six months picks THAT moment to have Lem arrested, and insists on putting him in the cage with the catch of the day- obviously highly dangerous and inappropriate, even if you regarded it as appropriate to be arresting him right then.  

This is despite the fact that Lem has absolutely personally saved Lt Kavanaugh's life earlier that very damned day, heroically going for the grenade that had landed next to the schmuck who was trying to put him in jail and tossing it rather than fleeing and conveniently leaving the guy to his fate.  Ingratitude?  

Without the producers having to lean very heavily on it, Vic starts looking like a saint compared to Kavanaugh.  Think on the big scene with Emolia as a CI plant in the grenade factory.  They're outside listening as the evil Salvadoran kills another girl for simply stealing one of the grenades they're making.  VIC assesses the danger, and moves in full force.  Considering how badly this Emolia has betrayed him- besides how convenient it would be practically for her to come up dead, Vic could have SO easily just made the call to hold back for a few seconds, or just to not run at top speed.  In the context, he could easily have knocked his problems down to size just by a few seconds of dilly-dallying.  But Vic wouldn't do that.

This is all flowing around the story of Kavanaugh and his ex-wife Sadie with whom he is obviously obsessed, still wearing the wedding ring two years after the divorce.  As the ever practical Vic expressed it on figuring this out, "Sometimes, you've just got to let the pussy go."  This would be sensible, of course, but really the woman's not the point- it's all HIS special, unique love.

Anyway, the ex-wife with whom he has not recently communicated calls him to report that she's been raped.  Naturally, he goes into absolute husband protector mode.  Obviously, it's her big cop husband to the rescue.

For one thing, he's all about her honor, exhibiting instant withering hostility to Dutch at the hospital on being told that the medical examination hadn't yielded any physical evidence, noting that she had reported fighting her attacker off fairly quickly.. "It isn't a rape because it didn't last that long?"

Then again, he's screwing with Dutch even before that.  Before the rape call came, Dutch had volunteered to talk to him about some of Vic's activities, somewhere away from the station.  "Don't talk to me out there like we're friendly."  This would be a reasonable and understandable request- for which Kavanaugh wildly overcompensates.

Thus Kavanaugh drafts Dutch to come with him in responding to the call by going off on him in the middle of the floor in front of everyone, demanding attention "before I open an insubordination file on you and put your picture on my wall."  It's that kind of humiliation that Dutch just seems to naturally draw, reminiscent of a similar public scolding he got a couple of years ago from the last IAD schmuck who had set up camp in the Barn.

Only this time, Kavanaugh at least acted like he thought he was just doing what Dutch had requested.  As to diplomatic displays of hostility, "Next time, I'd prefer the silent treatment."  Yes, I bet he would prefer the silent treatment, particularly to the directly physical abuse he whooped on Dutch when he very gently came asking him about his wife's mental health history- which involves clinical diagnoses of "paranoia, psychosis, and depression."  And those are this chick's good points.  I'm just saying, this chick's a real piece of work.

Anyhow, Kavanaugh and Miss Sadie have their own brutal dance of emotional fascism going on that is really the centerpiece of the show.  I'm telling you, Elvis Costello has written a bunch of songs about the likes of these two. For starters, they haven't talked in maybe a year.  Then she's raped, and within a couple of hours, he's saying stuff like "Sadie, you owe me a few, right?"

Pretty soon, it's "Come home tonight.  My bed misses you."  That's a hell of a thing to be putting on a woman right about that point, but she resists.  "At some point, I'm going to say yes.  Then what kind of trouble are we going to be in?"

All of which would be particularly brutal manipulation on the lieutenant's part, if it wasn't for the denouement of the rape.  Sadie flat made it up to get the ex's attention.  She abused herself mildly with a pop bottle, and called her husband.  She has a clear  and reasonable argument, though, that this is not evidence of mental illness requiring further hospitalization.   "It was wrong, but I knew what I was doing.  I did it because I knew you wanted to save me."

This becomes the total Kavanaugh character moment, Forest Whitaker's best ever work.  After wearing the wedding ring through two years of divorce, Sadie's BEGGING him to take her back.  He's responding physically, a gentle kiss turning into making out.  He starts to lay her back across the interrogation table.  

Then he pulls back.  There's a really freaky moment where the lieutenant pulls his face away from her, only he's physically struggling with himself.  He's pulled himself inches away, and he's moving his face.  His lips are quivering as he summons up his will to reject her.

The entire story with the wife becomes there but the explanation and emphasis for his obsession with his perceived moral authority that gives him the license to be the ruthless power seeker that he is.  THE love of his life has committed the petty offense of filing a false police report to get his attention- but he will in no way even the slightest bit bend the rules even for her in this situation.  He rejects her, insisting that she be booked and fully prosecuted rather than give up this moral authority he thinks he has over other cops.  If  he can't control himself, how can he presume to pass judgment on other cops?   Holy crap, but this guy's loony tunes.  How nuts is this ideological application?

Naturally, Sadie is not happy.  "You're going to abandon me again, Jon.  When I got sick, you left me alone."  The husband apologizes so tenderly and sincerely, but she's having none of it.  "You can shove 'sorry' right up there with the pop bottle."

But the payoff is really that Kavanaugh is paying the price in his mind for the license to indulge in horrible malicious vindictiveness.  If it's legal, then it's fine.  If it's illegal it's not.  To invoke a different kind of cop show, it's like Barney Fife's rule #1 turned all evil.  

But if he follows the rules to the point even of sacrificing his personal life to the otherwise useless enforcement of the law, then he's justified in pretty nearly ANY kind of destructive hate, as immediately evidenced by the continuation from the final scene with the wife. After all the psychodrama with Sadie, Kavanaugh looks up in realization that the surveillance monitor in this interrogation room is on.

Of COURSE, Vic and Lem are in the next room watching this whole scene in disbelief.  Seeing his look of realization, they take off down the hall to pretend ignorance.  There's a nice quick moment where Vic gives Kavanaugh just the passing hint of a little smirk, and Kavanaugh absolutely loses whatever mind he once had.

Immediately, Kavanaugh is chasing Lem down the hallway, demanding his immediate incarceration over this six month old heroin nonsense, and that he not just be arrested, but thrown directly into the dangerous general population lockup.  Any officer not enforcing this NOW will be fired, prosecuted, grilled to toast.  About the only gesture of protest any one dared under even these egregious circumstances came from the woman in booking who slowed things down for a minute by claiming to have run out of ink to take Lem's prints.

Now theoretically, Sadie is the clinically diagnosed nutbag.  But she's a model of reason and rationality compared to the husband.  She's kind of a messed up puppy, but there's some reasonable human logic to making a minor faux pas like this police report to get the attention and affection of your beloved.   At least in the context of this action, you could at least halfway try to talk sensible to her, but her husband is in another frickin' world somewhere.

Which ends the episode back at the jail with Kavanaugh and Antwon.  Kavanaugh was not phased by Antwon's boasts about running the prison, and his illicit activities.  He gives not a rat's ass that Antwon murdered a child, and TWO cops.  He's just so mad about Vic and Lem spying on his private moment that he's quite consciously ready to serve the entire Strike Team up to Antwon.  

Now, Kavanaugh's ready to take the deal from Antwon, who offered in the opening scene to help him put the Strike Team away.  Speaking of Shane, he said "I could bury this banjo playing asshole."  Just agree to get them put away in THIS facility.  "That way, I can see their faces every morning while I'm eating my oatmeal."  

Kavanaugh rejected this at the start, but now he doesn't care about Antwon Mitchell's obvious intent.  In some manner, Kavanaugh makes it in his mind that his own motivation doesn't matter.  He wants to see a whole team of cops absolutely murdered in prison for the perceived humiliation of spying on him.  He's got a legal right to make a deal in order to bring the Strike Team to "justice," and if it gets them killed, he's not responsible. 

Like I said, this Kavanaugh is in some world of his own.  I'm about half expecting to see them lead this guy off in straightjacket.




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